4am does exist. I don’t think it should. Nor do I think I should have to get up then.
Up at 4, quick shower, dress, and lug all our stuff out the door. We booked our flights quite soon after we decided to go, so we booked an 8am flight. 8am seemed like a reasonable hour. Getting up to be at the airport 3 hours before for an 8am international flight is not so reasonable.
We managed to check in with the lady, after our online checkin didn’t work, then our kiosk check-in didn’t work. She took a while – the computer was going slow, but she was very lovely and helpful, especially for it being 5am in the morning. She even sorted our seats so we were sitting together instead of separate. I want to send her chocolates. After that, we had to go through security. Shoes off, belts off etc etc. Forgot that custard counts as liquid, found out after we had gone through security, so we had to go back one at a time and eat as much as we could, otherwise we would just have to throw it out. After eating, we then had to go through USA Customs. I was taking an orange through (I thought it would be ok, as it was an orange from the USA, but no siree, not good), so we ended up going through extra screening to make sure we didn’t have anything else. Also, because we had been on a farm, they had to go find our checked bags, get them from wherever they were waiting, bring them to the special screening place, then scan them again. We had to sit around a lot. Then they had to send the bags back off to the plane.
Finally made it through, to sit and wait for our plane. First flight was 3-4 hours. Tea and cookies, and we watched Top Gear.
Changeover in Minneapolis (everything was snowy), then onto a little plane to fly to Newark, New Jersey. It seems that so many planes go through Minneapolis on their way to other locations. On the plane I slept for a bit, coz just soooo tired (my travel pillow immediately proved its worth!). We arrived at Newark Airport on time. Dale’s bag arrived, my bag, and the snowboard bag didn’t. After being the only one waiting alone, forlornly, by the empty carousel, I asked baggage services. Luckily my bags were only an hour behind me, on the next flight. Better than the people ahead of us in line, whose bags weren’t arriving till the next day. The thought of wearing the same smelly travel clothes for a couple of days made me sad. They also gave us free food vouchers while we waited. I bought a salad, knowing I should eat some veges at some point. Bags finally arrived, and Dale got the snowboard bag and ran off with it, and some poor guy came and took it off us..coz it was actually his. Turns out we had exactly the same snowboard bag. Our one came out soon after
We had booked to fly into Newark when we thought we would be staying in Manhatan, which we didn’t; ended up staying in Brooklyn. It meant a bit of travel once we arrived. We caught a sky train, then another train, then another train, then another train, all the way through the city to Brooklyn, where we only had a 2 block walk to our hostel. We are staying at NY Loft Hostel, which is really quite nice, it is a bit more of an upmarket hostel, although the shower next to our room is a sad one.
We grabbed dinner from the mexican food cart around the corner, and it was filled with delishuz. We sat down to briefly plan the next day, before falling asleep.
We have 6 days in New York, and need to make sure we do all the things we want to!
Bonus pictures of messy poutine from Vancouver 😀
Dale and Becca 