Hi to everyone! I’m now writing from my own bedroom, which must mean I’m home. And since that means free internet, this is a really really long one. I applaud you if you get to the end. This may be the time to grab a cold beer.
I left you all somewhere in the middle of Colorado after my first week of two there. Well the day after I sent that email was July 7 and my mum called at 6am that morning my time, to stop me from waking up hearing the reports of bombings and not being able to get through. It was all a bit bizarre really, being so far away and just hearing and reading reports (Barry doesn’t have a TV) meant that it didn’t really seem real. I knew everyone was fine, but all the same I had a real urge to be home at a time like that. Although of course I was probably safer away from London. That night we went down to Pearl Street, a very cool pedestrian mall which has a live band playing every Thursday night. The night we went it was a woman named Hazel Miller, who had a great band with her and did a great job, especially of R.E.S.P.E.C.T! The rest of the week was also pretty busy, we went out to dinner with Barry’s work people to a great pizza restaurant where I kept running between the grown ups table and Cory’s table. Afterwards we went to an outdoor cinema and saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I babysat for Cory’s soon to be stepsisters, who are two very sweet little girls of 7 and 10. Spending most of my time with Lindsey (the 10 year old) as Laurel was at a gymnastics camp, we went to movies, shopped and baked cakes. I got to see Bewitched, which I wasn’t all that impressed with.
Colorado Road Trip
At the weekend before I left, Barry and I packed up the car and ran off on a whistle-stop tour of middle Colorado. I got to see a lot more of the Rockies than I’d seen before, including some cute little mountain towns that are now becoming yuppified. Aspen was an interesting one, being out of the ski season it was still amazingly busy but the people there clearly have money and with houses at the $100,000,000+ mark it’s certainly no cute little mountain town. But it does have a certain charm and I’m sure I could appreciate it more in the ski season if it weren’t for the $75 a day lift passes. So we grabbed some drinks and pressed on through some astounding scenery, some of which was very reminiscent of New Zealand. We camped the night in a place I can’t remember the name of, somewhere in the mountains. We met a girl there who also had a guitar with her, so we played around with those for a while ( Barry has a very neat little backpacking guitar which I started learning to play while I was staying there). The next day we continued on our tour and arrived at a town called Crested Butte. Which is another of these rapidly expanding mountain towns, but still has a very sweet heart to it, plus it helps being set in award winning scenery. We drove on and eventually made our way back to Boulder, where a shower was very welcome. I got to see a slideshow of Barry’s pictures of Tibet, which very just amazing. I want to go to Tibet now. Once again it was time for me to pack up everything and head on to my next and last stop. To do that I had to get up at 4am the next morning to get to the airport.
I was flying to New York via Dallas, which as a lot of you probably no is a long way in something quite like, but not entirely, the wrong direction. But it was a cheap flight so I can’t complain too much. Jon was flying in from Canada and we were supposed to meet at JFK at 3:30pm, when conveniently, both our flights were scheduled to land. When I got on my plane at Dallas, they told us to expect a two hour delay due to bad weather in NY. I left Jon a message, as expectedly his phone was off, and just had to hope he’d get it and wouldn’t complain too much at having to wait for me. So we sat in the plane for near on two hours, were told by the captain that all was well for our take off time, only to be followed up by an announcement that there was a mechanical problem with the hydraulics, so we were going back to the gate. Luckily, it was only a minor problem with an easy fix, but I had envisaged them unloading us all and trying to get us on another plane a couple more hours later. So finally we took off and I got to JFK at 7. After getting a bit curious as to why Jon wasn’t there to meet me I called his cell phone to find his outgoing message was now for me, telling me his flights had changed and he’d now be landing in La Guardia airport at about 10pm. And then he’d come to JFK. Lots of phone calls later and some much appreciated help from Barry, we worked out what flight he was on and that he wouldn’t now be landing till midnight. So I left him a message telling him to go straight to the hotel and that I’d just meet him there, crossing my fingers that he’d get it. What I found out later was that he’d actually read his ticket wrong and so missed his flight! It was quite lucky he actually got there the same day as me, which he eventually did, although his luggage didn’t join us until two days later. But despite those difficulties it did all work out and we had a great 10 days in New York.
Hotel 31
We’d found a little hotel, that for a pretty reasonable price we got a nice room, with the very important addition of air conditioning, in a great location (31st street, 5 blocks from the empire state building). It was hot in New York, and not just sunny hot, but humid too. The day before I left it was up to 105 degrees. I was offered the chance of preparing for New York in Colorado by taking a sauna. Intended as a joke I think, but so real. Some days it was tough just going outside. But we did, and considering that, I think, got to see a lot of the city. A large chunk of that involved shopping, but it was essential, I didn’t want to come back with American dollars did I?
Times Square
We also got to see most of the famous sights, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Chrysler building, Wall street, 5th Avenue and the World Trade Centre site. We had fun looking into the shops on 5th avenue, where I found a Burberry bag in the bargain bin at Saks which was reduced to only $700 (no I didn’t buy it). Jon tried on a $2000 watch in Macy’s (Which is, by the way, the largest store in the world). It was on one of these shopping expeditions where yet another of the great travelling coincidences occurred. Back when we were in New Zealand, we met loads of people on the kiwi bus including three English girls. After NZ Jon went to Fiji, and while building a raft on the beach, ran into them again. Well after Fiji, they came to Hawaii, where they ran into me. They told me how they’d seen Jon etc and how he’d done something weird to his hair . But then in The Radio shack in the basement of the Manhattan Mall Jon ran into them yet again. I don’t even want to know what the probability of that is, but I’d imagine it could closely resemble a phone number.
A highlight of NY for me was going to see a baseball game. Now I knew nothing about the game before going, so Jon religiously had it playing in the room, purely for my sake so he could teach me all about it. I’m sure. But I do think I understand the basics now and had a great time at the game. We saw the New York Mets play the LA Dodgers (Mets won 6-0 if I remember right).
Shea Stadium
The atmosphere there was so much fun and I got the privilege of spending 4 whole dollars on a bottle of water. Nothing really, compared to the $7 for Jon’s beer.
We met some of the people that Jon had met on his travels. Anders and Frej are two Norwegian boys he met in Fiji and we saw quite a bit of them, including a trip to the ESPN sports bar in Times Square and dinner in Little Italy. They were really nice guys and it was interesting being around travellers again since I really left that all behind in LA. But I got to have the same old conversations with them… “Where’ve you been, where are you going? Remember Cheeky Monkeys?!” We also met a couple who live in New Jersey who he’d met in China. They took us out to the best vegetarian restaurant I’ve ever been to, where the menu had 16 fake chicken dishes, 10 fake beef dishes and even fake calamari, shellfish and crab. Jon (a big meat eater) eyed all this very suspiciously before I could persuade him to try mine. After which, he promptly exclaimed it must be chicken and ate the rest.
New York at night
We went up the top of the Empire State building at night. The queues trying to get up there and the security we had to go through were endless just to get to the first lift, which only took us to the 80th floor, where we had to get out queue again, this time in a shabby, non air conditioned room, just to go up the last 6 floors. But we got there in the end. On the way up we’d been promised the most amazing view we’d ever seen. We regarded this comment loosely after between us having walked the great wall of china, snorkelled and scuba dived the great barrier reef, hiked on a glacier, jumped out of an airplane and hiked a volcano, we weren’t sure it was directed at us. But once we got up there it was undeniably beautiful. I’d love to be up there when there are less people there. It was almost peaceful, the view said enough. New York was just laid out before us all lit up, and it does take your breath away.
That almost brought the end of my trip, we both left in the evening so we spent the day in central park just enjoying the serenity of the place before going back to the hotel, packing up my stuff one last time and heading off to the airport. For this end of my trip Jon surprised me with a stretch limo ride to the airport!
Limo
I’d never been in one before and this one was a 9 person limo, just for us. It was a really great way to leave New York (if there is a great way to leave New York) and really made me realise that this was it, the end of my trip. I’d made it, all the way around the world, six months away from home, met new people, done some crazy things, been to places I’d always wanted to go and seen some astounding sights. I dreamed about this trip for 4 years beforehand. And now it was over. On top of that I had to say goodbye to Jon. Then I had to sit on a plane for 7 hours.
I made it home, eventually got my bags, rolled through customs and found my Dad and Kate waiting for me. So now I’m home. And I’m partly glad, it’s great beyond words to see my friends and family again. But already I have itchy feet. I have to go again; already my next trip is in the planning stages. This was not the big trip but the first of many. I don’t really have words to describe it (although those that have been reading my emails will disagree I’m sure!). If you’ve got the urge to travel, do it. I won’t lie and say it isn’t sometimes scary but it really is the most amazing thing. It’s kind of cheesy but this is one of my favourite quotes at the moment:
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.”
Thanks for reading, I wish you all many breath taking moments
Sarah xxxx
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