This is a travelling day - I need to get to New York. I wake up and I've already mostly packed. The flight isn't until lunch time, so I've got bags of time. I check the app to re-familiarise myself with the time of the flight and it tells me the flight is delayed. Oh oh. Only 30 minutes, so it's not the end of the world. I try to sit around in the hotel room, but I start to go crazy, so I know I'm going to have to go over to the airport and sit on a bench instead of here in comfort. I know this is stupid, but I'll get worked up into a lather so I go. I check out, pop over the road to the Walgreen's and grab a coke then go to the BART. I pop a few more dollars onto the travel card and jump on a train. The air quality is OK today, plus a SFO train turns up reasonably quickly, so I get to the airport with no problems.
I get into the sky train and go around to terminal 1. I find my flight is going from gate 43, so I set to go through security. I pull out my phone to check the boarding card and the phone hard locks on me. I have to press both buttons to force a reboot. Maybe Apple know I criticised their visitor centre. I get through security, but they say I can't take the bottle of coke through, so a mostly not drunk bottle of coke goes in the bin. I get all my stuff back together and walk into the shop immediately after security and buy a bottle of coke.
I plonk myself by gate 43 and begin my wait. Terminal 1 is actually much nicer than the bit of SFO I went through the other day. The flight ends up being delayed by more like an hour. It's a bit worrying as I have to get to the hotel by midnight to check in and I'm looking to land at 22:00 then make it across NY. I should be OK, but much more delay and I'll be in trouble. I do realise the plane can just fly a little bit less economically to make the time up, and I'm reassured that the pilot and co-pilot are also stood by the gate waiting for the plane. The pilot keeps picking up the intercom to give us updates, but I cannot understand a word of it. He seems confident though.
We eventually board and I get to board early in zone 1 due to my upgrade. I have unlimited legroom, and it feels so good. I don't have in-flight entertainment, but I've got a bombcast so it'll be OK. The flight goes by relatively quickly, although its soon dark outside. I notice they don't totally dim the cabin lights, they just turn them blue then red as we approach landing.
I get off and go for the air train. I have to walk a fairly long way and this backpack is real heavy. Definitely need to stop buying stuff. I get to the air train and receive a text from Steve. It's 22:00 now, so replying would be a bad idea, must remember to do so tomorrow.
The air train goes to the Howard Beach stop. I jump off and go for the subway. There are some instructions about how you now have to pay for the ride you just had, plus pay for the ride you're about to take. I dunno, I just shove a twenty in the machine to get my metro card.
There is already a train there so I jump on. Now to figure out if it's the right one.... Looks like maybe not, this is an S train and I want an A train. But we stop at the next station and there is a woman waiting on the platform not getting on. The driver sticks his head out of the cab and urges her to get on. She says it's not the right train, but he assures her it's going to where she can change to the A train, plus it'll be underground at that point, so not so cold, so she gets on.
We get to Euclid Avenue and the train stops, everyone gets off. Next A train is right behind us announces the driver. Sweet.
A train arrives on the other platform. Everyone gets on. The driver starts announcing this train is out of service, everyone off. FFS. We're then told to get on the train we originally got off which will now be an A train. I'm nervously looking at the time on my phone and trying to make sure I get off at the right place. On the NY subway there is a system in place in that stations are either black dots on the map or white. White dots are stations the train always stops at, and black dots are ones they only stop at if it's a 'local' train or the train is 'running local.' I was furiously trying to figure this out as well as make sure I didn't miss my stop and all the while my phone is playing games with me. It understandably stops getting signal as we're on the underground, but at points the Google maps app shows me travelling in the opposite direction to where I want to go. I do eventually make it to Jay Street and get off. Now where is that hotel?
It later transpires there is an exit to the subway just around the corner from the hotel, but I didn't know that at the time, I just went to street level. I start to walk to where the hotel is and after walking a block realise I'm going in the wrong direction, so have to double back. New York is super cold - there is a biting wind that comes as quite the surprise after being in California! I make it to the hotel, get checked in, shower and hit the sack.