14/06/10

reporting on the 16th

I awoke to find that the zip on my rucsac had died during the night potentially ruining all of my careful packing. I instead bodged a solution that would hold until I got home. I put all of the stuff inside the bag in plastic bags, put the rucsac in my NASA laundry bag and used zipties to hold everything together. I had gaffa ready, but in the end I didn't need it. The bag did look an absolute monstrosity, but it held everything, so it was a success. We celebrated with breakfast. It was our last breakfast in America so I had pancakes with sausages and coffee, which was great.

We had a couple of things we needed to do in the city before we headed off to catch the plane, the first of which was to drop off the second KON travel bug at a geocache. Since our last visit a TB hotel had be replaced in Central Park, perfect. It was a nice easy find and in a spot where few people seemed to go, a rarity it New York. The second task was to find one more penny machine so that would fill my penny passport. We found the machine at the Museum of Natural History next to Central Park so now I have a full penny passport :D. I'm planning on taking the pins of the badges I have to fill the larger slots in the passport so I will have no free spots.

We got lunch from a cool deli just next to Mt. Sinai hospital. Due to it's location it was full of doctors and nurses getting their lunch. We got a couple of cream cheese bagels each, good bagels they were too, nicely toasted :) After printing off our boarding passes at the hostel we headed off to JFK. The journey was actually fairly painless, possibly due to the 5 kg I took out of my bags when repacking, although my “frankenbag” was a bit annoying to carry and got a few odd looks. Due to it's oddness it had to be searched by security at the airport, which was a pain as I had to dismantle the thing, have it searched and put it all back together again afterwards. Terminal 7 at JFK really isn't a very interesting place to spend a few hours waiting for a plain. The shops are frankly crap; expensive and boring. The whole place is so cramped it almost feels like it's underground, at least T5 at Heathrow is a large and light space. We got on the plane in good timeand to schedule but once we were seated we were informed that one of the runways was being resurfaced so we had to queue to take off. It was an hour and a half until it was our turn to take off, so in all we would be on the plane for over 8 hours. Fortunately my seat was at the front of a block so I had a good amount of legroom. I decided that to combat the jetlag I would stay up throughout the flight, so I watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Up in the Air, both films were pretty good.

So, we are back in the UK and I guess that means the end of the blog. It has been a great trip and it has been fun keeping an online journal. As promised I have weighed myself now that I'm home. If you recall, I was 75kg (about 12 stone) when I left. After 2 months with limited exercise and a horrific diet I lost 2kg so I am now 73kg (about 11.5 stone). I'm sure this will make some people very angry, but I think it's hilarious.

If anyone has any questions or wants any elaborations on anything please say. I have a couple of reviews still to write, but otherwise that's it, my blog is done. I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

Cube out