I’m very excited as this time our travels take us back to the USA but this time to a new destinations in the shape of New York and Washington DC. These have been on our bucket list for a while. Actually, to be honest, only New York was on the list but the more people that we spoke to who had been the more that urged us to take up DC too. So we are getting the train down after a few nights in NYC.
Unusually we were getting an afternoon flight so had the morning to kill which we did by wandering around Reading until we were ready to go to Heathrow. Terminal 5 has three groupings of gates and you can move from one to the other via an underground train. Given that we were going to be spending seven hours sat on a plane we decided to take opportunity to walk to our gate. I wouldn’t say that it was the most glamorous of places to be but we did have it to ourselves.
We were seated in a row of four and the woman next to us gave the chair and the surrounding area the most thorougher clean I have ever seen. This required quite a number of baby wipes to do the whole area for her and her husband. The TV and its remote came in for some serious attention. The plane was delayed by over an our due to some other plane being stuck behind us so we couldn’t get out but apart from that is was smooth flying.
On landing at JFK we had one of the swiftest entires to the US that I think we have ever had. We were through security and out to the taxi rank in about 30 minutes flat. The taxi ride was notable for only one thing which was the TV that was embedded into the panel in front of us. This was on a loop of ads and CNBC “news” and you couldn’t turn it off. So at the end of a reasonably short journey I had learned that Amazon are working on one day delivery for Prime members (I smugly noted we already had that) and the top three tips from some woman I had no idea who she was about looking good – “foundation/lip-gloss/confidence” – I shall be able to recite this trio for the rest of my days. I was glad to exit at our hotel just off Times Square.
Despite it being the early hours of the morning for us we dumped the bags and headed out to take a look a Times Square. I really struggled to match what I was seeing with what I’d seen in the guide books. It was all there but so much more and what a confusing array of lights and screens. The place was heaving so we went back to the hotel to sleep and be ready for the day tomorrow.