After another ridiculous delayed connection through Salt Lake City I headed off to see Cassie up in Bozeman in Montana - Big Sky Country.
But not before managing to beg a $100 flight voucher from the ticket sales supervisor and a $7 meal voucher for the airport.
Well, after the marathon trip, I finally arrived in Austin. The State Capital of Texas. The Doctor lives here - studying at the University of Texas.
Austin is also the proud owner of the title "Live Music Capital of the USA", which I suppose in most instances also means that it's the Live Music Capital of the World?
Well, it took a mammoth degree of patience to handle the transport situation that was to greet me on leaving D.C. Apparently, the rails were being repaired and this required a bus ride - something I'd been avoiding like the plague!
The second day in D.C. was more relaxed. Just planned to see a few more things and then I was going to take it easy and would head off to Charlotte.
Planned to go to the Spy Museum which sounded quite cool. But, upon arrival and requiring a entrance fee of $15 I decided to go through the gift shop instead.
From New York on my way down to Charlotte, I thought I'd stop off in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C.
Having to wake up at 04:45 was not pleasant, but knowing that the subway in NY runs 24 hours I was a bit more confident that it would be easy to get to the station for my train to D.C. Unfortunately I didn't know that after hours the subway trains are completely different to the ones during normal hours. So, of course, I got on the wrong one! But, no worries - I rectified this amateur traveller's error and was soon at the station with enough time to get a doughnut for the trip.
A more relaxing day planned!
The snow was bucketing down and I was loving it! This is Northern Hemisphere weather and somehow I can't get enough of the snow.
Decided to go for a walk through that good old borough of Harlem despite that we were the only white people for like 50 miles and that it was snowing heavily!
A very interesting place indeed. Run-down old buildings mixed with modern shops and eateries. And, somehow, probably more hairdressers per square mile than any other place in the world!
Today was the day for museums. I'm always reluctant, hate being overdosed with cultural things that have absolutely no bearing on my life and are most of the time quite irrelevant. But, being in New York, and having most of the big museums right on our Upper West Side doorstep, we decided to take a look.
We walked down the road to the Natural History Museum. Apparently there are some nice exhibits! We arrived a bit early and it was still closed. So, we moved on. We crossed Central Park and headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
After expecting a slight hangover from drinking draught Budweiser the night before, I woke up damn early and surprisingly fresh! Maybe it's the cold! It's freezing here! With the wind chill factor it's about -2 to -5 deg. C!! My snowboarding jacket has been used every day!
We had breakfast and headed off straight downtown to the South Ferry! It was off to the Statue of Liberty. But, we went the cheap route and took the Staten Island ferry which goes past the statue and is free! Free! Got some great pictures and was amazed again with the enormity of the downtown skyline, and the gaping hole where the World Trade Center Towers were!
Well, it was off to New York from London. My first time in the Big Apple. I flew in to Newark airport in New Jersey after the most turbulent plane ride since the LADE trip in Argentina. Had long conversation on the plane with an old woman from New York. She was funny - gave me some good tips. Actually, the plane was full of geriatrics - must've been theire week off in London!
Immigrationn was interesting. Queues and queues of people (most not even speaking English) trying to get into the country. I managed to get to the counter after quite a wait and the official was surprisingly friendly. What a pleasure after Heathrow. The questions weren't bad, but I had to repeat 3 times I was going on holiday, then once in (what a relief), I had to repeat the same information to the customs official checking bags.
