Sunday, June 19, 2011

No York

We have been let down by Delta Airlines in the past, so we treat them with deep suspicion. I can report that if you are on Twitter and make complaints about them there, @DeltaAssist will respond politely and promptly, and almost always more quickly than the grinchy incompetents they employ to answer their phones.  In fact, the only reason we flew Delta on this trip was because arrangements had been made on our behalf.  On our return to Seattle, we checked in at JFK Airport and the agent told us we had no reservation (she checked the wrong flight) and then told us we had only two tickets (all three of us were ticketed separately). I can say that over this long weekend, this tart check-in agent was a fitting spokeswoman for the attitude I have named “No York.”
To be fair, everyone we dealt with was friendly and upbeat and kind. We saw dropped toys retrieved by passers-by, we witnessed a group of friends applying a band-aid to the toe of their friend on the sidewalk, and we saw multiple people rushing to help a fallen cyclist on the streets of Manhattan.  Wading through a crushingly huge crowd of festive Puerto Ricans celebrating Puerto Rico day, we even got to ask a New York City police officer for directions. 
I discovered I was inexplicably able to hail a cab successfully on the first three tries, but can barely walk a straight line down a New York sidewalk. Also, I have blisters on every surface of my feet (probably because I can’t walk straight). At home I often walk three miles a day. I guess Manhattan’s sidewalks are harder.
We are working with a relocation company, and a set of professionals have been charged with the task of finding us a place to live temporarily, moving our stuff, storing our stuff, finding a place to live permanently, and helping us enroll our 13-year-old in a new school. So far, we have a temporary place to live. It’s a start.

No comments:

Post a Comment