Between the Lines, Iowa City, University of Iowa, 2013

(Between the Lines (BTL), a program that brings high school writers, aged 16-19, to the University of Iowa for creative writing study and cultural interaction)

July 11, Running through JFK

The group successfully flew out of Sheremetyevo congratulating Inna, one of the students, at the airport as she was turning 19. Indeed, the longest birthday ever – she celebrated it for 33 hours crossing over the Atlantic.

We arrived at JFK and had less than two hours to change for Chicago flight. Right at the entrance we got an orange Quick-connect ticket that saved us from missing the flight. The queue was enormous but we were shown straight to the officer who took our fingerprints and corrected our pronunciation – ‘Iowa (stress on the first syllable), not I’owa (not on the second as in Russian). At the customs again Quick-connect pass helped us join the shortest line. We had to receive our luggage, go through the customs, recheck the luggage, take an airtrain to Terminal 2 from Terminal 4, go through security again. We wouldn’t have managed to do it all in 2 hours in a group of 11 but for the constant help and directions from the airport staff. JFK bears the name of the 35^th US president John F. Kennedy not in vain. In 2011 more than 47,5 mln passengers flew through  contributing about $31.5 billion in economic activity to the New York/New Jersey region, generating approximately 224,000 total jobs and about $11.3 billion in wages and salaries. The  36,000 employees of the airport do their job well.