New York, New York

The trip to New York was a bit of a long and hectic one.

 

As the flight did not plan to leave until 4pm I chose to leave packing until about 9am in the morning, not that I was not prepared thought - apart from perhaps finding my pair of binoculars ( which I suddenly get that slow dreading feeling that they also got lost in my other luggage and I've only just realised was not on my refund form - doh ) and my ear plugs, I think i got everything in.

 

In fact i did an even better job that I first thought as there was plenty of extra space for new clothes on the way back, I managed to squeeze in my pool cue and the towel I brought came in handy when i got to the hostel and found it didn't have any without an extra surcharge.

 

The trip to the airport was extremely uneventful, apart from the fact that I had not paranoidly rechecked a dozen times that we were actually flying from Heather airport and not one of the other airports in the city, and also it was a disappointment that shaz and co had decided to take the car without me to save space, thus it was a long few train journeys.

 

Checking in was a lot easier than I expected and I managed to get through with my backpack as hand luggage without even a cursory inspection at the main check in desk. After a game of text tennis with shaz i managed to get a call through and find out that we had after all got seats next to each other, though sarah and nick were seating on the other wing side.

 

Things took a mini nose dive for a bit as i couldn't see any signpost and we had agreed to meet up at TGI's.

 

the buffalo wings were horrid but the coke was ok and the gang let me liberate a few chips in the name of starvation which was a help.

 

I then flew around the airport to pick up my friend at works perfume and then it was off to the departure gate. with typical group timing we re-met at the departure lounge at different times and it was only one of us who almost went to the wrong gate as there were two flights both leaving at 4pm and despite staying in new york we were actually heading to newark.

 

The flight with virgin was without entertainment for the first hour of the flight, and the food was nothing to write home about, but it was all free as were the vodka and orange that we had to toast the flight, i wont complaining too much.

 

Arriving in newark was an experience though, and it wasn't quite what we wanted - having to wait at immigrations for almost 2 hours, just for a 2 minute check of 2 finger prints, an eye scan and an electronic passport check, it was just an opportunity to share a few minutes of un-quality time with shaz and an middle ages indian guy who talked as if he flew every other day - what a crappy amount of his life he would have lost in terminals that would be!

 

The pickup car to the city was an event in itself and the spanish van driver who picked us up certainly had a few choice words for expedia ... seeing as they took a small slice of action for setting it all up, and being a hater or arriving at airports and being ripped off totally by local taxi drivers it was a feeling i found impossible to sympathise with.

 

it was amusing though when he said that to walk through central park at night, you had better bring along your webley - and no one in the bus knew it was a handgun except me ( what a colourful childhood I must have had ... or was it just that i paid more attention to hollywood movies, ha ha ).

 

the trip to an all time low when i arrived at my hostel and a group of 4 spanish students were checking in ahead of me. One group of 4 students ... 45 minutes later they finally left the reception. the fecking annoying girl who was leading the group wanted to check, re check and then recheck the bill time and time again. first asking for the price per person per night, then what each person would pay, then to verify that the deposit had been knocked off, then back to how many nights were being staying in which rooms.

 

for a person who normally considers himself patient after about 20 minutes i gave up being polite and started getting exasperated ... huffing, puffing and giving any of their group extremely dirty looks when one was foolish enough to look over as if to say "were not with her, honest". - but they were and being kept waiting that long just because someone is overly anal about splitting the bill is not the best was to put a big beaming smile on my face at almost 11pm ( local time ) at night after being up since 6am ( UK time ) .

 

the rest of the gang were staying in a semi-posh hotel around the corner and on the drive in we had made plans to meet up after an hour to go and stretch our legs in the city. the girls wanted to hit the town and paint it red, but wanting to wake up in the morning and not in the evening, meant that i said that i would prefer a short stroll.

 

however after waiting up for an additional 2 hours and even leaving messages at reception should anyone arrive for me ( as the hostel rooms did not ahve telephones ) i finally gave up the ghost and went to bed a bit miffed that noone had come a calling.

 

i would have tried to kill time by surfing the Internet, but even at 1am the hostel Internet room was chock as was the rooftop veranda that overlooked the darkened city streets.

 

first thing in the morning it was a lot better, and 8am was the time when i finally managed to check emails and view my facebook notifications.

 

Ah, New York, New York ... what fun and excitement do you have in store for me today?