It all started out rough: three inches of snow meant I climbed into
the cab with soaked feet. The cab followed slushy tracks to JFK like
the footsteps of Good King Wencelas, and at about the same speed. A
car in front of us wrapped itself around a street sign. A bus flew by
at frightening speeds. At the airport, the plane, too, saw the pains
of the weather -- frozen by the rain and the sleet and the snow, we
sat on the tarmac while engineers in toxic suits hosed the 777 down
with green goo. And we joined a queue of other planes. And finally
we took off.
We're now eight hours into the flight. I'm eight hours and one ambien
and two beers and two meals and one awesome korean western ("the good,
the bad, and the weird") into the flight. The sun is rising outside
my window, peeking up over the clouds, while below is the a desolate
frozen mountain landscape. Somewhere near Noril'sk, halfway between
Novosibirisk and Beijing according to the map. Frozen rivers, grey
deserts, the shooting white exhaust from the wing -- it's all quite
gorgeous.
I'm expecting to miss my connection to Bangkok, but that means more
opportunities to scour the airport (and city?) of Hong Kong. Can't
wait!!!
Miss New York a little, but mostly am terribly excited about starting
the new chapter... Now if I only knew what the chapter was all
about....!
