3:30pm

Today I experienced a first at the airport-the first time I flew without checking in any luggage. I don’t think it’s even possible to fly to Israel with only carry-on luggage, and since I’m only flying to the Midwest I managed to pack two weeks worth of clothing into an overnight bag. I know, impressive.

I learned a lesson when going through security-it’s not good to wear a sweatshirt and scarf under your coat. Because they’ll make you take everything off. And people behind you can get annoyed. Especially when they’re juggling a lot of bags, three cranky kids and one unhelpful husband. But as I waited, I watched a guy get detained in those glass holding cells. I was hoping for something interesting to happen, while feeling a little anxious, because my bags were next to his, but fortunately nothing happened. After a few minutes a security guard came and let him out.

I’m wondering if the airline was trying to be funny when they put my flight at the same gate as the flight to Fort Lauderdale, like their way of saying “ha, stupid people, why would you want to fly from Cold New York to Freezing Michigan?” at least that’s what people have been saying to me for the past two weeks. But at least I know I’m going somewhere cold. All the people who are bound for Florida think they’re getting nice weather and are in for a bit of a shock. I heard the temperatures in Florida reached as low as 30 degrees this week.

So now I’m sitting at the gate and hoping that I’ll be able to pass my very compactly-packed overnight bag through the last hurdle so I can bring it on to the plane and shove it in the overhead bulk and spend the entire time worrying that I’ll forget to take it off the plane with me. But it’s all worth it, because when I get off the plane, I won’t have to wait around for luggage.

6:53pm

Well my flight was quick and uneventful. I always like to keep my phone on for as long as possible, and see how high up in the air I can still get cell service. Since I refuse to pay an extra fee for my seat, I’m subjected to whichever seat is randomly assigned to me by the airline. Middle seat in the second-to-last row. I thought the situation could not have been any worse until I saw my seatmate who was taking up all of his seat and just a little bit of mine. Not enough to actually request a switch (especially since the flight was totally full) but just enough to be marginally uncomfortable. Thankfully my other seatmate was slightly undersized, so I sat as far to the left as possible. The entire flight was spent my music on a little louder than usual to drown out the screaming baby sitting one row over. It seems like I've traded in one snowy landscape for another. If I thought I was escaping the white outdoors of New York, I was wrong. It’s snowing here and the ground is already covered with about two inches of snow. Still, the cold will not deter me. Vacation is about taking it easy and sleeping late and I can still do that with frigid temperatures of 15 degrees.