trip's start

Crikey! It's 0500 and we're in the taxi heading for San Francisco International Airport (SFO). Cool air and a light drizzle gave us a brisk send-off. Our delightful cabbie, Monica, is having an engaging conversation with the kids. We've invited over to our house when we return.

Our trip takes a screeching halt. This is why I show up early at airports. American Airlines seems to be a good number of workers short, or they're woefully overestimating employee efficiency. We're on our feet for almost an hour. Lots of Hebrew spoken around us.

The kids are doing a good job of tolerating the wait. Isaac is relaxing on the luggage cart while Lila decided it was time for a hair-do.

We're escorted away from the gate by a rain-soaked batman. Our long day has begun. (We usually take red-eyes, to maximize kid sleep, but this time we only had day flights available.)

We get a beautiful view of New York City's Central Park at local sunset. Wonderful!

The sun sets over the wing as we're told that a heavy cloud cover will have us circling JFK for twenty minutes at a time. Not good, as Iberia has scheduled our connections with minimal span - a practice I find extremely stupid given the fragile and tardy nature of the air travel industry.

Two delay cycles later we land in the thickest fog I've ever seen. It's the end of the local day, and we're ready for a sprint to the next plane.

Iberia does it again! The terminal information on the itinerary isn't correct. We, and a bunch of fellow travellers, zip to and fro on the AirTrain while we figure out the correct destination. You knew, of course, that there would be no Iberia agent at the gate when we arrived (despite the flight being code-shared with Iberia).