Having just spent an amazing fortnight in New York its hard to imagine going home. It is made a lot easier, mind you, by the fact that im in the departures lounge of Newark Airport about to fly to Stockholm in the middle of an American snowstorm. It feels like the tone has been set, and the tone is Bleak with a capital B. I was fairly sure that my Christmas prayers had been answered and that our flight would be delayed a few days to further enjoy the NY way of life, but it seems that although several inches of snow have fallen since I woke, its not going to be enough to postpone the inevitable.. the end of the road has arrived. As though it were meant to be I just visited the ATM and, after dispensing me just $20, it told me not to visit it again as I dont have a penny to my name. Time to go home after all.
When we arrived in New York from Boston we were both full of the obvious excitement that goes hand in hand with visiting such a massive city and as it turned out we werent to be disappointed. I thought we'd be busy for a few days and then spend about a week wandering around wondering what to do with ourselves but im sure we could have spend a month in the city and still have barely scratched the surface, though I feel like we did see everything we set out to and more. We had a trip up the Empire State, a stop off at the Statue of Liberty, we went to Staten Island, saw the Yankee Stadium, watched skaters at the Rockerfeller Center, visited Grenwich Village, Little Italy, Chinatown, Christmas Markets galore and shopped ourselves penniless, ate in 462,000 restaurants including the Carnegie Deli and a pizza place selling the “Best Pizza in New York” (who displayed their certificate from the city with pride), drank in a few bars, strolled through and took hundreds of pictures of Central Park, turned 25, rode the Subway like locals, avoided getting robbed or mugged a single time, got lost, got found, and visited neighbouring state New Jersey to stay with friends and perform Karaoke in the local establishments. All this in no particular order, but all equally fun.
There was a lot of wandering around as predicted, but NY at this time of year is so colourful and distracting that time flies. We stayed in a couple of nice places and met a few nice travellers but the stars of this leg of the trip have been, without doubt, the Americans. As far as I was aware Americans were a loud, obnoxious bunch of louts with no manners and a national weight problem. None of this, in my experience, has been true. Whether people smelt our money and were therefore polite to us, or whether people keep it down for the benefit of us tourists, or whether the fatties just kept to themselves indoors in the suburbs, I dont care. The States I saw were great and, hard though it is for me to do, I give America top marks. 10/10 America, Well Done... This being the case though, has made it harder than ever to accept the fact that the trip is over and that, in about 9 hours, we'll be home, in our apartment, unpacking.
Must... Be... Strong.
I guess, then, that this is it for the diary. I look forward to reading it, as ive only ever written these updates then posted them online. I havent a clue what I wrote at the beginning of the trip but I imagine I wrote in a lot more detail and complained less, though I find this hard to belive.
Its snowing again, and other flights are being delayed by up to an hour. All that would do for me is to cause me to miss my connection. Unbelieveable!! Im off to check whats what.
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Home at last. As it turned out our flight sat on the runway for 3 hours before taking off as the airport closed during our boarding. This meant that we missed our connecting flight and had to spend hours in the airport loitering with intent to travel. We were put on standby and told to hang around and hope several people didnt show up as the flight was, naturally, overbooked, and there was nothing they could do other than tell us to wait or book us on to a flight the following day at great expense. Fortunately, just the right number of people never showed up, which is handy because I would have sat in the airport until April if it meant not paying again. We got the last 2 seats on the entire plane. Phew...
Many hugs and smiles at the airport, and it was all over.
Just got Christmas to overcome now, then things can really get back to normal!
Bye All.
