USA: And we’re off!

As I woke to the sounds of wheelie bins being blown down our street, it seemed pretty clear that the promised storm had indeed arrived. We kept an anxious eye on the flight departures, especially as cancellations began to be posted.

She’ll be right though, we thought (ok, hoped) – and turned out she was.

More of a concern for me was what I needed to get done at work. I must’ve had the demeanour of a mad woman as I darted round the office. I don’t like to leave my project this close to our end objective, but I have an excellent team and the world won’t stop turning just because I’m not there.

Nevertheless I was a few minutes late leaving. With Mike’s tone of voice earlier suggesting that any tardiness could put the whole operation at risk, I actually ran like a mad woman through the wet and windy Wellington CBD to our meeting place.

I should’ve had more faith in the she’ll be right logic. We were ready for our taxi pickup from home in good time, our calmness then ruffled by a battle with Air NZ’s touch-screen kiosks. (Select-properly-damn-you!)

Bye Wellington – no need to be sulky

A bumpy descent into a dreary looking Auckland preceded a walk over to the international terminal to find my parents and grandmother. They made the trip into the city to hang out for a while and see us off. Last time I saw Gran she was in hospital so it was good to see her looking back to normal.

Quick catch-up with Mum, Dad and Gran at Auckland International

Our next flight was delayed leaving by an hour as a result of a repair job for damage sustained to the aircraft by a vehicle earlier in the day. (Huh?)

Twelve tedious hours later we arrived late into a sunny San Fran that we could look at out the windows but not investigate further. Eventually making it through the various checkpoints and scans (we are now in the US of A after all) we had just enough time to transfer terminals and grab some food before the next flight.

Bye San Fran, we’ll visit you properly another day

Cue five more tedious hours…

It was well into the hours of darkness by now and as we got closer we could study the golden twinkle of populations below. We landed at Newark and found our shuttle which deposited us at our midtown Manhattan hotel a little after midnight.

Fancy chairs in the hotel lounge

In the wee hotel elevator

And now, around 1.30am, with occasional police sirens blaring in the neighbourhood, it’s fantastic to know we are finally in New York City.

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