US/Canada/French Canada Tour 09 - Pt 3

The flight to LAX was sorta funny in a kinda Flying High sort of way... There was a medical emergency mid flight and they were asking over the PA for a doctor. Don't they know not to order the Fish?! Anyhows - when we touched down at LAX - they had some medics ready and waiting which delayed our already delayed flight that bit more.

LAX seemed a lot more jazzed up then we remembered. Everything was being renovated and the new bits were like all shiny and new... like a virgin... We had a connecting flight from LAX to NY and only had five minutes to quickly update the blog before rushing off to the next flight.

The flight to NY was not bad even though we had proper economy seats. There was a fantastic view for most part (all of LA and OC, the Mojave Desert and the Grand Canyon were all visible). Due to the bad hangover from the previous flight - we toned down the alcohol consumption.

We arrived at NY JFK airport at around 5:30pm new york time. Feeling really tired - we grabbed our bags, circumnavigated around the Skytrain to the MTA subway, got lost at Queens (Ant was trying to be clever with the trains but due to the really tiny font size of the LP subway map - we took a mostly stupid long route) and got to the "Thirty Thirty Hotel" at around 8:30pm (which is funnily enough at 30E st and 30 ave)... Ughh...

Feeling super tired - we checked into our 3 star midtown hotel in Manhattan. We attempted to swipe into our room on the 6th floor with the room card about three times - until we sort of figured out that they were trying to give us a room with someone else in it (getting flashbacks of the Traveldodge in Sydney last month). When they decided to give us a different room (one sin guests) - the room was a bit small and somewhat prison like - but it had a comfy bed which sort of made up for it.

We hit the streets wanting to get some food (despite the fact that we had been overfed on the flight(s)). We did a bit of wandering around - noticing NY didn't feel all that busy. We came across a Mexican restaurant (right next to the Empire State) and had some cheap (and oversized) black bean burritos. Damn those American sized portions. I can feel the need to appear on the next series of the Biggest Loser if we keep up this diet.

We wandered around for a bit more being all vague and jetlagged. We stumbled across Times Square which was chock full of people (sin locals). Everything felt a little different than what we had experienced about 5 years ago - mainly due to the City being Clover Moore-ised with several lanes of road traffic permanently blocked off as either bike lanes, parking, seating or more pedestrian footways. Sort of gave the place a different vibe (a bit less claustrophobic). Ant got a coffee at Juan Valdez - a Colombian Coffee Starbucks clone - it had mediocre coffee with that mediocre South American service...

On the way back - I did a "high five" with Ant as I found "Best Buys" and a "H&M" plus a "Zara" all within a stone throw away from each other. I'll be back...