We arrived at the Intercontinental New York Barclay after a 30 minute cab ride. The hotel is located on the corner of 48th Avenue and Lexington. It is housed in an older building, with matching period décor in the lobby. While a bit older, the hotel was rather elegant. We were greeted by a bellman, who was puzzled by our lack of luggage. Believe me, it’s not by choice, sir. At the front desk, we were checked in by a rather disinterested front desk agent. He did, however, acknowledge my status and asked if we needed a late check out, which we did. Before we headed up to our room, I dropped by the Bell Desk to inform them of the impending delivery from Delta.

The elevators were quite old, but were in good condition. While in good repair and elegantly decorated, the corridors were not air conditioned, amplifying the musty smell that all older buildings seem to have. We were assigned to room 1461.











The room was quite large by Manhattan standards. Furnishings, just like the rest of the hotel, were older but in good condition. My welcome gift, a nice selection of fruit along with a chocolate and a bottle of mineral water, was already in the room. We were both thankful that the air conditioning was quite good in the room, and cranked it down as soon as we found the thermostat.

I unpacked the amenity kit given to us by Delta. The contents were actually pretty useful, and included the usual toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, comb, and a Sky Team t-shirt. Unfortunately, the t-shirt was of rather poor quality and was only good for say a wet t-shirt contest. It did, however, serve its purpose in giving me something clean to sleep in the next two nights.

After we settled in and I plugged my phone in to the charger, we headed out to find a place to eat. We found this great little Japanese place located in the basement of an office building a few blocks away, though I can’t remember the name of it. After eating, exhaustion set in and we somehow found our way back to the hotel. After a long hot shower, I went to bed, which wasn’t very comfortable as the mattress pad was way too thick and soft. Despite this, I fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. Tomorrow would be a long day.

I awaken by the sound of my phone going off. Squinting groggily, I was able to make out a New York number was calling me. “Who the hell is calling me this early from New York”, I thought. I answered and it was the Delta JFK baggage office. Our bags had arrived on our original flight, which ended up getting in at 11:30 the previous night. It was a good thing we got on that earlier flight. The agent on the other end sounded very cheery and friendly especially for 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning. She informed me that she would try to get out bags out for delivery by 11AM, and worse case they would be delivered by 2 in the afternoon. After confirming the hotel’s address, I thanked the agent and hung up. All the commotion had woken up my friend. After a short discussion, we decided to just head out to make the most of our day. Besides, our bags would be here by the time we got back, right?

We hit up the deli across the street for bagels with lox, and headed toward Mid Town to do some sightseeing. Though I hadn’t been to New York in 10 years, I still felt I could still be a pretty good tour guide especially with the aid of my iPhone.





After a couple of hours of walking around, we were getting a little thirsty so we headed to an Irish Pub, Tir Na Nog, located on 34th Street near Madison Square Gardens to get something to drink and watch the men’s soccer Gold Medal match.



The barkeep there was absolutely fantastic. He was personable and kept the drinks coming. We had a great conversation about soccer and the bloody New York Jets and their idiot Head Coach. As 11 o’clock rolled around, the kitchen opened and we ended up eating lunch there. I had the bangers and mash, which was good, and my friend got the Sheppard’s pie, which looked very good. The Gold Medal match was great, with the Mexicans out playing and out hustling the Brazilians. They managed to hang on for a victory, despite Brazil’s late surge. We paid up soon after the game was over, and headed back to the hotel and hopefully our bags.

We got back around 2:30, and made a beeline for the bell desk hoping to hear good news. But no dice. A little disappointed, we headed back to the room to call Delta. The agent who answered my call was able to confirm that the bags had been handed off to the courier. After some back and forth, she told me that the bags were on the van and should be delivered by 6 PM. They were just back logged due to the large number of mishandled bags. Not exactly comforting words, but I ok I’ll trust you. So we headed back out to do a little more sightseeing.



We spent a good bit of time browsing at the shops at Rockefeller Center. Though we could have gotten reimbursed, we decided to hold off on buying clothes as I was feeling pretty confident our bags would arrive soon.

Afterwards, we wanted to go visit the 9/11 Memorial, so I entered that into my iPhone. It showed the memorial was a mile away. Not close, but certainly walkable. Following the instructions given by Google, we ended somewhere on 33rd Street with no memorial in sight. In fact, we were near the Empire State Building, which is in the total opposite direction of the World Trade Center site. Grrr, some tour guide I am. I ended up deciding to hail a taxi to bring us to the memorial, since I was pissed off and feeling pretty lazy.

The cab was nicely air conditioned, a nice reprieve from the heat and humidity outside. The ride itself was surprisingly cheap, as I was only $15 poorer. After arriving at the memorial, I realized I made a second mistake. Tickets were needed to visit the memorial, as they were trying to limit the amount traffic due to the construction all around. I was pretty ticked off at myself, but my friend got a real kick out of it. Though, he banned me from being his tour guide ever again. We did make the best of situation and walked around lower Manhattan and hung around for a while in Battery Park. We even helped out with a little fund raiser for a boys basketball team, at least I hope it was legitimate.









At around 5:45, we decided to head back to hotel once again. This time our mode of transportation would be the subway, as it was much cheaper than a cab. It only cost us $2.50 each to get back to the hotel. We headed to the bell desk only to be disappointed once again. I called Delta and unfortunately drew a disinterested agent. Without looking up my tracking number, she told me unequivocally the bags would be delivered by 9 PM. Fine…I’ll take your word for it. After running through the shower only to put on the same clothes again, we went to meet my friend’s aunt and uncle for dinner. We ended up at another Japanese restaurant near the hotel. They had 3 course pre fix menu which was reasonably priced. I chose the chicken katsu with a sashimi salad appetizer. It came with pickles, rice, miso soup, and ice cream for dessert. The meal was delicious and we were all completely stuffed. Again, I can’t remember the name of the restaurant, but it’s located on 49th Street just past Park Avenue, going toward Mid Town.

After eating, it past 9 PM so we bade our dinner mates farewell and made the short walk back to the Intercontinental. Again, we were met with disappointment. By this time I was seething and absolute sick of the run around. I called the JFK baggage office again to give them a piece of my mind. My pissed off attitude got the agent on the other end moving to do some digging. She confirmed yet again my bags were with the courier, and the delay was due to the back log. Since we were in a hotel the courier would be willing to do a night drop. She then said, “Trust me, the bags will arrive tonight.” We have this saying in Texas, fool me once shame on you… Fool me twice…

But the Delta app seemed to confirm what she was saying, so I did felt a bit better.



So we went to drown our sorrows at another Irish pub, where we met up by another high school buddy who now lives in NYC.


Mmmm…an alcoholic chocolate milk

We went back to the hotel a little after midnight, and of course our bags weren’t there. So we went to our room to get some rest. I woke up for good at 6:30 AM after a restless, and went downstairs to check for the bags, which still hadn’t arrived. So I called Delta. Again. I remained calm and explained the situation and emphasized we were leaving today to the friendly agent, named Krystal. She immediately grasped the severity of the situation, and contacted the courier. The courier dispatcher was unable to reach the driver, so she promised to call me as soon as she found anything out. Despite the broken promises of the day before, I decided to trust Krystal as she seemed so friendly and helpful.

This time I wasn’t disappointed, as Krystal called me about 2 hours later saying she was working on something and assured me they would ship the bags to our final destinations, in the absolutely worst case scenario. However she guaranteed it wouldn’t come down to that. Okay, I trust you. As we stepped out of the hotel a little while later to go to lunch with our friend and his wife at their Mid Town apartment, still wearing the same clothes we wore departing from DC on Friday, I got another call from Krystal. She had located the bags, which got lost in the shuffle so they were still in the courier’s warehouse. She said she would personally go to retrieve them and have them waiting for us within an hour. I thanked her profusely, and promised to write in to Delta for her, as she was absolutely great. Unfortunately, her shift ended by the time we got to the airport, so we weren’t able to thank her personally. But I did write in, so I really hope that at least adds some positive points on her record.

I was hoping to finish brunch by 11:30, but we ended up talking for quite some time so we didn’t leave until almost 12:45. And we still had to run back to hotel to grab what little belongings we had at the moment and check out. The hotel was only 4 blocks away, which we managed to cover in 10 minutes. Check out was swift, and we were in a cab a little before 1 o’clock. Unfortunately, we hit some serious traffic and didn’t make it to JFK until 2:10. We still had to grab our bags and get my friend’s boarding pass before his flight left at 3:30 PM. The cab dropped us off at the departure level of Terminal 2. I ran into the terminal to print a boarding pass for my friend, while he took care of the cab. We then headed down to baggage office, which was naturally near the baggage claim.

Unfortunately, the cabbie had dropped us off at the international area. Our bags were located in the domestic baggage office, which was a good distance way in Terminal 3. Luckily, there was a Delta employee on a smoke break outside of Terminal 2. We asked him for directions and he directed us through short cut that did save us a few minutes. The new route did require us to play a game of Frogger with the line of passing taxis. Fortunately, we won. Even with the short cut, it still took about 10 minutes of walking to reach Terminal 3.

Finally, we reached the entrance into baggage claim and made a beeline for the baggage office. We were both sweating profusely at that point, and I’m sure people were wondering why these two bums were in the terminal. Though Krystal had left already, she had informed the employees on duty we were coming. After showing our IDs, we got FINALLY got our bags back, after two nearly days.