Vacation Fun...
May. 1st, 2005 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
athersgeoWell, as threatened earlier in the week, I've finally been able to sit down and order my thoughts about my weekend in NYC. *waves to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cmar_wingnut* As this is getting VERY long, here's part one. Part two will follow, probably tomorrow.
Unless you count standing around on Penn. Street Station for two hours waiting for the Empire Express, I hadn't been to NYC before, so to try and maximise the time I was there, my flight left the UK at 8am on the Thursday morning and the return flight didn't leave JFK until 9:30pm on the Monday evening. As a result of the early departure, though, I opted to actually travel to Heathrow on the Wednesday afternoon/evening and stay over in a hotel - as the alternative was getting the 3am coach from Bristol, this actually *wasn't* much of a choice! (I've done the 3am coach schtick and given I am congenitally incapable of sleeping properly while travelling I've vowed to never ever ever do it again.)
So I worked Wednesday morning, frantically trying to clear at least something from my desk and making sure that my boss knew what she needed to know should any of my clients call up while I was away. At 2pm, I headed home and proceeded to spent the next hour running around like a headless chicken, attempting to finish off packing and trying to make sure I really did have everything, including school work (I had an essay I needed to plan and start), books to read, all the bits of paper that confirmed my various bookings, my coach tickets, my passport and my money. Both cats spent the time watching me with "What the hell are you doing?" looks on their faces. Can't say I blame them!
At 4:30pm, after being given a lift down to the Bristol coach station unexpectedly (not that I was complaining!), I got on the coach, settled down with "To Kill a Mocking Bird" and headed off to Heathrow.
After an uneventful journey, I arrived at Heathrow's central bus station. Now, on previous visits, travellers going to terminal 3 have been set down AT terminal 3 but, for some reason this has changed. I think it's because they're knocking T3 around (particularly at the arrivals end [talk about uncontrolled chaos - but that's for later in the story]), but the net result is that I was set down in a part of Heathrow I've never had to navigate round before. And typically, I had to walk about three hundred yards in the wrong direction before I found out where I was actually supposed to be going. They couldn't put signs up, nooooooo. *sigh* Heathrow CBS 1 Rachel 0. Then it became Heathrow CBS 2 Rachel 0 as the ticket machine for the hotel hopper service refused to take my credit card OR my £10 note. Fortunately, when the bus going to the hotel I was staying at showed up, the driver could make change for my £10 note. Note to self: Next time, make sure you have change!
Got to the Thistle Hotel with the minimum of fuss, checked in and did the ET thing before going out to find some food. I opted for nachos as a starter, spaghetti carbonara for a main course and fruits of the forest cheese cake for dessert, all washed down by a very large glass of white wine. The nachos were good (though really not very spicy - and rather easy on the guacamole and sourcream), the spaghetti carbonara was excessively greasy and very light on the carbonara sauce, the cheesecake was good (though, oddly, it was served with chocolate sauce - I'm not normally one to turn chocolate down, but it didn't really go!) and the wine made me tipsy (yes, folks, I get tipsy off one glass of wine - I am a very cheap date). All in all, it wasn't a great dinner - though the choice between it and not eating was an easy one to make, too!
My plan was to go to bed early and get a full night's sleep. What I *actually* did was have an utterly decadent two hour bath (I read in the bath) and then had a remarkably bad night's sleep. Oh well!
I had to be ready to leave the hotel at 5:30am, so it was a 4:30am wake up (about the sort of time I'd normally be getting up if my flight was a lunch time one, actually!) and an hour to get up, dressed, repacked and ready. I managed it in forty-five minutes. Go me.
I had thought that getting to Heathrow at 6:00am would mean no queues on checkin. My mistake. It took nearly half an hour before I was checked in. I will say, though, it then only took me another fifteen minutes to get through security and the dutyfree area was beautifully empty. No screaming children, no yelling mothers, no drunks...I could get used to this! Even better was the fact that I only had to fill about forty-five minutes before boarding and first things first was finding something to eat for breakfast. Orange juice acquired (I don't spend ALL my time eating!), I mooched around for the remaining time and then went through to the gate to board.
I got VERY lucky when I got onto the aircraft. I'd booked an aisle seat; I discovered that I had the other two seats next to me completely empty. Space!!! Actually, the other aisle seat got taken just before take off by someone who moved from further back in the plane, but we still had an empty seat between us, which meant that once we'd got cruising altitude, we both had space to spread our respective papers out - and we both did!
I spent the first couple of hours of the flight reading, finishing off an Elizabeth Peters novel. Then I turned my attention to that essay and managed to generate several pages of notes and a workable plan. Then I finished off what was left of the flight by watching two thirds of Elektra - and getting ideas for the rewrite on that (no, I haven't forgotten I'm doing that). All in all, I think it was the most occupied I've ever been on a flight and it was certainly the fastest flight I've ever had. The main downside was the landing at Washington Dulles was extremely rough. We were bounced around in some horrendous turbulance which, for a semi-nervous flier like me, was very bad news and I really WAS glad to touch down. The other downside was that United managed to run out of US Customs forms which meant that at least two thirds of the economy section had to fill their forms out (me included) in the Dulles immigration hall. Fortunately, we landed half an hour early because otherwise, I'd have been pushing my connection. As it was, I only had half an hour to spare - enough time to find a bathroom and to do the ET thing again.
Then it was back onto a plane, this time a small commuter hopper jet thing. Fortunately, the takeoff from Dulles was considerably LESS turbulant than the landing had been and it was a nice, quiet flight. The view over NYC as we came into land, though, really was something special. It was all I could do NOT to bounce up and down in my seat chanting "I'm in New York!" (My seat mate was decidedly amused by my antics!).
Best line so far: Stewardess as we come to a halt at the gate at JFK "As soon as the ground crew indicate...wait; as soon as we HAVE ground crew, we'll be able to disembark."
The ground crew showed up, we disembarked and after the obligatory wait, I reclaimed my suitcase and headed out to see if I could meetcmar_wingnut. It took a couple of very nervous minutes, but we managed to find each other (fortunately, that part of JFK T7 is relatively small and there weren't too many people in there!) and she inducted me into the mysteries of the NYC subway. When we got off the E train, in Queens, we had the choice of going one stop on the F or walking the distance. Given that I'd been cooped up and sitting on my backside for somewhere in the region of ten hours by this point, I said that the walk sounded good.
If only I'd known then what I know now about my suitcase! It has wheels. It has an extendable handle. In theory, I can pull it along by said handle. In practice, the thing is so unstable that at the slightest crack in the sidewalk, it wobbles and tips over. There were a LOT of cracks in the sidewalk! Still, it was very nice to be actually taking exercise, it was a beautifully sunny mid-afternoon and it was fascinating to walk through the neighbourhood. So many different sights, sounds and, yes, smells, all with the subway track for the F train above our heads (yes, elevated subway IS a conradiction in terms - and yes, I was duly amused *grin*). The whole place fit the mental image I'd built up of what some sections of NYC would be like.
All that said, though, I was relieved when we arrived atcmar_wingnut's apartment building - jetlag and general tiredness was beginning to set in and I was looking forward to sitting down on something that wasn't moving up and down!
cmar_wingnut* As this is getting VERY long, here's part one. Part two will follow, probably tomorrow.Unless you count standing around on Penn. Street Station for two hours waiting for the Empire Express, I hadn't been to NYC before, so to try and maximise the time I was there, my flight left the UK at 8am on the Thursday morning and the return flight didn't leave JFK until 9:30pm on the Monday evening. As a result of the early departure, though, I opted to actually travel to Heathrow on the Wednesday afternoon/evening and stay over in a hotel - as the alternative was getting the 3am coach from Bristol, this actually *wasn't* much of a choice! (I've done the 3am coach schtick and given I am congenitally incapable of sleeping properly while travelling I've vowed to never ever ever do it again.)
So I worked Wednesday morning, frantically trying to clear at least something from my desk and making sure that my boss knew what she needed to know should any of my clients call up while I was away. At 2pm, I headed home and proceeded to spent the next hour running around like a headless chicken, attempting to finish off packing and trying to make sure I really did have everything, including school work (I had an essay I needed to plan and start), books to read, all the bits of paper that confirmed my various bookings, my coach tickets, my passport and my money. Both cats spent the time watching me with "What the hell are you doing?" looks on their faces. Can't say I blame them!
At 4:30pm, after being given a lift down to the Bristol coach station unexpectedly (not that I was complaining!), I got on the coach, settled down with "To Kill a Mocking Bird" and headed off to Heathrow.
After an uneventful journey, I arrived at Heathrow's central bus station. Now, on previous visits, travellers going to terminal 3 have been set down AT terminal 3 but, for some reason this has changed. I think it's because they're knocking T3 around (particularly at the arrivals end [talk about uncontrolled chaos - but that's for later in the story]), but the net result is that I was set down in a part of Heathrow I've never had to navigate round before. And typically, I had to walk about three hundred yards in the wrong direction before I found out where I was actually supposed to be going. They couldn't put signs up, nooooooo. *sigh* Heathrow CBS 1 Rachel 0. Then it became Heathrow CBS 2 Rachel 0 as the ticket machine for the hotel hopper service refused to take my credit card OR my £10 note. Fortunately, when the bus going to the hotel I was staying at showed up, the driver could make change for my £10 note. Note to self: Next time, make sure you have change!
Got to the Thistle Hotel with the minimum of fuss, checked in and did the ET thing before going out to find some food. I opted for nachos as a starter, spaghetti carbonara for a main course and fruits of the forest cheese cake for dessert, all washed down by a very large glass of white wine. The nachos were good (though really not very spicy - and rather easy on the guacamole and sourcream), the spaghetti carbonara was excessively greasy and very light on the carbonara sauce, the cheesecake was good (though, oddly, it was served with chocolate sauce - I'm not normally one to turn chocolate down, but it didn't really go!) and the wine made me tipsy (yes, folks, I get tipsy off one glass of wine - I am a very cheap date). All in all, it wasn't a great dinner - though the choice between it and not eating was an easy one to make, too!
My plan was to go to bed early and get a full night's sleep. What I *actually* did was have an utterly decadent two hour bath (I read in the bath) and then had a remarkably bad night's sleep. Oh well!
I had to be ready to leave the hotel at 5:30am, so it was a 4:30am wake up (about the sort of time I'd normally be getting up if my flight was a lunch time one, actually!) and an hour to get up, dressed, repacked and ready. I managed it in forty-five minutes. Go me.
I had thought that getting to Heathrow at 6:00am would mean no queues on checkin. My mistake. It took nearly half an hour before I was checked in. I will say, though, it then only took me another fifteen minutes to get through security and the dutyfree area was beautifully empty. No screaming children, no yelling mothers, no drunks...I could get used to this! Even better was the fact that I only had to fill about forty-five minutes before boarding and first things first was finding something to eat for breakfast. Orange juice acquired (I don't spend ALL my time eating!), I mooched around for the remaining time and then went through to the gate to board.
I got VERY lucky when I got onto the aircraft. I'd booked an aisle seat; I discovered that I had the other two seats next to me completely empty. Space!!! Actually, the other aisle seat got taken just before take off by someone who moved from further back in the plane, but we still had an empty seat between us, which meant that once we'd got cruising altitude, we both had space to spread our respective papers out - and we both did!
I spent the first couple of hours of the flight reading, finishing off an Elizabeth Peters novel. Then I turned my attention to that essay and managed to generate several pages of notes and a workable plan. Then I finished off what was left of the flight by watching two thirds of Elektra - and getting ideas for the rewrite on that (no, I haven't forgotten I'm doing that). All in all, I think it was the most occupied I've ever been on a flight and it was certainly the fastest flight I've ever had. The main downside was the landing at Washington Dulles was extremely rough. We were bounced around in some horrendous turbulance which, for a semi-nervous flier like me, was very bad news and I really WAS glad to touch down. The other downside was that United managed to run out of US Customs forms which meant that at least two thirds of the economy section had to fill their forms out (me included) in the Dulles immigration hall. Fortunately, we landed half an hour early because otherwise, I'd have been pushing my connection. As it was, I only had half an hour to spare - enough time to find a bathroom and to do the ET thing again.
Then it was back onto a plane, this time a small commuter hopper jet thing. Fortunately, the takeoff from Dulles was considerably LESS turbulant than the landing had been and it was a nice, quiet flight. The view over NYC as we came into land, though, really was something special. It was all I could do NOT to bounce up and down in my seat chanting "I'm in New York!" (My seat mate was decidedly amused by my antics!).
Best line so far: Stewardess as we come to a halt at the gate at JFK "As soon as the ground crew indicate...wait; as soon as we HAVE ground crew, we'll be able to disembark."
The ground crew showed up, we disembarked and after the obligatory wait, I reclaimed my suitcase and headed out to see if I could meet
cmar_wingnut. It took a couple of very nervous minutes, but we managed to find each other (fortunately, that part of JFK T7 is relatively small and there weren't too many people in there!) and she inducted me into the mysteries of the NYC subway. When we got off the E train, in Queens, we had the choice of going one stop on the F or walking the distance. Given that I'd been cooped up and sitting on my backside for somewhere in the region of ten hours by this point, I said that the walk sounded good.If only I'd known then what I know now about my suitcase! It has wheels. It has an extendable handle. In theory, I can pull it along by said handle. In practice, the thing is so unstable that at the slightest crack in the sidewalk, it wobbles and tips over. There were a LOT of cracks in the sidewalk! Still, it was very nice to be actually taking exercise, it was a beautifully sunny mid-afternoon and it was fascinating to walk through the neighbourhood. So many different sights, sounds and, yes, smells, all with the subway track for the F train above our heads (yes, elevated subway IS a conradiction in terms - and yes, I was duly amused *grin*). The whole place fit the mental image I'd built up of what some sections of NYC would be like.
All that said, though, I was relieved when we arrived at
cmar_wingnut's apartment building - jetlag and general tiredness was beginning to set in and I was looking forward to sitting down on something that wasn't moving up and down!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-01 04:51 pm (UTC)Kind of makes me apprehensive, though, for when I'll be coming to London this October; although Stansted is much smaller than Heathrow, it'll probably be an adventure to find the bus stop AND the right bus to Victoria! (Incidentally, I'll be staying at the Tower Thistle Hotel ...)
I hear you on the empty seat(s); I'm hoping for the same in 3 weeks when I'm going to Turkey! I hope that at least it won't be quite so difficult anymore to close the seat belt/turn down the tray; nearly 45 pounds less weight ought to be worth something, after all!
And I have a suitcase like that, too; it's the main reason we splurged for a set of trolley suitcases a couple of years ago. Samsonite or not, past a certain weight, the bloody thing wobbled even on smooth airport floors, never mind a regular street!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-01 05:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-01 05:29 pm (UTC)It was rather lucky we found each other so easily. Pays to exchange info on what we'll be wearing.
Incidentally, it was the 7 train that we took for one stop, and that we were walking under. And thanks for not commenting on the trash all over the street - and the noise level. (No, folks, I don't live in a slum, that's kinda typical New York - but I don't live on 5th Avenue either.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-01 05:35 pm (UTC)As for the trash, I genuinely didn't notice - Bristol on a Monday morning after a heavy weekend is easily twice as bad.