I'm finally here!

What a day! Well for you folks what was two days seemed to morph into one for me! In my delusionaly state last night, I think I worked out that my travel time was about 32-34 hours all up.

So the quick version was that I got to Melbourne airport shortly after 11 with my trusty drivers Andy and Tim. Well, Tim. Andy was still too hung over to actually drive. The flight to Auckland (with AirNZ) was fantastic, brand new plane with comfortable seats and an awesome entertainment system. Onto LA, this plane wasnt so new and wasnt so comfortable and whilst I had a whole row to myself, the armrests didnt raise fully so sleeping became quite awkward. I suprisingly got through the 13 hours with little boredom, watching movies like Meet Bill and Kit something or other, All American Girl. Not exactly box office smashes and I'm not at all shocked but that is what plane had to offer.

Arriving at LAX was possibly the biggest surprise to that point - it was 2.30 in the afternoon and from all expectations it was going to be nothing short of absolute mayhem. It was actually reasonably quiet - no more busy than I would ever expect Melbourne to be. I got randomly selected to be completely inconvenienced by US Customs and Border Protection (This always happens to Stephen Marshall, maybe they knew I knew him?). I then rushed off to the gate lounge to find my connecting flight to NYC delayed. ABout 20 mins after we were supposed to board, the captain of the aircraft comes to the lounge and announces that there is a problem with the tail of the plane and it could be hours for it to be fixed, best case scenario we will be on a 6.30 flight to NYC. Within the hour, he then announces we can actually board, I pray they actually fixed the problem rather than just decide to fly without a tail and we were taxiing off to the runway. While we waited patiently in the queue to take off the captain kindly puts the planes two-way radio system through the headphones so we can here the "clear to take off" message. What I actually heard was that we had a red light on something in the cockpit and then subsequently that we had dumped several thousand litres of hydraulic fluid onto the tarmac. Yeah, you though Qantas was bad, United Airlines cant even get off the ground to have to make emergency landings. Fortunately the captain then announces "we dont think we'll use this plane its current condition, we'll have to go back to the gate lounge". I'm glad he thought that through, the fact he implied he had considered flying the stupid thing was a little unsettling. Long story short, they eventually find a new plane and we are off to NYC.

My 1am arrival time became 4something am. JFK airport, allegedly among the busiest in the world was now a ghost town, with a lonely 79 passengers the only ones to be seen. This made getting out much quicker. I met a South Ifrican from WA at the luggage carousel who was going to the same hotel so we decided to share a cab. There were none. Fortunately a very kind, just married, all American Abercrombie and Fitch style guy was good enough to call 8 cabs for us. The good news is, New York IS just like Melbourne - the taxi driver had no idea and took us to the wrong Holiday Inn! My patience now being tested substantially, after 32 hours, we made our way to the right hotel. There endeth, at 5am, my journey to the USofA.

After a couple of hours sleep and a freaky trip in a cab up the wrong side of the road, I made it to my apartment thing. It is by no means as nice as it looked on the internet, but its roomy, smack bang on the edge of Times Square with a maccas and an Irish Pub next door. It's funny how some of the basic creature comforts of home are so reassuring when you realise that you are 16,000kms away from all you have basically ever known! I promise to do some American things, but its nice to feel at home and to have an Irish Pub so close.

Speaking of doing American things... Jen and Megan can now feel comforted that I own a "cellphone". My phone didnt roam like I thought it would automatically (it used to when Monash were paying the bills but not now that I am) so bought a phone for... $12.99!! Once I got over the fact that you can buy a phone for a 10th of the price you can in Australia I signed up with Virgin.

My number over here is

0011 1 917 405 7346 or +19174057346 for SMS

I have slept and rested most of the day, trying to get back into a normal pattern as quick as I can, which I think I have managed to achieve. I had a quick look at Times Square a few minutes ago and WOW, it's out of this world. I think I will spend a fair bit of time there

Anyway, in the grand scheme, I have got a lot to tell so far so I will leave it there.

More photos on facebook.

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