Start Spreading the news….. New York we have arrived

Gangers are go! Our little gang of of four – Diane, Wendy, Lindy and I are heading to New York today.

We ‘hilux’  it to the airport with a large suitcase each and some form of carry on luggage. Of course we are all giving Steve instructions on which way to go to the airport so he proceeds to drive around the block and threatens to leave us on the street!

Bags weighed in and Wendy and I have the lightest bags, Lindy is a little heavier (because of her hair straightener) and Diane always has the heaviest bag so no surprises here! We get split up going through customs and bag checks, Wendy and Lindy get told to go one way and Di and another.

You no longer have to fill out the stupid green~ “why I’m leaving the country form ” and Di and I both comment how stream lined customs now is. Sydney airport getting better!

We realise the other 2 are taking for ever and I see Wendy is still at the bag check counter …… her bag tested positive to explosives!!!!

Lindy has been asked to “step away” from Wendy whilst she is tested 3 times and not allowed to leave until she has a negative test come back! We are all giggling as she has also already had a body scan, while the rest of us just the normal walk through metal detector.

Finally we make a run through the duty free perfume section and head up to this cool loft bar for eggs or avo on toast and a Piccolo or coffee of choice.

We board our flight to discover our flight is delayed an hour and in this time I realise I will be buying a new Ipad as it appears I have left mine at home. Di thinks it’s my ploy to visit the Apple Store in NYC, and as it’s such a huge amazing store ? I would have gone there again anyway. I can’t blog 2 whole weeks only on my iPhone I’ll get RSI in my pinkies.

We are in a row of 4, Di and I are in the middle and can climb over the longer legged ones….. We have a nice meal and a chill out drink and just nod off as the plane gets dark and dreamy, eyes shut music on for our 14 flight to LA, when boom a child not only starts crying, yep we have a spewer !!!

And we all are awake again she’s so sweet (we’ll kind of as she apologises at the top of her lungs) to her mum ‘I’m very very sorry but the plane won’t land and I think I’m going to spew again !!!! ‘

God I remember those days travelling to the UK to visit family with 4 little kids …..lucky mine aren’t spewers, ah another 10 hours to go…. I might need another Vodka ginger beer…..

It’s a long days flying from Australia pretty much 20 hours in the air we are on a Qantas A380 and luckily it’s been stress free and turbulence free flight to LA. A very quick 2 hour turn around to clear customs and do the bag thing again and then another 5 hours to JFK airport. Here’s hoping for less kids and some sleep.

Omg did I say 2 hour lay over? Epic fail …. thank you Sydney Airport for making our flight 1 hour 20 minutes delayed … we didn’t make our connecting flight…

70% of our flight are now standing in a queue at LAX to get connecting flights all over America and Canada.
We are luckily about 3rd in the line and get bumped to an 11am American Airlines flight. Well didn’t this go pear shaped, we go from Qantas to American Airlines to be told that our flight is going New York but via Carolina …. ‘can’t you just see the sunshine’ – as we all start humming the James Taylor classic, as our bags are heading up the conveyer belt. Luckily it stops – good ole skipper (Lindy) is already sweet talking the baggage people to get our bags off the conveyer belt so we can get on a direct flight and boom she has our bags back! Ah back on a direct flight.

Skipper we have a problem…… as we are all ripping off the old bag tags to pop our new AA (that’s American Airlines) tags on, Skipper says with a bit of a lip tremble ‘that’s not my bag’. The blue bag she thought was her’s at the top of the steep conveyer belt and asked the bag people to remove isn’t hers…… oh no! Her bag has gone to terminal 4, which means she is going to Carolina!!! Oh and she isn’t landing at JFK she is landing at Laguardia, on the other side of Manhattan. The rest of us are staying on the new flight we have been bumped to, as the poor check in guy at AA, has already messed around so much, Skip takes one for the team.

We all go get a turkey salad sandwich and bottle of water to await our 11.00am flights, which yep you guessed it are delayed. Our eyes are hanging out of our head, Wendy asks me how long have we been awake…. I reply let’s not talk about it till we get on the plane as I am already swaying.

Our flight on a brand new plane, has all the mod cons, we are offered 2 small meals and its smooth flying for just over 5 hours to JFK.  I didn’t know about the food or amazing screens as I fell asleep before take off and slept nearly the entire trip, and wake up  to see us fly over Jersey Shores ( that’s a real place not just a reality TV show), I can see Manhattan on the left and we finally arrive into JFK.

They have a fabulous system from JFK where if you are grabbing a cab to Manahattan its a set price of $52 plus taxes & tolls, so we jump a cab and before you know the lights of Time Square are blaring into out blood shot sleep deprived eyes.

We leave our bags with Julio at the hotel and set off for Wholefoods to purchase eggs, yummy bread a pint of strawberries,  blackberries and rasberries …. It’s summer here and the fruit looks amazing. We quickly get the usual basic staples including green and peppermint tea…… thinking that we will set up the room and head over to the Long horn Irish pub to await the arrival of the skipper…… Lindy finally lands and we enjoy buffalo wings with some yummy hommus and veggie sticks with a bottle of red (our sleep drug of choice).

It’s now 2.00am and  the swaying is back, so after a quick trip around the corner from our hotel to Time Square to see the neon lights in the rain I might add, it’s time for some sleep.

Saturday morning – Another 5 hour sleep for some and we are off walking the streets (they run East to West) and along the Avenues that run (North to South), finding some Manhattan highlights, like Rockerfeller Centre, the Lego Store, the Plaza Hotel, the shops under the Plaza hotel where there is an amazing food hall and we have a quick bite to eat at Luke’s Lobster (one of my fav’s) a quarter pound of Lobster from Maine with lemon mayo and pepper on a tiny toasted bun….. at USD18.00 a pop not cheap but the gang all agree its amazing and we could eat 3 more! Of course we don’t as there is so much more to see and do……..

Our afternoon consists of me going to Apple Store with Diane while Wendy and Lindy make new friends in Central Park. We walk home from Central Park via the NBC studios to try and get tickets to Seth Myers, however they are now on an International ballot 1 month prior. Too bad not sad…. the NBC shop is awesome, mechanise from all our favourite shows, Seinfeld, Friends, and oh and they have a chair here from the Voice!

A quick trip out the Yankees stadium on the Subway, accidentally going downtown instead of going uptown to buy tickets to Tuesday nights game-  Yankees V the Mets, and then back to Bryant Park, Midtown Manhattan for a well earned beer and shared meal of yummy crab cakes….. this was what we called a windy wander day, not too much planned but it’s now 11.30pm and the team are doing domestics, washing, ironing ( I’m actually serious) Di is now drawing, I’m blogging and Wendy and Lindy are using google credits to find out things like- How much is it to stay at the Plaza hotel ?  Why is Bubba Gump called Buba Gump ?  Shut those browsers down girls we have a BIG day tomorrow with Jerry from My Kind of Town Tours.

Sleep well everyone, I know we will…..

Mrs Wong xx