Allright, I'm home.
I made some notes on my way back. Apologies for using this thread as my blog, but this is the last of it :)
[At the JFK airport in NY]
I can't believe I'm leaving USA now! Of course, every moment comes eventually, but still, this feels unreal. Very unreal.
I arrived at the JFK airport right in schedule (although not the route I originally planned -- I took the A train to Howard Beach instead of changing to E at Street 42 and heading to the Jamaica station), and from there the AirTrain to JFK (cost $5, 7-day metro pass is not accepted). After the AirTrain there was a guy who wanted people to give him their MetroCards, saying he collects them. I asked him if he gives me refund for a 7-day card that still has some days left. He said he hasn't got any money, and asked me if I'm leaving the country. I said yes, and he repeated the request to have my leftover MetroCards. I said that if he does not pay for them, I rather have them as souvenirs.
Entering the airport, I proceeded to check-in and drop-in my baggages.
For a moment, I contemplated on going somewhere as I had hours of free time before the plane leaves (guidelines suggest one to arrive at JFK 3 hours before the flight), but I couldn't think of anything. So I went to the security check. The check took about 49 seconds longer than the one at Amsterdam (no, I don't seriously time them, but I'm just expressing how short time they took). Mainly because I had to take off my shoes and because the crew was
slacking off preoccupied with something else. I didn't have to remove my belt this time.
With the security check behind, I went exploring the departing gates, watching airplanes leave, typing in some notes, taking pictures and generally do whatever you do when you must waste 2.5 hours of time and you have only $2 and you can't leave anywhere and don't feel like buying overpriced stuff. (Hotdogs for $4, anyone? For the record, they aren't all that great. I had one for $2 somewhere and it was literally what I expected: Warmed bun, wiener and ketchup and mustard sauces. Not the spectacular NY experience Warp had suggested it might be.)
Other observations:
-- The airport crew, that operates within the vicinity of airplanes with engines on, still does not use hearing protection. I observed this at all gates of terminal 1 in JFK. (And in terminal 4 when I arrived.) Weird, and hazardous.
-- I don't seem to pay any conscious attention to the fact that everything is in English. Yes, I mishear people and words coming from my mouth are hardly fluent, but when it comes to text, I am as if at home. And that's what makes thie departure all the more confusing. Only when I board that French airplane, will I feel truly like I'm far out. That's what the influence of USA to the rest of the world is like! I am Finnish. Even if politically or historically I'm also an European, I definitely don't feel myself as an European. Anywhere in Europe is foreign for me. But USA is in a special situation due to its influence.
[In the AirFrance airplane]
20 minutes to the takeoff.
This starts to feel familiar, and it's only my fifth flight this year (and in my entire life).
This plane is very KLM-y. Which is to be expected as they are both Boeing 777s and subsidiaries of the
Air France-KLM group. I'm not anymore looking at everything curiously like a cat at strange places, but rather, making plans on my jetlag adaptation. Actually, I made the plan a long time ago, but I still need to realize it. Basically, I need to figure out how to sleep in the airplane (so as to match the Finnish timezone). But I don't want to miss anything they possibly offer in the plane... Free food is still free food even if you're not hungry! (And I am.)
Also, for once, I was one of the first ones to board the plane. Previously, I've been one of the last ones. I dislike long queues, and both approaches are good for averting them.
Miscellaneous notes:
-- Flight maids seem to wear scarves in weird, impractical ways. I wonder if it is for some kind of identification?
-- The French crew looks distinctly non-American, but not Finnish either. Another thing where I don't feel very European.
-- This is the first flight I'm on where the crew does not seem to take the safety mime act very seriously. On the transcontinental KLM flight, they were very professional and it reminded me of deaf people's TV newscasts.
-- I was hungry. I had only eaten a breakfast before I had to go to the airport. In fact, I was counting on that they offer a lunch/dinner/whatever in the airplane. But the way they did in this plane was weird and confusing. First they distributed us very promising looking menu pamphlets. Some time later, they distributed trays of meals to a few random passengers. And after that, nothing happened for a long time. I wondered, was there something I should have done? Maybe they only gave meal to those who weren't going to sleep? Maybe I missed some crucial information? Should I have reserved in advance? But I didn't want to make a scene. Thankfully so, as later they started distributing meals to everyone. And that meal was a good fulfillment for the menu they gave. I had "sautéed beef Bourguignon accompanied by mashed potatoes" and red wine ("Vin de Pays d'Oc Cabernet Merlot 2007 La Baume"). It wasn't a big meal, but very good for an airplane meal. And red wine, too. Spectacular. (In retrospect, those random trays were probably for special diets, such as vegetarians.)
-- After the meal, I did my best to sleep. A little over four hours of flighttime were remaining. I managed to catch a dream or two. I think those dreams caught an aspect or two of the environment I was in. It looks like in the dream, I was in a dystopia setting, evacuated by some kind of freedom fighters. In the vicinity, there was some kind of nuclear plant and they were securing the area by continuously bombing the surroundings. (Yes, this sounds like Half-Life 2.) The bombs did no environmental damage expect for the loud noise. But there were also armed protesters against the nuclear plant, and they had started their own bombing campaign as well, doubling the noise level so it was almost impossible to communicate with anyone. At some point, some guy provided a realistic death simulation which started with the building tilting over like a falling bottle. No, that doesn't make much sense plot-wise, but one can find parallels of that to the sensations in the airplane.
-- I woke up when the plane was about to arrive in Paris. I wrote: This is so unreal. Yet, I'm not awake enough to fully appreciate it. All I'm thinking is of everything necessary to find the continuation flight. The plane to Finland will be a Finnair one, and this is an Air France one, but the Finnair one operates under Air France name, so there might be some hassle. Apparently, the baggages will be moved automatically.
-- The pre-sunrise views of France from air are nothing short of stunning. Unfortunately I can't capture those views on a camera, because it's the worst lightness conditions. -- This was the first landing I observed in cloudless conditions. No descending through layers of clouds. But the sky was not clear; it was full of a huge but thin cloud, obscuring sunlight but without any boundaries, vertical or horizontal.
[In the Paris airport, and the Finnair airplane]
Ok, Paris airport was something different. Upon arriving, it looks like a large traffic center that has lanes for airplanes intermixed with roads for regular cars and trucks, with bridges and tunnels and intersections. And parking lots for airport vehicles and even airplanes, separate from any terminals.
It does not look like any regular airport I have seen. In comparison, on "regular airports" you have vast plains with roads of asphalt where only airplanes roam, culminating in terminals where airplanes are served by myriads of exotic vehicles, and with passageways leading directly from the airplane to the airport complex.
-- After disembarking from the plane, I felt the Paris weather and it was cold. I had mixed feelings about that. (Considering that I had just left from New York where it was uncomfortably hot, and that I'm heading to Finland where it always isn't even comfortably warm -- and it's about 2000 km norther than Paris.)
-- I had 1 hour and 40 minutes of time to transfer to my continuation flight. Here's how it went:
---- First 30-40 minutes: Walking from terminal 1 to terminal 2D. Quite long distance, even with the occasional walkways. It includes the queue for the passport check.
---- Queuing at the Finnair check-in: 10-15 minutes
---- Waiting for the check-in clerks to get their work done: 15-20 minutes
------ During which time I grew worried about my baggage. Hopefully they transfer it correctly...
------ My boarding pass was on the table most of that time. I heard many Finnish clients saying "voi vittu!", and at least one of them had an adequate reason for that, considering that they made him miss his flight.
------ Then they gave me a Business class seat! Huh. I hadn't bought one... But to avoid further delays, I didn't bring the issue up with the clerks.
---- Security check: About 3 minutes, most of it in a queue. The guards seemed a bit absentminded.
------ At this airport, picking up a tray from a pile for putting my backpack and pocket stuff on, was self-service. On others, the securitymen do that.
---- Queue for boarding: About 5 minutes.
------ Most surprisingly, the boarding passageway lead into a bus, not an airplane!
---- Waiting in the bus: About 15 minutes.
---- The bus driving to the location of the plane: 5 minutes, plus some 5 minutes of waiting at some airplane-car traffic junction.
---- Boarding the airplane that was parked in some random place in the middle of nowhere: About 10 minutes.
-- After boarding the plane, a while passed and a French person came over and told me (and four other persons sitting in the Business class) that they don't have meals for us; if we want meals, we should choose seats from the Economy class section. So we had to move.
---- There was conveniently a row of empty seats somewhere and I chose the window seat -- right next to the plane's wing. Not the best view outside...
Observations:
-- Some Finns are really easy to recognize as Finns for some reason. In the transcontinental plane, there was a woman I thought that she's probably Fininsh, even though she said no word. Even though she would have been the only Finn I had seen for 15 days. The next time I saw her was when she walked past me in the Finnair plane and nodded at me. I describe it as a friendly look. Most foreign people look very cold. Although they smile more (in communication) than Finns do, their smile is forced and fake; Finnish smile is (usually) gentle and pure. That trait, combined with the northern skin color (eupheministically white, even though it's just a tone of yellow-pink), is a very rare sight globally. (For the record, Miss Finland candidates aren't the best representatives for this trait.) It might also be some kind of a country person look. I recall that German people also have that trait to some degree. But British, for example, look distinctly British and nothing like Finns.
-- The breakfast served in the Finnair plane was rather bad compared to the dinner at Air France. True, a breakfast cannot compare fairly to a dinner, but still. There's something to be said when the bowl contains a nondescript splat of tomato puré, a nondescript chunk of some not very fresh vegetable (that could be sea weed for all I know), and a piece of pie.
-- KLM and Air France airplanes are airconditioned to be rather cool. In fact, if you are in shorts, your legs will shiver from cold. Finnair airplanes are very warm. In fact, after hot coffee, you may even sweat. I wonder that difference. For the record, I prefer warm accommodation over a cold one.
[At home]
Everything at Helsinki-Vantaa airport proceeded rather swiftly. My baggages were almost the first ones to emerge from the baggage rotation mechanism, and I was able to leave early. I went through the EU gate at the customs and I was immediately free to go, with the exit ahead of me. There was no passport checking, there was no opening of baggages or anything. No single official to ask me anything.
I got a lift from a relative I had asked to take me home, and I came home.
The weather in Finland is currently nothing splendid (it rains), but the temperature is nice. About 15 Celsius. (Not a picnic day, but I like the fact that I don't
need to shower 2-3 times a day.)
First observations on my computer:
-- Wow, this is really fast. (The hotel computer was laggy.)
-- Wow, so much blue! (The hotel computer screen did not display blue; everything was red, green or yellow.)
-- Wow, how silent my computers are! I can use computer without having to listen to a LOUD air conditioning device!
A comment about the security measures on the whole USA trip:
-- Really quick. No problem whatsoever. Every airplane security check I underwent was really quick and I was never body-searched. I just put my backpack on the tray, and empty my pockets on another (and everywhere except in USA, put my belt on it too), and walk through the metal detector. Then I just wait for my backpack to come from the xray, and I wear it, and I wait for the rest of my stuff to come, and I collect them back to my pockets. (And wear the belt and/or the shoes if I had to remove them.)
-- In my backpack, I had two potentially questionable items. A 5 mW laser pointer (among a few ballpoint pens), and a medicin bottle (albeit not containing liquid afaik). Neither raised any questions. Other items in the backpack were clothes and papers.
-- In my pockets, I had things such as a cellphone, a camera, keys, a wallet, my passport, sometimes a pen too.
-- The biggest security measure, time- and effortwise, that I had to go through, was the immigration procedure at USA border control. A really long queue, and an official that asked difficult questions like "how are you" and took fingerprints, and a photograph using a webcam. And filling the forms in the airplane, before that.
