@(*%&# MTA!

So it's pretty clear that I am struggling with the decision of where to plant myself for a while, right? NYC or Berlin. Well, if last night, I was forced to have made a choice, I would've said "SCREW YOU, NYC! I'm outta here!"

Oh wow, was I crabby. And all due to stupid JFK International and the always frustrating MTA.

For you non-New Yorkers, MTA stands for the "Metropolitan Transportation Authority." They really do not appear to be an authority of much. They definitely do not receive much love from New Yorkers, due to their unreliable schedules and general shitty service. Being a fan of mass transit, I typically defend the MTA because I think how difficult it must be to serve eight million people. However, even I have my limits.

Anyway, as if I wasn't already depressed leaving my family, I had to deal with stupid air travel issues. I detest the current security measures (really, taking my boots off is going to save the world?) but what I hate even more is the way JFK seems to perpetually overbook flights. I'm not sure if this is really the case but every time I fly, I end up landing ahead of schedule and then sitting on the runway for fifteen minutes or so because there are 600 other planes ahead, waiting for a gate.

So even though we landed at 7:45pm last night, I didn't get out of that plane til 8:10 or something. Then, unless you've got a taxi waiting for you, JFK makes you pay to leave their damn airport. I always think of that line from Hotel California..."You can check out any time you'd like but you can never leave." So I take the stupid little AirTrain and pay $5 just go be released. Ugh.

Now it's on to the A train. Freezing cold, I wait and wait. Finally, as I'm wrapping on a phone conversation with my mom, it arrives. After a 20 minute ride, the conductor announces that it is going to stop service at the next stop and that we all have to take a shuttle bus if we want to continue on the A route. Did I mention that I was hauling a forty pound bag filled with Christmas presents?

So I haul my shit up the stairs, wait again in the cold, squeeze onto the shuttle bus, take it to the Jay Street stop, walk a few blocks to Lawrence Street so I can catch the R only to realize that now it is late enough that only the N runs from there to 59th Street so I must take another train, wait and wait and wait at 59th (we are talking about the R here), get out a few stops later, find only one glove in my pocket, get stuck behind the slowest moving pack of teenagers on earth on the sidewalk, start crying because I'm cold, hungry, and tired, and then fumble with my keys for a few minutes before I finally haul my shit up to my third floor apartment.

It was almost 11pm when I walked in the door. My journey from JFK was only one hour less than my whole trip from Wisconsin (which included an hour layover in Detroit.) Seriously?

So NYC, I'm hating you HARD CORE today. Why do you gotta go and make my life so miserable sometimes? I know you'll do something awesome soon enough to change my mind, like allowing some crazy Danish artist to install artificial waterfalls along the East River or something like that. But at the moment, we are not speaking. Got it??