It's holiday time again, and this time Martin and Mark are heading back to the US of A. We're flying into New York, staying there for a few days before picking up some wheels and heading into Canadia before looping back down the east coast and returning to the Big Apple.
Mark lost the coin toss so he had the joy of driving to Heathrow. The trip there was uneventful, but we made it within two minutes of the scheduled time, our ability to plan is getting better, it won't last.
Security was tight, we think maybe the fact that we're flying with Kuwait Air is going to make the yanks a little suspicious of us. Mark was pulled up at security and given a thorough search, it wasn't quite rubber glove time but he was glad he was wearing clean pants!
The plane was delayed over an hour as the connecting flight was late in, probably had to detour from the AAA fire on the way out of Kuwait.
We got talking to an American girl who had just finished a masters in classical acting or some shit and had to learn the complete works of Shakespeare by the time the flight landed. Good luck with that love, personally I'd rather swim there than that.
Once on the plane we realised that it was actually 30 years late as it was a little on the old side with crackling CRT screens, ashtrays and a safety video in black and white accompanied by a piano soundtrack. There was lots of legroom though so we were happy. Martin had the aisle seat, Mark in the middle and a crazy Kuwaity gypo woman had the window seat.
The in flight meal was interesting, Mark's salad had an interesting extra on top of it that looked a little bit like someone had taken a massive poo on it, best give that a miss. Mark offered it to the gypo but even she looked disgusted by it.
After food we went hunting for better seats as Mark's seat was designed to give lumber support to Steven Hawking. We found a spare long leg room seat so took that over and tried to get some shut eye.
That didn't happen so we whiled away the hours until we finally started our approach to JFK airport. Instead of coming straight in, the pilot tried to write his name on the TV screens by flying the plane a stupid route, good work Captain Nsuplll.
Today is national eat an apple day. Since we had already promised customs we were not bringing any fruit into the big Apple we fulfilled our obligation and ate a small apple before passport control.
We now just had the dreaded customs people to get past, the face of America, yet the most miserable people on earth. For once however there was next to no queue and we flew through, so now we're safe to publish the blog without the NSA kicking us out. NO YOU ARE NOT - NSA.
We headed for the taxi rank and found the obligatory yellow cab to take us to Times Square, it was now 9pm local time and traffic was a bitch. Our driver was a little on the impatient side and Mark missed the ability to filter through traffic as it took about 90 mins to get there.
Once in we checked in and went to our 37th story room, wow, what a view. We over look Times Square in all it's glory from way up high. It was quite mesmerising but we soon had the urge to have beer as per the first night on holiday rules.
It was busy out with the hustle bustle of the city and wondered around in awe of the crazy large buildings and we went to a few bars to toast our arrival.
At midnight some places started to close but the bar man told us some cool places to try as we'd been mainly sticking to the tourist bars.
We found this little pokey bar stuffed with boxing memorabilia and had a few more beers whist discussing who was the best boxer, although as the bar was about the size of a matchbox, it wasn't the most comfortable place.
We then moved on to a bar down the road where we had a little more room and found that the kitchen was still open at 1:30 am. Result. We switched to spirits and ordered some wings and burgers whist trying the vast array of vodkas and Jack Daniels they had on offer. There's no weights and measures act here so the more you tip, the stronger your next drink.
At about 3 am we stumbled back to the hotel room and worked out that it was 8am back home, it had been a long day!
Photos to come later as New York doesn't want us to have wifi.
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