Well, Elvis has left the building. I am currently traveling to Hanoi. At this very moment I am sitting in a hotel in Dubai, it is 4:30am waiting on the last leg of my trip. <now singing in my head “I’m leaving, on a jet plane”>. That ones for you babe.
Strange New World
Traveling is definitely not what it used to be. I traveled from Denver International Airport to New York’s JFK for the first leg. The Denver airport was not as busy as usual as you might expect and it was running mostly business as usual, at least through terminal A where Delta flies out of. New York’s JFK was a whole different animal. Flying into one of the largest cities in the world, one usually expects to be surrounded by many people. NOPE. Not this time.
I landed at JFK around 7:00pm. The usually bustling terminal was dead. Most of the shops and restaurants were closed up. There was a McDonalds and one souvenir shop open; so much for my plan of getting a nice dinner before flying 13 hours to Dubai. Since the travel agency booked my Denver to New York segment of the trip on a separate ticket, I had to go to baggage claim, get my two bags; which both weigh almost exactly 50 pounds; then check in at the Emirates counter. To my surprise, it looked like almost everyone who was in the airport was standing in the line I needed to be in. Big sad. <For Cheyenne and those of you who watched the YouTube video on speaking Gen Z >. So there I was, sitting on the floor of the airport, waiting for the line to go down some and eating what I figured would be my “nice dinner”.
An hour and a half later I was standing in that line waiting my turn to check in my bags.
Now for those of you who may not have looked to travel lately, you may not know that you have to have a Covid19 PCR test to get into many places around the world; Dubai and Vietnam are two of those places. On top of that the test has to be done within 96 hours of flying. While that does not sound like a big deal, no lab that I found in the Denver area will guarantee the results will be back in a given time. You can do a rapid test and get results in 20 minutes to 2 hours and even though tests are showing about the same accuracy rate as the PCR test, NO ONE accepts those. I was tested on Tuesday morning and I got my results back some time in the wee hours of Thursday morning. Great! Right? Well when you are expecting to leave for the airport at 9:00am this was quite stressful. Back to my line story for a moment, several people in that miserably slow line I mentioned above were getting rejected because they either had a rapid test, a test that was taken too soon or no test at all. I felt really bad for them. There they were standing in line to check in for a flight out of the country and now you are told you are not leaving at all. Some were angry. Some were confused and yet still others had no idea what to do. What a bad day for them.
Since I am in Dubai you can determine that my test was accepted and I was able to fly out on schedule. Here, things are little better. The terminal that Emirates airline flies out of has three sections of gates, A, B and C. I say sections because it is one REALLY long terminal. A and B had some if not most of their stores open. C, where the hotel I was staying is at, was completely closed down. I was walking by myself. It was like I was walking around a theme park after closing time. Ladies and gentlemen, we live in a very different world right now. I have been in this airport on many occasions and it is always busy. Not this time…
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Moving On
My breakfast of eggs Benedict and coffee are done now. I just need to wait for another couple of hours and then it is off to Hanoi on my last leg of this migration. Maybe I will do some shopping before takeoff. It is more likely to be window shopping. This airport only carries the highest end brands. For the love of Pete, you can buy a Ferrari in the this terminal. BTW, who is Pete and who buys a car in an airport terminal? Do they charge airport taxes on that? Ok the coffee is kicking in and I am getting scatter brained. Hammy!!!!
Thank you for reading. God bless you. Doug
Good details… Really brings out the reality that the Covid threat is being taken seriously outside my “bubble”. Glad u made it out safely, can’t wait to hear about the Hanoi arrival. Be safe and enjoy the jet lag 😉
Thanks AR. Very much a different experience. I am in Hanoi and will post about that later today. As far as jet lag goes, I usually handle it fairly well coming east. Going west is a completely different story. 🙂
That looks like a picture out of a SIFI movie.
Thanks for the blog. So you had a cliff bar for dinner… not even McDonalds. Sad. Maybe you can make up for it with room service in Hanoi. Sounds like traveling alone these days could get lonely.
Thanks for writing this blog. So your dinner was a Cliff bar… not even McDonalds. Sad. Maybe you can make up for that with room service at the hotel in Hanoi. It looks like traveling alone these days can be lonely. Hope to hear from you soon.
I did make McDonalds before they closed. I am not sure that was good thing though. I was fed on the plane too so I shouldn’t complain. My point really was that I planned things based on what I was used to and things are definitely not as they used to be; at least for now.
Can we get an L in the chat for the long line?
LLLLLLL