Best Red Eye Flight EVER

Sure enough, we got into business class. Since this was an overnight flight, there was no dinner service, but I planned to sleep in any case. About an hour after take off, I took an Ambien, reclined the seat fully til it was nearly horizontal, and nodded off to sleep. I woke up once and went back to sleep. Around 6:30 am (Tel-Aviv time), I woke up and new that I wouldn't fall back asleep again. That means I slept for more than 5 hours; that's a record for me for sleeping on planes.

With the remaining time I finally watched Inception, which I enjoyed, and then Nanny McPhee Returns, which I didn't so much enjoy. I chatted in Hebrew with my neighbor, had the omelette breakfast, and then we landed.

It was still night, making me feel that we had somehow landed in Siberia where it's never day in the winter. The runways were lined with snow. We exited and quickly passed through immigration and customs. We waited about 30 minutes for Rochelle to clear (she was seated much further back on the plane), kissed her goodbye, and headed to our connection.

We had to take a shuttle bus to the next terminal, which means walking outside, where it's 20 F. The thing is that you have a kind of bubble of warmth around you that, as long as there's no breeze, can act as a kind of protective blanket for a minute or so. As a result, you don't really feel the cold as much as you would after say five minutes.

We're now in the business lounge at JFK waiting for our flights. They still haven't given us seat assignments; they can only do that at the gate about 30 minutes before the flight. We're keeping our fingers crossed.