Woke up at 6:30am. Got ready by 7:30am. Stopped by hotel dining area to have a light breakfast (coffee/bread). We’d registered for the airport shuttle at 8am so we checked out and waited in the lobby for the shuttle.
We reached the airport very early, so we asked at the baggage drop off counter if we could get on any of the flights that went to Boston before our scheduled flight. After taking some time to check, we were told that the safest option would be stick to our current flight, so we prepared ourselves for a long wait in LGA. After going through security, we had about 2-1/2 hrs to spend before our flight started boarding, so we decided to walk to each and every gate in the terminal. Gates 60 thru' 99 for a total of 40 gates. Took us the better part of 2 hours to walk casually and check out the stores/restaurants. We weren't the slightest bit hungry after the previous day's feast plus the coffee/bread we ate at the hotel before checking out, so we didn't feel tempted to eat anything at the airport.
Boarding was smooth and the flight was even smoother. Barely did he touch cruising altitude at 17000ft when he started the descent! Takeoff to touchdown was about 40 min and gate to gate was about 50 min. We landed in Terminal A and had a short walk to the interterminal shuttle (airside) that would take us to the international terminal (Terminal E) in Boston. We reached our terminal and gate by 1pm, so we had a little more than an hour to kill before boarding commenced for our flight to Athens, so we did the same thing in Boston but this time we walked with the intention of finding a Starbucks and hopefully get a bite to eat because all the walking in LGA had made us feel a bit peckish. There was a Starbucks but it was a long way away in the next terminal but since it remained airside (no need for security check to return to our terminal), we ventured there. Unfortunately, that Starbucks didn't have the falafel wrap that Ashwin had told us about, so we had to be satisfied with a cup of coffee and the protein bar that Sahana always keeps handy. We must have taken our own sweet time drinking the coffee because when I looked down at my watch at some point, I realized that boarding was going to start in 5 min. And, we were a good 12-15 min walk from our gate. We got up and started walking quickly towards our gate. Still, boarding had already started and our zone had started boarding by the time we reached. The good thing was that we only had our backpacks which could be stowed under the seat in front of us, so we weren't competing with other passengers for overhead bin space. The 1-year old Airbus A330-900neo had a 2-4-2 layout, so Sahana and I were on our own. No need to ask the person in the aisle seat to get up if we had to stretch our legs or use the restroom (phew!).
Flight to Athens was very peaceful. They served two meals and the vegan option they gave us was very decent. Neither of us slept much. I watched 6 episodes of Parks & Rec and enjoyed it.
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