Departure time

Wake up 6:30. It's gone be a long, long day. Rok one of the tent tenants was already up and packed. Jure and I needed a few more minutes but were packed till 7:00. Then breakfast, then departure at eight. Some of the IST members ware late again. OK and one bus came late. My patrol was packed before me including their tents. No questions asked. I didn’t even have to remained them what they have to do 🙂 We came very far guys in one month 😉

Drive to JFK in New York went well without any surprises. OK we were waiting for a few kids at one of the stops. Since 100 people decided to go to Starbucks. No shit they had to wait. At the airport we handed Anja to her parents. Lucky girl. She's staying in New York for another week.

Today I had to take over the logistics of the trip to Slovenian for our group of forty people. CMT members Marko and Mojca decided to stay in US for few more days. So equipped with my English and steel nerves I tried to complete my task. Though I think I'm not signing up for it again in the future.

The check-in. God I probably haven't spent so much time at the check-in in my life till now. First registration system. You have to get a ticket at a machine and since we had group tickets that was a mess. Everyone had to scan their passport before we could print the tickets. Lesson one there's a reason why online check in exists !! Then language. Some participants were smart enough and they packed their bags with tents into an extra bag. Some were not so lucky so we had to leave few tents in the US.

Then the long line at the security check. Luckily it was fast because our boarding time was closing in. Most of us got through pretty fast. Of course a few left liquids in their bags so that went to trash. Oh and Vanesa almost jammed the security check language belt with one of her slippers. Maybe not the best idea to travel in flip flops in US since you have to put your shoes off 🙂

Once most of us were through the security check we headed for the gate. Tina almost lead us to the wrong gate. I didn't let her do that because I was planing to grab something to eat before boarding, and time was not on our side. Though it would be a nice lesson if I stayed quiet 😛 I'll keep it for another time.

OK boarding starts in five. Participants are all at the gate. Sure I can grab that pizza around the corner. When I came back 5 minutes later 4 people were missing. I knew one was at the toilet. Where are the rest? I headed back along the terminal and meat two. They were almost at the gate so no worries there. But the other two members were still missing because they went souvenir shopping. I ran to the shop and to their luck they were already paying. We ran back to the gate together and again boarded the plane the last. Grrr. You're lucky that you didn't pull this one off on the first day. Lady at gate was relaxed and didn't rush anything. She even took the time to say: 'You Slovenian guys have really nice passports.' Thanks.

Once I finally made sure that we were all on the plane I realised that I have two seats for myself. One for occasional visits during the flight. That's not that bad 🙂 I think this two seat thing cooled me off a bit 😉 So menu for today:

Believe it or not we are getting back everyone in one piece. Yeah no-one out of 176 Slovenians broke anything. Hurray.

When we were at JFK I noticed something I usually don't when I travel alone. I guess you have more time to observe when you travel slowly in a group. There are hundreds of thousands of people who work in the airline industry too allow us to travel from a place to place. Security personal. Check-in personal. Plane maintenance crew. Pilots. Stewardess, ... We often don't appreciate all the work that has to be put into a flight. We pay the $$. Complain about the price and head our way.

After 40 minutes of taxiing around the airport in the plane we left US. Oh off-course we drove over a highway with the plane. Just because we could. Food was nice. I managed to get a few naps in my two seats and wrote quite a bit. Besides a few chats with my fellow travel mates that was about it for the day.