New York, New York

I am so sorry it’s taking me so long to post something! There are just not enough hours in a day but I’m trying hard to find wifi, post and then write some more! My goal is twice weekly but I think at the moment it’s barely once a week! Also not helpful that a couple of nights ago I was eating a chocolate with liquor in the middle and the liquor spilled onto my keyboard and seeped underneath the keys before my very eyes! Typing has become a small challenge as my ‘n’ and ‘h’ keys are a little choicy as to when they decide to work! If anyone knows how to clean it or has ANY helpful solutions please feel free to share!

So here’s an exciting city – New York!!! It started off with a bang after my luggage was first out of the baggage carousel. Honestly, what are the chances?! It wasn’t even small flight, it was a decent sized flight! So I got to my hostel at about 11pm. I took an airport shuttle and I was the last to be dropped off so I got to see a lot of the city (and Ben Stiller filming a movie!!) but my driver was INSANE! In Perth the drivers need to look up ‘merge’ in the dictionary. In Melbourne they need to learn that beeping does not make the traffic go faster or the cars in front of you disappear into thin air. In Thailand, at first the driving is crazy but after a couple of days you realise that everyone is beeping to warn eachother of where they are and the motorbikes and cars and buses and tuktuks and whatever else you will find on the street, work together in perfect harmony and it’s the unexperienced tourists who cause the accidents. In New York, mayhem. Not organised, I think the only reason pedestrians are not run over is because the drivers know that they will go to jail. And the pedestrians know this and cross the road like they own it. They drive on the lines, without indicating to get around cars, cut eachother off, stop randomly in traffic (taxis) and on the crosswalk at traffic lights. Needless to say, I did not risk my life in any cars for the rest of my New York trip except for a short taxi ride to the airport which I will tell you about later!

So that first night I explored the hostel and then went into the lounge with my only friend, Mr Laptop. Exploring was fun as there was a lounge, a theatre room, HUGE kitchen, dining room with booths etc and an outside courtyard which would be fantastic in summer, not so much in winter. After talking to Kathy about how in my first three hours I hadn’t made any friends and filled with worry, I went to bed.

The next day I met Sarah. She had come in late that night as well and in her tired state had put her luggage in the room next to ours, fair enough as the doors down the hallway all looked the same. Still humorous.  After finding her bad, we went to get some lunch. Our walk brought us to this diner.

Your eyes are not deceiving you and yes it was amazing. The inside is different but the outside is the shot used in the tv show and on the inside where signed posters everywhere of the cast.

We explored a little bit around our hostel and then headed back to the hostel because I had a hostel organised tour at 2pm. The hostel was really good for organising free tours everyday. I went on the ‘Midtown Tour’ and it was a long walk where we saw the Lincoln Centre, 



The Met

The Trump Tower

Julliard

the Plaza Hotel, Central Park, the fountain where the opening of Friends was filmed,

The David Koch Theatre!

 

Rockafella Plaza

 

Grand Central Station


Empire State Building, Bryant Park and many other places such as the Theatre District on Broadway and Tiffany’s on 5^th Avenue. Alas, I have no photo of the Friends fountain because I was not listening to the guide when he said what it was and I stood there like an idiot wondering why everyone was taking photos of a fountain, and only found out when we were already moving on.



Times Square by night

Central Park was lovely! I didn't have time to actually enjoy the park by having a picnic or going ice skating but I did get a photo of a squirrel.





Ice skating in Central Park

We also got to walk down 5th Avenue as there was the Veteran's Day Parade that day! Our tour guide was like, "I have lived in New York for twenty years and have never walked down 5th Avenue!

                              

After all this I was exhausted! I met Sarah back at the hostel and we had some dinner at a Japanese place. It was really good and I even had miso soup which I actually enjoyed!



Ice skating at Rockafella Plaza



Cleaning the ice at Rockafella Plaza



Love Flying, Dislike Being Late

So I am in Milwaukee catching my connecting flight to New York. The plane is surprisingly big, three by three, which is big because I just flew on a one by two seated plane, lucky me got a single seat! But anyway, I’m all excited about going to New York and chatting to the two nice ladies who I’m seated next to when the stewardess walks down the aisle from the back, holding a crying man’s hand. He was speaking a little bit of English but he was crying and wailing and just looking really distressed. When they got to the front, she stood with him behind a partition while they waited for the plane to be connected with the walkway again. The pilot came out as well and they were both trying to calm this guy down. The pilot! He never comes out! So they eventually got him off the plane, with me and the ladies next to me gossiping about how now we’re going to be late, but also hoping that he was okay.

With him getting off, they had to go through the luggage and find his bags too. So we heard stuff happening below the plane and the stewardess and pilot kept on walking to the guys seat and then back up the aisle. Ten minutes later, the pilot informed us that, for security reasons, the whole plane was to deplane so that the emergency vehicles we could see outside our window (with lights flashing!) could sweep the plane to check if anything had been left behind.

An hour later, after the sniffer dogs were finished, we got back on our plane and got free tv for our troubles. I had planned to listen to my ipod but I instead enjoyed that Arnold Schwarzeneger movie with Jamie Lee Curtis where she plays his wife who doesn't know that he's actually a super secret spy.

As well as telling that short super fun story, I wanted to talk about planes and airports. I knew that planes were delayed daily and that things go wrong. For example, I remember catching the plane home from Singapore after our two week trip to Thailand and everyone (including the flight crew) were there, waiting at the gate, except the plane! After trying to locate it for half an hour, they found that the plane had gone to the wrong gate SO all of the passengers (who had already been security checked) had to trudge to a gate practically on the other side of the terminal and be security checked again. After this, we were stuck at our gate as there were planes behind us and our pilot had no room to back out. A plane traffic jam as my brother Martin likes to call them! So an hour and half after we were meant to depart, we finally flew out. So this is my one experience with something going wrong and I thought that with 9 flights in approximately three weeks, I would experience at least one thing going wrong again.

Sydney to LAX – someone’s random baggage was on our plane so we were delayed thirty minutes while we taxied back to our gate and the ground crew rummaged around for this extra baggage.

LAX to Vegas – Vegas airport had someone special flying in so as we were taxiing to the runway, we were asked to park it and wait on the tarmac for half an hour, to slow down flights going in.

San Francisco to Minnesota – Kathy and I were FIVE minutes late and couldn’t check our baggage in, meaning we missed the flight. Our fault I know but honestly, five minutes? They take hand baggage that’s too big for the overhead compartments at the plane door so five minutes is just silly

Milwaukee to New York – the crazy security threat mentioned at the beginning

Frankfurt to Prague – crazy fog at the airport so had to circle in and the pilot landed without seeing anything, crazy and scary but amazing. But again, late

The best flight I’ve had is Perth to Sydney where we were twenty minutes early. Well done Perth. Well done.

Actually, JFK to Frankfurt, forty minutes early!

So, in conclusion, I love flying but being at that point where you are about to take off or about to taxi out and then having to go back, wait and start again is exhausting and tedious.

There are unfortunately no photos that correspond with my airport complaining so, instead, here are some completely irrelevant ones that didn’t fit in other blogs!



Right guys, right?



Wine Connoisseurs

Woop woop



I’m not sure we’re looking at...



Irish

Snowball

Bedtime after Sal’s

Reminds me off a Beatle?

I can’t even tell which one is the statue

Sea lions in San Francisco

Going for a swim

So close to the pier!

Late night shopping looking like a bank robber

Shopping is fun!

It doesn’t even matter that you can’t see me

The couch. So good.

And this is our tv!

For Ashlee!!!   From Vegas

Amy being cute

Just chillin’

Last Night in St Joseph, Minnesota



                                         

                                         We can dance if we want to

 

In my last post I didn’t talk about my last night! This is because there were so many photos I felt it needed its own post!

It was my last day in Minnesota. Kathy felt like cake. My Pulitzer prize is in the mail for this fantastic writing haha okay, Kathy felt like cake so we went down to the local coffee shop for coffee and cake. The ‘Local Blend’ turned out a treat with yummy coffees and yummy cakes and a surprisingly good food and wine menu! That night’s proceedings were decided upon.

The evening began with skyping Erin! Splendid start.

We then showered and dressed in our finest and had some pre drinks with Lauren and Jake.

                                       

After pres we headed to the Local Blend where it was open mic night and we had a bottle of wine. Dreams of having some food as well were dashed when they told us their kitchen had closed!

                              

After our bottle of wine and some fine local talent, we decided to go to Sal’s, the local pub where we had previously gone for Thirsty Thursday. Tuesday night was buy one drink and get the second for $1. That day Kathy had joked that wouldn’t it be funny if we were the only ones there, us and Sal, the owner. Apparently Sal’s doesn’t go off on a Tuesday night. We were the only ones there. There literally would have been an empty bar if we weren’t there. We had a great time nonetheless! We got to choose our songs from the jukebox and have two drinks at a time for $4.50.

After our night, we went home and ate food and watched Gilmore Girls.



There was a spaghetti incident where Lauren was holding both the pot and the strainer as the spaghetti made its way down the drain

Young Katherine's face is a sign of the pain the following day would have in store. Kristin and Brenna were nice enough to welcome us home.

The next day I bid farewell to the gang and caught my bus to the airport.