August 15, 2016: The High Road To Iceland
I’m groggy… and not in a Nordic Viking/Caribbean Pirate swill drinkin’ way. I slept terribly last night. Part of it was waiting for Delta to call me back – the automated system told me they could do a callback when my place in line came up and that the wait time was “over 2 hours.” After 5 hours, they called me around midnight. I was trying to see if we could standby for an earlier flight from RDU to JFK as the connection in New York was just about an hour. I wasn’t sure how long it would take us to get from a domestic terminal to the international flight to Reykjavik. Our flight was scheduled to land at 8:18 PM and the boarding for KEF was 8:21.
The CSR who I spoke to kept going on and on about how the MCO – RDU – JFK segments were a “married segment” and thus I would have to change Orlando and couldn’t just take advantage of the 5 hour layover in RDU to try and get an earlier flight to JFK. Part of it was the late hour and part of it was that this all seemed stupidly complicated to me as a layperson. Knowing programming and operations in other fields, I assumed the Delta computer system was just persnickety and there was not good way to make a machine do what should be a simple change for humanity. It’s not like they haven’t recently had a system wide failure or anything…
I gave up trying to get a “divorce” on the “married segments” and opted to just speak to a human this morning at the Orlando Airport. This ultimately proved a challenge as the greeter at the Delta counter told me I should be able to do a standby at the kiosk. Mom wasn’t impressed, McKayla Maroney style, and was about as assertive as I’ve seen her recently when she told the greeter, “We’d really prefer a human.” I decided to avoid the situation and just use the kiosk to check our bags and get our boarding passes and figured I’d get to deal with a human at the baggage drop desk. Given what a crappy mood I’ve been in and my lack of success with customer service personnel across the globe, I’m astonished I was the voice of reason this morning.
But ya know what? The women at the Delta baggage drop desk were incredibly helpful. Daris (like Paris but with a D) and Monica (No, she hadn’t worked for Disney but had that Pixie Dust touch) reassured my Mom that an hour was more than enough time at JFK but then went the extra mile and got us rebooked for an earlier flight out of RDU to JFK. So now we have a 2 and a half hours layover in RDU, a flight to JFK, and another 2 and a half hour layover in JFK. I didn’t want Mom to have to pull an Amazing Race mad-dash style run from Terminal 4 to Terminal 2 and I was assuredly worried this might be the case otherwise. But Monica especially punched so many keystrokes to resolve the matter. It was a bright start on the trip to Iceland.
Biggest regret? I didn’t snap a quick photo of them. However, we did pass along our thanks to their immediate supervisor and I sent off an email to Delta corporate website praising them for helping us out. I’m quick to complain when things aren’t as promised but I like to think I’m also quick to say thank you when people do right by me.
And so we began winging our way to the land of Ice. Here’s a shot from the window seat of DL flight 1731, a view of the land of clouds. To me, the puffy cumulous formations evoked icebergs in the water, if the water was sky and water sublimated from frozen to visible gas.
We sit now in the RDU airport, noshing on Five Guys Fries, awaiting our next, now earlier connection. I’m taking full advantage of the free refills on Diet Coke. As Pierluigi Cothran once said – I run on Diet Coke.
***
The flight to JFK was short and sweet… Partly due to the Delta-standard Biscoff cookies.
Once in the New York airport, it was a waiting game for our flight to be announced. Splitting a chicken sandwich from La Brea Bakery (3000 miles from the west coast, I half expected the chain to have snapped!), Mom and I tried to settle in for our flight to Iceland.
Inexplicably, the departure board never showed our Air France Delta codeshare details. But my web app and the gate agents assured us we’d be leaving out of gate B35. Roaming the halls of terminal 4, we did spy this unique feature of the airport — I’ve seen pet relief signage before at other airports but never before had I seen such a couture facility. Hell, it was nicer than the men’s room by a country mile. As Mom pointed out, how can we expect the dogs of the air to return to the farm when they’d seen the lights of Paris?
Despite the typical airline snafus and half-truths regarding delays, we stood waiting to board only half an hour late. The LA flight next door was oversold and the incentives reached a jaw dropping $1000 bump fee for volunteers. That’s by far the highest Monty Hall amount I’d heard for a flight.
The toupee sporting older gentleman behind me in line was a loud talker who was telling those around him that Iceland was the last destination for he and his too-darkly-dyed blue haired wife; they’d been “everywhere else… Many times.” He was a know-it-all braggart and as he waxed poetic about his cruse ship to Antarctica, mom and I exchanged knowing glances. As blow hards go, this guy was blowing hard.
Compounding the travel companion gamesmanship, another couple was saying how they were doing all of Iceland, driving around clockwise. Someone else said they too were doing all of the country but were driving counter-clockwise. They said they’d meet in the middle and laughed an entitled laugh.
It all rubbed me wrong. I’ve been fortunate enough to go to a lot of places but I know only too well that 1) I’ve never been someplace that I could claim definitely I knew completely and 2) there are countless other places I’ve never been but would love to go. There was something acutely arrogant and ugly about these people’s boasts, a lack of perspective or insight not only into global realities but personal growth as well. I didn’t doubt these folks had traveled and quite probably visited more places and done more than me. But I also do not doubt that I’m more likely to enjoy my traveling experiences with a grain of humility and the knowledge that I do NOT know everything.
I’m once again in an odd mood, made all the stranger as I’m very happy to be headed off on another runcation adventure accompanied by my Mom. We’ve never been to Reykjavik and look forward to exploring, touring, eating, drinking, marathoning, and just hanging out. But as I’m now pushing 40, indeed, having just been sent another contemporary’s 40th birthday invite, the footsteps of history and of time itself echo ever louder. Sitting here at a turbulent 31,000 feet, noshing on a Delta served late night chicken salad snack, the mind turns to what I’ve done, what I’m doing, what I may again.
Sometimes people ask me about running and I always try and couch anything I say with caveats. This is what I’ve done but one must always do what works for oneself. Never do anything differently on race day; always try things in training (and on shorter distances when possible) to test what may or may not work for you. As a personal example, some runners swear by the GU energy gels; me? They turn my stomach and I will never suck one down (also because it’s like eating a packet of slimy radioactive sludge).
I realize there’s an inherent arrogance on my part for even having a website called Run Kevin Run. And I try and have some fun with tales of my adventures and miles run. But I hope people who read this realize these are just my stories and I value and cherish hearing others. It’s my great hope that I have a better insight into the fact that I’m but a player in the universe and not the one around which all others orbit. I like to imagine some of my old Dazzling Conversation coursework has stayed with me. The # 1 key to being a dazzling conversationalist? One must be a dazzling listener.
Again, the irony isn’t lost on me that I would be waxing rhapsodic about the virtues of listening in a written post. Maybe it’s the mini bottled Bombay Sapphire gin and tonic I’ve downed too quickly… In my defense, the turbulence made me worry I’d spill a drop or glass… But I’ve grown once again nostalgically melancholy.
Sleep deprived, endorphin poor due to a travel day’s non-running day, I am also surrounded by screaming children. Earlier, waiting in the JFK terminal for the Brussels flight to board so that our gate could be freed up for our flight to KEF, a family with four kids was getting ready to fly to Belgium. The kids were wonderful,y well behaved, listening to their parents, nice to each other. I told the mom and dad how awesome I thought the kids were. The mom said that was especially nice to hear as they got in trouble with the travelers on their first flight complaining the kids were taking too loudly and one small fry 8 year old was kicking the seat. Clearly the kids weren’t talking too loud and as for the 8-year-old? Her feet physically wouldn’t have reached the seat in front of her. The mom said the woman who complained said the kids were very American, implying the ugly American stereotype. The mom said, well, we are Americans…. They weren’t ugly, they were great. My favorite kid when I told her how jealous I was that they were off to Belgium, a place I’d never been but would love to visit, replied that she was dreading going as they were leaving the grandparents and nobody in Brussels “spoke American.” Sometimes being American like that is awesome. I told her it would be a great trip regardless because she could always talk to her brothers and sisters in American. She seemed… Unimpressed.
I get I’m using some weirdly inconsistent double standard. Had the annoying old man said something like above I would have found it the ugliest of Americanisms. And yet this cute, generally well behaved girl made me smile and in fact garnered an atypical for me, “hey, the kids are alright!” But perhaps that inconsistency on my part is the very definition of humanity; perhaps it’s indicative of a recognition of context and point of view. Or perhaps I’m the ugly American in this equation.
I say all of this because the kid next to me in row 22 of Delta flight 446 is shrill, annoying, and emblematic of all that I dread as a traveler.
I posted a photo of me on the plane to Facebook with the tag line, “Ryan Bingham says hi,” a reference to the George Clooney character in “Up In The Air.” There’s a sequence in that movie that I think is supposed to make us feel sorry for the character but just made me think, “Yup.” It’s emblematic of perhaps why I’m currently single.
[On the shuttle bus ride to the Hilton Miami Airport Hotel]
Natalie Keener: Never?
Ryan Bingham: No.
Natalie Keener: Ever?
Ryan Bingham: No.
Natalie Keener: You never wanna get married?
Ryan Bingham: Nope.
Natalie Keener: Never want kids?
Ryan Bingham: Not a chance.
Natalie Keener: Ever?
Ryan Bingham: Never. Is that so bizarre?
Natalie Keener: Yes. Yes, it is.
Ryan Bingham: I just don’t see the value in it. All right, sell it to me.
Natalie Keener: What?
Ryan Bingham: Sell me marriage.
Natalie Keener: Okay. How about love?
Ryan Bingham: [scoffs] Okay.
Natalie Keener: Stability. Just somebody you can count on.
Ryan Bingham: How many stable marriages do you know?
Natalie Keener: Somebody to talk to, someone to spend your life with.
Ryan Bingham: I’m surrounded by people to talk to. I doubt that’s gonna change.–UP IN THE AIR (2009)
Who knows what the point of this rambling is at the moment? I’ve lost the plot. I blame the years, the mileage, and the Bombay Sapphire.
In a few hours — Iceland! In the meantime, I’ll try for a few winks short of 40.
Do not judge me too harshly. It’s been a day.
