Hello to you, my readers. Well, that is to say, I hope you’re still my readers, as I am all too aware of how long it has been since I last disseminated my globetrotting yarns. You may well have wondered if I had given up on the adventurers life, if I had put away my old green backpack for the last time and found something less worthy of written account to keep me occupied. Or perhaps you imagined I was on a trip in such a remote wilderness (if such places still exist on Earth) that I was unable to communicate my tales to the world at large – not even by letter. Well, although the first scenario is both more probable and closer to the truth, the reality has been somewhat different.
So, what have I been doing since my last adventures? And, why haven’t I been all that far from home?
Both good questions. Unfortunately the answers are really rather dull, so I will be brief. The sad fact of the matter is that as much as I have loved my travels, there is always an element of risk involved in quitting your job to go jetting off about the globe. The risk in question being that when you get back, you’re unemployed and need to get another job. Now, in the past I have managed this without too much fuss, so the risk paid off. After Canada however, my run of luck ran out, leaving me juggling three part time jobs whilst trying to find a ‘proper’ job. This took considerably longer than I had expected, and of course I had no one to blame for it but myself, which never helps. I’m not complaining, I made my choice, I enjoyed the travel, I’m just explaining the absence of amazing adventures. I suppose also, should anyone reading this be tempted to take up their own backpack (be it green or otherwise) to be aware of the possible consequences – and not to be put off by them, after all, I did get a job eventually.
Having got the job, I naturally started looking around for short tours to exotic places to go on, like my trips to Peru and Morocco. It wasn’t hard to find ones that grabbed my attention. Rather harder to decide between them, as it happened. Soon I had my heart set on an Aztec extravaganza, exploring all the ancient ruins and temples of Mexico. The budget was going to be tight but I thought I could do it. That is until my car fell to bits and my travel fund vanished buying another old banger. So, no travel that year. It was a deflating setback, but as you already know, by virtue of the fact that you are reading this missive, that runs of bad luck run out too. The Mexico plan is still on hold (as are plans regarding Egypt, Cambodia, Japan, China and a return to Oz), but I did set off for another part of the Americas. That little bit sandwiched between Mexico and Canada, that is known to the many as the US of A.
Looking back on this trip (as I am already back from it - alas) I have to regard it as a bit of a hybrid. Neither is it a great long meandering backpacking epic, nor is it a compact and rigidly prescribed tour. It is instead an exquisitely blended cocktail of the two; a compact meandering backpacking tour (a ‘com-back tour’?). So, without any further ado, I suppose we had better get started.
It all began with me hauling on an unusually lightly packed old green backpack, and striding out my front door into a typically grey winter morning. Two trains and a rail replacement bus later, I was negotiating the scaffolding cluttering up Manchester Airport before boarding the plane to New York. I have mentioned in previous adventures how much I like to fly, so I’ll try not to bang on about it too much, but after about two and a half years stuck to the ground in Blighty it was great to be taking off again.
Once I had touched down in the US I experienced two firsts. The first time I had to be fingerprint scanned on entry and (much more incredibly) the first time I hadn’t been sent to ‘The Room’. So, I cleared customs rather quicker than expected and made my way to Manhattan on a seriously overcrowded double decker train. Once there I had to navigate the subway on my own. Many of you will recall that I have visited New York before, only last time I had a local guide to steer me right, which had allowed me to get about without having any idea at all where I was going. This time I actually had to pay attention. As it turned out I got through the maze more easily than I had anticipated, which was especially fortunate as the person I was heading to meet was that self same local guide. The person in question was of course my old friend Emily, who regular readers will likely remember from a number of previous adventures. It was great to see her again, and a shame that I couldn’t stick around longer, but my plan only gave me one whole day in the city before I set off upstate. Fortunately I would be dropping by again on my way home.
My day in NYC started with Emily having to go off to work for the morning (on a Sunday too) which left me to see how many of the city’s famous bits I could stumble across without getting hopelessly lost. So, I set off through the cold crisp air, along the snow encrusted streets, on what was a gloriously sunny day. Good luck with the weather became a feature of the trip, as you will see. Soon I arrived at one edge of Central Park and began some tentative wandering on the slippery compacted snow, whilst being quietly amused by those folk determined to try to jog on the stuff. The sunshine, blue sky and sparkly snow made frequent photo stops a must, as did the many statues. Speaking of statues, I noticed that Central Park also hosts the city’s obligatory statue of the seemingly omnipresent Robbie Burns (he really does crop up everywhere). So, having found my way around the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, down past ‘The Lawn’ and ‘The Lake’ I wound my way to the south-west corner where the Columbus Circle and associated columnar monument proudly stands (getting rather in the way of the traffic.) This was where I was to leave the relative safety of the park and set out to navigate the city on foot. Manhattan is fairly compact and the grid system of roads does make things fairly straight forward, even if you do have to stop to cross the road every two minutes. The crossing of roads, incidentally, is another subject I am sure I have touched on before in my various adventures, with those in New York being of the type where, even though the lights say the pedestrians can go, some of the cars can too.
Having survived all the road crossings and successfully arrived at the Port Authority Bus Station to get my ticket for the next days travel, I was conveniently near to Time Square. I had been through Time Square at least twice on my previous visit to New York, but all this wandering about on the surface was allowing me to piece together where all these places were in relation to each other. This process made the place seem both smaller and considerably more sensible, cartographically speaking. From here I meandered, glimpsing the Chrysler building from time to time, before arriving at Grand Central station. I had intended to have another crack at the subway and get myself down to the southern most tip of Manhattan, but a glance at my watch told me I was supposed to be heading back to meet Emily. I had no sooner returned to her apartment than we were off out again to make something of what was left of the evening. There was some discussion as to where we might like to go to eat, and it may come as little surprise to you all that we ended up in that quintessentially American establishment, Hooters. Having been somewhat perplexed by the place in the past, my repeated visits (all of which I have Emily to thank for) have allowed me to grow accustomed to it.
Well, that pretty much wraps up New York for now, I will of course be back before my return to England. So, bright and early the next morning (another rather lovely day, as it happened) I board the bus that will take me north to an area of upstate New York that is rarely (if ever) visited by tourists. My reason for going being that my older brother Richard lives there. I wasn’t just going to drop in on a quick social visit though, oh no, the plan was to team up and continue the adventure together.
Once he’d met me off the bus we stopped off at his local for refreshment in the form of beer and spicy chicken wings (which were generously seasoned with Americas favourite spice - salt). We met some of the locals and had our accents thoroughly noticed, I think they were generally liked (in accordance with the stereotype) but I couldn’t say for certain. From here it was back to Rich’s place for an emergency trip planning meeting. The reason for the emergency was that according to the weather reports there was a huge snow storm due to hit town sometime the next morning. This meant that we had to either get out of town on the first plane the next day, or risk getting trapped by the storm and have to wait for it to pass and then be cleared up. Two further factors were, firstly that the local airport was only tiny, with tiny planes, and thus much more affected by weather, and secondly the potentially problematic nature of something called non-reving. Seeing as this non-reving is a bit of a feature of the trip from here on, I suppose I should explain. Non-reving is what airline employees (and their brothers) can use to fly either for free or at a reduced fare on the airline in question. I expect you’ll think this sounds rather marvellous, and like all things that sound like that you have to ask ‘so what’s the catch?’ Well, the catch is that you can only get on the plane if by the time they are about to close the door there are still spare seats onboard. If there aren’t any left, you don’t get to fly. This changes catching a plane into something a little more like second guessing the stock market, as you have to try to pick flights that aren’t going to be affected by local events such as festivals or sporting fixtures. One event that was definitely going to upset the balance of things was this storm, so the decision was made to pin our hopes on the next plane out of town.
Having decided we needed to move fast, the next important question was, where to? We had only discussed this loosely before my arrival and now the destination needed to be fixed, pronto. Then it was an early night in readiness for a 4am start, that had us waiting at the gate in the airport for the OK to have the last two seats on the plane to San Francisco. As we walked from the gate to the small propeller plane, the first few flakes of snow started to fall. But we were on the plane, we had won the first non-rev gamble and we were getting out of town ahead of the storm, heading for sunnier climes.
Some five or more hours later, and having crossed a number of time zones, we arrived blinking in the California sunshine at just before midday. We managed to work out the confusing CalTrain ticket machines (surprisingly poor HCI design for the silicon state!) and soon surfaced in the centre of San Fran’s downtown. Here we immediately headed for the nearest burger joint for an urgent lunch meeting. Our morning had been successful so far, but now all of last nights plans had been played out. We had escaped the storm and found our way to sunny California, but we had nowhere to stay, and very little idea what to do now we were here. Our scant internet searches had told us to expect a glut of suitable accommodation close to the Union Square area, but we hadn’t noted down any specifics. Naturally our hope as we set off after lunch was that being low season, bookings wouldn’t be necessary. After a bit of searching we had come up a total blank, and the areas we had walked through didn’t seem the right sort of places at all, so we had to resort to plan B – use my guide book. Without any further uncertainty to delay us we were soon navigating the crowded Chinatown streets (never easy with a backpack) and then into a less salubrious neighbourhood in which stood a long established hostel, The Green Tortoise. Fortunately for us the Green Tortoise not only had vacancies but was also what I call a good old fashioned hostel. This second fact was important because it was Rich’s first proper hostelling experience, and having waxed somewhat lyrical about some hostels in the past, I wouldn’t have wanted his first impression to be anything less. So, having settled in and dumped our bags, we set off into the sunshine to see what we could find. Almost immediately we were heading up and down the steep tramline furrowed hills so characteristic of the city, and shortly came to the 210ft Coit Tower, favourably situated on a high point overlooking the bay known as Telegraph Hill. So it was from here that we caught our first glimpse of both Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. After inspecting the towers insides which were covered in stylised frescos depicting daily life from years past, we continued our explorations back down hill to meet the shoreline of the bay. Here we found Pier 39, a wooden avenue of touristy knickknack shops and food outlets extending out over the sea. On our return to shore around the outer edge of the pier we paused to watch the sunbathing sealions before continuing onto where the Alcatraz boats left from, to enquire about a tour for the following day.
The remainder of the afternoon was spent wandering the pleasant streets, made all the more pleasant by the weather and general lushness of the surroundings. That night we met up with an old University friend of Rich’s who now lives in San Fran’ and we had a wander around some of the local bars, all very nice but nothing too crazy seeing as we had been up since 4am and had another full day lined up tomorrow.
Morning came, and with it the promise of a free hostel breakfast. This was coffee, fruit and bagels, and very nice it was too. Now, I am normally one when in foreign lands to do my best to try the local specialities. Of course there is always going to be something that you think is a step too far, and when I saw my brother happily combining peanut butter and jam (or jelly as they call it) on the same bagel, well, I left him to it.
With breakfast done we strode out into a further excellent sunny day. Having a little spare time before we had to report at the boat we took a meandering route to take in some lesser local sights. We found the Windiest Street, I notice that they didn’t seem to attach the usual ‘in the world’ to the end of that so perhaps there is a yet windier one out there somewhere. It looked pretty windy, and also quite steep, but not as steep as the steepest street in the world, which is quite straight. Hmm… Next we found various tall ships, all of which seemed to be historical restoration projects of varying historical significance before perusing some more tourist tat shops on our way to the Alcatraz boat. This modern and speedy craft powered us towards the tiny rocky island affording us excellent photo opportunities as we went, especially as (and I think I mentioned this already) it was a gorgeous day; quite uncharacteristic for the bay in February.
Once we had arrived and stood through the welcoming speech we set about the task of getting our moneys worth. So we watched the video and then tagged along on the guided historical tour of the out buildings. Here we learned that the rock had been used for various purposes throughout it’s history. It started off as a defensive outpost guarding the bay, then became a larger military base and this then transformed into a military prison. One theme that ran through it’s history however was the enormous cost of operating anything on the island. Finally the military wanted rid of it and so it was converted to the high security prison we think of when we hear the word Alcatraz. At one time after the prison closed it was also temporarily taken over by native Americans as part of a demonstration about the removal of their lands. After this tour it was time to enter the prison building itself and to use an mp3 player to go on a self guided audio tour. This tour was very good, especially as you could pause the voice to look about more, or rewind it if you missed a bit. I shan’t describe it all in detail as it really does look just like the films (which I now feel I should watch again) but we did get to go in the cells, solitary, the exercise yard, the dining room with its built in teargas system and saw the gun gallery. Also, due to someone doing some filming in there we got a surprise demo of the cell door opening/closing mechanism, and the noise of even one door slamming shut was exactly like the films – only much louder. Finally we had a wander around the unexpectedly lovely and well tended gardens that cover parts of the island. One thing we did notice about the place in general though was that much of it was crumbling away, I can only assume that despite the constant stream of tourists paying to visit, it is still an incredibly expensive place to keep going.
Well, we definitely got our moneys worth, and I would recommend you go if you get the chance. The only downside to the place was that there isn’t any food on the island, so eventually we had to leave as our breakfast was a memory and lunch rather overdue. Once back on the mainland we had chance to sample a different burger joint for our lunch meeting. This one was called ‘In-n-Out Burger’ and Richard had been recommended to go there, by someone or other. They only had four things on the menu with very little to choose between them, and this was apparently significant. I learned much later in the trip that this place had a secret menu, so that if you knew what to ask for you got stuff that wasn’t on the main menu. I suppose it makes you feel like you are in possession of secret knowledge – perhaps In-n-Out Burger was started by the Masons. This is supposedly such common knowledge that it is regarded the worst kept secret in America, and I remember thinking at the time it was odd that some people in there were eating things that weren’t on the menu. Since that afternoon I haven’t found out what the rest of the menu is, nor have I been back in, but should you find yourself in there one day and realise that you don’t know the secret either, rest assured that the things that are on the menu are just fine.
The rest of the day was mostly spent walking and walking and walking around the bay towards the Golden Gate Bridge. It was still a nice day, and parts of the walk were along the beach type edge of the bay, which was rather nice. The main reason for all this walking was to get up close to the bridge and get some decent photos, although our approach at sea level would mean we couldn’t actually get onto the bridge, we didn’t have time to do both and a nice walk near the sea and good photo’s was the better option. Of course having walked all this way to the base of the bridge we had to walk all the way back to the hostel, and we had timed it just right to arrive ready for the free hostel dinner, a rather excellent Mexican style buffet. So, a free breakfast and free dinner in one day, they say there is no such thing as a free lunch and it looks like they might be right, but I’ll keep looking.
Having left many stones unturned in San Francisco (for a return trip one day) we were up at 6am and back off down the now empty Chinatown streets to the station. Once back at the airport we sailed through another Non-rev throw of the dice to jet to Las Vegas. This however wasn’t our final destination so we had to chance a second Non-rev of the day to take us the rest of the way to San Diego. Here we did have a hostel booked, but there was a fair bit of local public transport involved in getting there. I have to admit that local public transport is something I really don’t enjoy much and tend to avoid, surprisingly this is rarely a disadvantage when travelling although I do like a walk more than most. This time with two heads between us to work it out we took all the right busses trains and trams to get us to The Banana Bungalow, situated literally a meter from the sands of Mission Beach. This hostel was one that Richard had heard about over a decade before while he was living and working in California, the fact that it was still there was an encouraging sign. Another fortunate thing was that this was another good example of a classic hostel, although of a different style, this one being smaller and more relaxed than the city centre variety. Also, having started Rich off in the shallow end of hostelling by using a twin room in San Francisco (a bit of an extravagance) it was time to progress on to a proper dormitory. In this case a fairly crowded, mixed, 10 bed dorm. One aspect of hostelling we didn’t get around to on this short trip was cooking for ourselves (something I would normally do everywhere – even in the poorest equipped kitchens), by now it was 3pm and our early start meant we had missed the free breakfast, so we set off in search of lunch. Perhaps if we had been less hungry we would have searched a little longer for a different style of cuisine, but as it was we pretty much stopped at the first place we found, which happened to be yet another burger joint, this time called Fatburger. This place didn’t have a secret menu, instead it’s gimmick was offering, in addition to Fatburgers, a choice of the usual skinny fries or Fat Fries. I opted for Fat Fries and, they were fat.
The remainder of our first day in San Diego was spent idly wandering about along the beach soaking in the sound of the ocean, and going around the various touristy shops. That evening our hunt for dinner took us down Garnet Street, an area that the other hostel transients informed us was the local night-spot. We certainly found a glut of bars, but perhaps we were out too early for the place to come to life properly, so we found some rather good Mexican food from an outlet simply called ‘Mexican Food’ and then wandered back, peering in all the windows of the all night tattoo parlours, of which there were an incredible number.
The next day, after a free breakfast of oddly sticky toast and typically American coffee (i.e. rather watery and indistinct) we set off on a quest to reach La Jolla (pronounced La Hoya). This was another place Rich remembered from his previous time in California, apparently having been there before, only in a car. Without a car we enjoyed a long costal walk until we ran out of navigable coast and headed inland to meander around some very expensive neighbourhoods, all with gorgeously kept gardens. We walked a rather long way, and having looked at a map since we must have been in La Jolla but not the bit that looked like Rich’s memory of it, so after a quick lunch meeting in a Chinese cafe, we decided to head back. The plan had been to catch the bus, only I got a bit confused about which side of the road the bus should be caught from, causing us to miss it and have to walk back – oops! Once back we set off in the opposite direction, via public transport, to explore downtown San Diego. We tried to find the Gaslamp area, and we may have done, only as we weren’t completely sure what was in the Gaslamp district it’s hard to say. Looking on our tourist map for something we couldn’t fail to recognise upon arrival we set off to explore Balboa Park. Here we found, in addition to the pleasant greenness and arboreal diversity, some excellent views down on the city. Progressing from here we crossed a high bridge over a canyon to find an assortment of ornate old buildings with archways, colonnades, decorative ponds and fountains and even an extensive cactus garden. Circling back we passed the zoo (just as it closed – perhaps another time) and descended once more in to the city to catch the tram back before it was too dark to work out which stop to get off at. Although I shouldn’t have worried as the corner of our street had the local Hooters on it, with a large illuminated sign to guide us home.
That evening we had intended to seek out a place called International World of Curry (or at least we thought it was called that but in fact it is just called World Curry). We enquired about it to the middle aged English woman (who appeared to have some connection to the hostel, but I never ascertained what, and seemed to be self appointed Hostel Mother) but she put us off, saying that they sold nothing that an Englishman would call curry, sending us elsewhere instead. Upon arrival at her recommended eatery there was a queue out the door, which whilst testament to its excellence, was no use to a pair of hungry Brit’s. So we went around the corner and found the less busy Thai Village for some much needed ginger chicken. Incidentally, by the time we left this place was also full.
That night (indeed almost every night) at the hostel there was a keg party on the deck, and as we had found that leaving the next day for Las Vegas was going to be a problem (arriving Vegas on Saturday = Non-reving nightmare), we wouldn’t have an early start as we were going to chill in San Diego for an extra day. The keg party, after the preliminary beer-pong tournament was finished, was good fun, lively without being rowdy. It was nice to be out on the deck looking out over the beach the and moonlit waves that broke on it. The only thing between the edge of the deck and the start of the beach was a meter or so of foot/cycle path, which remained surprisingly busy late into the night. Having had a number of long days recently, I didn’t stay up all that late into the night, I wondered if I was getting too old for this kind of caper, or if I had just got old enough to know better than to stay up way past my bedtime. Hmm…
The next day was filled with quite a lot of milling about, the weather for the first time on the trip was rather cold and grey and we weren’t feeling all that energetic anyway. I think all the early mornings, late nights, time zone changes and days spent walking everywhere had caught up with us – so absolutely nothing to do with the keg party at all, I wouldn’t think. So we sorted out which flights to aim for the next morning and took a walk down the beach in the other direction, towards Ocean Beach and its associated funfair style seaside attractions. This helped keep us amused until it was time for the highlight of the day. That evening back at the hostel was roast dinner night. It wasn’t free but it was worth the money. The English (hostel mother) woman (who’s name I really should have remembered) was making an English style roast chicken dinner, which was rather excellent and saved us from another night of burgers or burritos. The rest of the evening was spent keeping out of the way of another keg party, although this one was far less well attended than the night before.
The morning of our departure from relaxing Mission Beach was gloriously sunny once more. We navigated our way back to the airport and had a slightly uncertain wait to see if the plane would be full or not. As luck would have it, there were two seats left, so on we got. Then, having settled in, we were asked to get off again while they checked the weight and balance of the plane. Apparently there were high winds in Las Vegas and needed to be sure the plane wasn’t overloaded for the conditions. Well, I am not entirely sure what happened next, as far as I could work out they couldn’t be bothered to wait for the results of the weight and balance readings to arrive, so they just shut the doors and left. This was a bit of a shame seeing as we already had a day less in Vegas than we had planned, but to be fair we had been pretty lucky with the non-reving up to now. After consulting the various timetables for planes with space on them we decided our only chance of getting there now was to wait until 4:30pm and get a plane first to Phoenix and then on the Las Vegas. It was a fairly dull wait and meant that we didn’t arrive in Las Vegas until about 7pm, it was already almost dark and having anticipated an earlier arrival, hadn’t booked anywhere to stay. On the up side though, Richard had a friend who now lives in town so she picked us up from the airport and helped us find a hotel. Had we arrived on schedule we had hoped to pick up a cheap hotel room, unfortunately by this time of the night the hotel prices had been going up by the hour for several hours, so our first gamble in Vegas hadn’t paid off. Oh well, you win some you lose some.
Having dumped all our stuff in our hotel room in The Excalibur, a hotel/casino styled like a fairytale castle, we set off to explore The Strip. Fortunately for us Rich’s friend (who I shall refer to as Katie from now on) was tagging along for the evening, so she got to play tour guide, the lucky thing. After a quick stop for pizza in the narrow streeted food court of New York New York we paused for liquid refreshment in an Irish Pub called Four Fine Irishmen. Normally when off travelling I tend to avoid places that I could just as easily find back home and favour those that are native to the country. However, Las Vegas is such a totally fake place, where you can find reproductions or stereotypes of so many countries and cultures, that to go to an Irish Pub and drink imported Bass ale actually is taking part in the local culture. Or at least that’s how I justified it. Next on the tour we passed through the MGM Grand casino to pass the lion enclosure, which unfortunately was empty at the time. Then on down The Strip just absorbing the atmosphere and all the glittery lights. It has to be said that the sheer scale of Vegas is never really captured by the TV shows and films that show it, everything is huge and the distances you end up walking without really thinking about it are considerable. After quite a bit more meandering we arrived at a smaller casino called Bill’s Gambling Hall & Saloon. Here we played some video blackjack before continuing on to another Irish bar/casino called O’Sheas where we played the longest single game of beer-pong I have ever played. Katie won, but in our defence (Rich and I were playing as a team) the table was longer than I remember them being in the past. By the time we were on the long trek back to the hotel it was closing in on 5am, which quite frankly amazed me, I rarely lose track of time but on that night I was way off. I suppose that if time flies when you’re having fun then I don’t normally have quite that much fun.
The next morning we had a suitably late start (for once) before seeking out our hotels all you can eat buffet. This was my first experience of such a gastronomic onslaught, and I hadn’t been properly primed in the various strategies that need to be used to get the most from such a pick-n-mix of global cuisine. Consequently I, like a greedy child in a free sweet shop, piled my plate high with a discordant tower of flavours and styles. All in all an excellent brunch, but I will know to plan it better next time. From here we continued our tour of the Strip with a visit to the World’s Largest Gift Shop, where their best selling item is Polly The Insulting Parrot, who shouts all manner of politically incorrect insults and obscenities at passersby. Then it was back to touring the various grand hotel/casino complexes. We wandered along the gondola filled canals of the Venetian, with its sky painted ceiling that is permanently illuminated to feel like early sundown. Then on to Caesar’s Palace for a quick photo stop with their golden statue of Caesar and finally to watch the choreographed fountain show outside the Bellagio, which really was very good.
By this time it had got dark again and our time in Las Vegas was almost at an end, we stopped for a well earned rest in a cafe beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris that was styled like an old underground station with cracked yellowed glazed tiles and low vaulted ceilings. We had really only been in Vegas for a day and a half but I was absolutely exhausted, but then as I said at the time, if you leave Vegas feeling refreshed, you’ve done something wrong.
So, that was it, time to wave goodbye to the warm and sunny western America and make the long and somewhat tedious journey back to upstate New York. The first non-rev gamble went fine and landed us in Philadelphia for a 4 hour wait. The second was less certain as the plane was much smaller and the weather had forecast freezing rain, which I was told could be a serious problem, but our luck held and soon we were back in cold snowy eastern America. This not only signalled the end of Richard and I’s joint travelling but was very nearly the end of my whole trip too. In the remaining days I was taken to visit many of Rich’s friends, relatives and work colleagues and also managed to watch some advanced glass blowing and go ice skating (which I am still terrible at). Then it was time to say goodbye and chance a couple of final non-rev’s to get me back to NYC. Unfortunately the threat of bad weather loomed again so I opted for a 3:30am start to get me back to Philadelphia with some time to spare, which may or may not have been useful as I then had to wait while 2 full planes left and the third was delayed, with other higher priority non-revers queuing up behind me. Even when I did get on the plane it sat on the runway for another half an hour, but at least I made it in the end.
I met up with Emily again when she finished work and as we walked up Wall Street to get the subway it started to rain. This was the official end of my good weather streak, the rain worsened until it was a sustained downpour that continued until I flew home the next afternoon. We weren’t about to allow this to ruin my last night in New York, so in nostalgic honour of our original country of meeting we went to an Australian bar and had kangaroo steak and drank imported Australian beer. The conversation, as it so often does on such occasions, turned to travels past and future and it would seem that Emily’s thoughts had been of jetting to foreign lands, perhaps even back to Oz. As you can imagine I am familiar with such thoughts, I think it is one of the symptoms of the ‘Travel Bug’, I assume some type of unclassified parasitic protozoan, that once caught can seem to go away only to recur periodically. The side effects of this ‘Bug’ can cause tremendous disruption to ones life, often resulting in a temporary replacement of routine mundanity with amazing adventures.
To all intents and purposes that wraps up this set of adventures. I hope you have enjoyed them. I know I have enjoyed the chance to write about my meagre meanderings again after such a period of absence, and unsurprisingly hope to be writing about more adventures soon. Having said that, I don’t have any concrete plans for the time being. But rest assured, as always you may, that when I do haul on my tired green backpack once more, and take that important first step out my front door, you’ll be amongst the first to know. Until then my readers, until then.
David.