I had a full day to kill before my 2300 departure out of JFK airport. After a leisurely breakfast I toddled over to the United Nations for their free tour. They have guides leading tours through the day and we had a particularly informative chap from Israel. With more time on my hands, I settled into the New York Library to use their free internet. It was quite a god-sent after the internet drought in Cuba.
I boarded the Emirates Airbus A380 about 2200 for the 2300 departure. I learnt from the flight attendant that this was their second unit of the A380 and had just been delivered. Presumably it was on its second revenue flight (with the flight from Dubai to New York earlier in the day being the first).
Shortly after 2300 the Captain announced that there was an electrical anomaly which required them to reset the power packs. We had about 40 minutes (and several iterations) of light-into-darkness-into-light as they reset the systems. It seemed like they were trying unsuccessfully to jump-start this whale of a jet.
Finally, the got it sorted but with such resets they needed the engineers to check and sign-off. One and a half hours later, we were airborne. But you could hardly tell as this was such a beautifully quiet aircraft.
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- View of Manhattan from my couchsurfing host.
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- Iranians protest against the closure of Camp Ashraf in Iraq. The Iranians there would be sent back to Iran where they face execution by the Revolutionary government.
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- At the UN.
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- At the UN.
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- Inside the General Assembly. Palestine, like the Vatican has an observer’s seat.
