Arrived back in the USA in style this time. Though it was a bit of a hectic journey, we ultimately got bumped up to business class for our first flight on our RTW ticket. What happened was we missed our flight. Really, it (mostly) wasn’t my fault this time! First we were a little late getting to the airport from Madrid, and then the attendant sent us to the wrong check-in line. This caused us to almost miss our connecting flight from Madrid and meant that we could not check our bags through to New York. Sprinkle in a late take off and sitting on the tarmac for 40 min (they forgot to drive the stairs to the plane!)… Next thing you know, we’re running through London Heathrow with our bags only to just miss our flight by 5 minutes. Doh! Lesson learned here: Don’t try to cut your international flights too close, as they close the check-in 1 hour before departure. Luckily there were other flights that day, and a really nice group of British Airways agents hooked us up with a free upgrade. Sweet.
Our actual time in New York was pretty cool. Some people have asked us what we were doing here, since were were supposed to be on a trip around the world. Well, we kind of had to fly through some portion of the states to make our way down to Mexico… plus it gave us an opportunity to visit friends on the east coast and settle any remaining issues at home like endorsing checks and getting stuff shipped to us.
My roommate from college (Sean Donato) came up from Washington DC to hang out with us… quite gracious of him! Sun-D (Sean) had lived in the city for a few years while he doing his master’s work at Columbia, so he knew his way around town. We mostly did a lot of walking around and sightseeing, and hit some really cool bars that we never would have found on our own. One of the places we went to for dinner was called “peek”… which I didn’t get until I went to use the bathroom. The little inside joke here is that the bathroom is enclosed on three sides by floor to ceiling one-way mirrors. When you’re doing your business you can see everyone in the restaurant, and hopefully no one can see you! Another place didn’t even have a name, just a sake bottle painted on the side of the entrance. You had to climb below a building to get in, but once inside you seemed to enter a different world… something looking like pre-WWII Japan. It was pretty sick. The 3 page densely packed sake menu was a bit overwhelming, but the drinks were great and the atmosphere could not be beat.
We also took a side trip upstate to a town called Beacon, New York. Another friend of ours (Dawn Camner) had recently moved back here from the San Francisco Bay Area, and we wanted to see her beloved house on the Hudson River :) Beacon was a great little town that allowed us to relax after so many days of bouncing around big cities. We could have gotten out and done stuff, but were really content just to relax and cook our own meal for a change (sorry for the smokey house Dawn :( ).
Some pictures of New York: http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/NewYork
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