Why the US can't have nice things, part 2

Thursday morning I woke in downtown Sofia, leisurely drank my coffee, and jumped on the metro that took me directly to the airport. In less than an hour I was at the gate for my flight to Germany, where I transferred to the JFK-bound Lufthansa. If all went well, I’d land at 8:30 p.m., clear passport control, and be in Port Authority1 in time to get the last bus (11 p.m.) upstate, so I could be in my own bed a little after midnight2. All I needed to do that was for the flight to land on time, and passport control to take under an hour and a half. The first happened, the second didn’t even come close. To describe Terminal One passport control Thursday night as a shitshow is unfair to shitshows, which are at least darkly entertaining. This was instead bureaucratic hell: lines of exhausted travelers snaking out into dreary linoleum hallways, festooned with disconcerting and anachronistic cheery posters welcoming us to NY, all managed by TSA employees, who, while trying their best, were in

Thursday morning I woke in downtown Sofia, leisurely drank my coffee, and jumped on the metro that took me directly to the airport. In less than an hour I was at the gate for my flight to Germany, where I transferred to the JFK-bound Lufthansa. If all went well, I’d land at 8:30 p.m., clear passport control, and be in Port Authority1 in time to get the last bus (11 p.m.) upstate, so I could be in my own bed a little after midnight2. All I needed to do that was for the flight to land on time, and passport control to take under an hour and a half. The first happened, the second didn’t even come