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| Matt & Tui say goodbye |
Alright folks,. prepare yourselves. I took 850 photos and wrote notes every day, so there's a lot to share. For everyones' sanity, I'll just do a day at a time. We'll start then at the beginning......
Thursday morning arrived, I failed to wake on time, roused only by the call of the Bunneh wishing me safe travels - yikes! Thanks Bunneh! I
arrived at the airport in perfect time, still in denial that this was
happening, slightly spooked by the sight of the 'plane on the tarmac.
12 hours later, a whole season of the IT Crowd, Walk the
Line, and Carlotta, and spoiling by the QANTAS crew, we arrived in LA.
Surprise, surprise, Marg and I did not pass Customs easily. We were picked up
during the scan (where you stand in a tube with your arms above your head),
where I apparently had some suspicious things across my shoulders!! I was sent
back for another scan, failed again, and had to stand aside, not knowing what
was to happen next. After a long wait, my possessions were gathered from the
conveyor belt, and taken to a bench for searching. Without a word of
explanation, I watched my bag get emptied out, my spare socks examined (yet they didn't open the zippered sections of my bag?!) - a
fairly confronting experience. I was then taken to a dingy little room with two
officers for a search. I had to stand on the footprints whilst I
experienced a fairly intimate pat down, even having to sit down so they could
pat the soles of my feet. Then I was free to go - what was all that about?!
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| The stretch limo - arriving in style!! |
By this time I was really too tired to care, as we boarded
the next flight to take us to JFK. Luckily, the plane was quite empty, and as
soon as we took off we jumped into empty seats - dazed and confused, I pretty
much fell into a row of seats, and slept very uncomfortably throughout the
flight. On arrival at JFK, we were met by our booked car transport.
"Unfortunately", one of the cars was caught in traffic , so they brought
the stretch limo instead!!! Gee, Bummer!!
Our driver Chen, in the normal car, said traffic was very
bad, so we took back roads through Queens, and saw some beautiful little houses
with Christmas lights. On arrival at the Hotel Pennsylvannia, we alighted
into cold, cold brightness! Almost
comatose by now, we queued to check in, then finally checked into our fairly
crappy room. Small, with single beds instead of the doubles we expected, and a
bathroom which had definitely seen better days, I was beyond caring, simply
wishing for a shower and bed. The other 11 members of the group were
reconvening at 8:30 to hit the shops - I struggled with myself for some time
about whether I should join them, finally deciding that I just couldn't do it -
New York would still be there in the morning! I went to bed, turning on the
heater, which sounded like a generator,
and my roomate returned at 10:30, loaded with Macy's shopping bags to an
oven-like atmosphere!!
After a stilted night of sleep, where the creaking of both
of our beds continually disturbed, I awoke at 8, wondering if we were still to meet at 8:30?! Phew, not until 10! Jo went to the cafe in the lobby to get us coffee - a
flat white, which was simply an enormous gumboot water, and a delicious fruit
salad. After meeting the gang, we hit the shops. As we descended on Zara, I was
a bit concerned - this wasn't really my scene - were we to wait around in shops
all day?! We agreed to meet at the
Rockefeller Centre at lunchtime, which I very much doubted the others would
make at the rate they were going. But it was Jo and I who were late, as we got
caught up in our kind of shops. Our first stop was bebe,
On meeting the others outside the Rockefeller,
where the
Salvation Army folks were rocking out, we went to Saks, and tried to get into
the restaurant, then the cocktail bar, but queues were crazy, so we ended up
under the Rockefeller at Cucina & Co, where we had Cranberry White
Cosmopolitans with our lunch. Saks was beautifully decorated, and also had the foresight to have a lift that went only to the shoe floor - genius!
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From here we all went to Tiffany's, which was very crowded, and frankly, of not much interest to me. I was more intrigued
with the star in the middle of the intersection, the amazing Christmas windows at Bergdorf Goodman's across the road, and the view from there of the lights of
Tiffany's.
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| Martinique bottom right, Empire State behind |
We ended up as a group for dinner at the Martinique, on
Broadway. I was hungry, so ordered the burger - they asked how I wanted it
cooked - yeeees - medium rare, thanks!! I obviously needed to wash it down with a beer, so got a
Brooklyn Lager. On the way home, Jo and I went back to a shop we had seen
earlier, to pick up a suitcase for her purchases and some t-shirts for our
boys. I also stopped off at a drug store, Duane Reade, to pick up some wine.
After queuing for service, I was asked for ID, and my Australian ID was greeted
with "What is this?!". I said it was Australian, and he asked for my
passport, which I did not have on me. He said he could not sell it to me! I resorted to saying "Geez,
look at these lines on my face!", which seemed to work. Back home, I was on the phone to Matt when I
realised that it had a cork - bugger! Who has corks these days?!! Dear Jo went
down to reception to ask for a corkscrew, where she was greeted with derision,
so I ended up just pushing the cork in! It was not until the next evening that
I discovered that this 'Californian Pinot Grigio' was 6% alcohol, with an
ingredient list of: table wine, water, sugar, concentrated juice, natural fruit
flavours, citric acid, and carbon dioxide. WTF?!!!
And so endeth my first day in New York.
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