Day 36 - New York City to London

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New York City to London - 34°c (NY)

And so, the final day of my trip has arrived! In many ways it doesn’t seem as though it was 36 days ago that I arrived to start my epic journey across America with time between then and now flying by so quickly. In just as many ways, it does. When I think about the things I’ve seen, the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met and the escapades we’ve shared, 36 days seems more like 136, with far too much action and adventure crammed into such a relatively short space of time for me to believe that it was ‘only’ 36. - My mind plays tricks into fooling me into thinking that it’s not possible to do and see so much in such a short time, and therefore it must have been longer. Saying goodbye to my family and friends, my home and my life seems as though it was so much longer ago than a matter of a mere 5 weeks. And so despite the fun and the amazing times, the people I’ve met, introduced myself to, shared my life with, and then said goodbye to, I know I’m ready to go home.

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The three of us (Aaron, Jen and I) woke up at 9:30am courtesy of my alarm, which I’d thankfully managed to set before I drifted off to sleep last night. With each of us extremely tired and worn out, none more so than I, it was a good job I did set the alarm as who knows what time we would have woken up of our own accord, and we wanted to get a few things done before we headed our separate ways later on.

After getting a few things packed in our respective cases in between taking our turns in the shower, we headed down to the club lounge for breakfast. Not particularly hungry (or enthused at being awake), I only managed a croissant and didn’t make full use of the ‘continental-style’ buffet on offer. After checking my emails, we briefly stopped back at the room to pick up our cameras and money, and walked the 6 blocks north to Central Park.

The sun was already high in the sky and the temperature was once again very hot and humid, with still no sign of an end to the freak New York heat wave. We wandered around Central Park for a while taking in it’s beauty, with the sun peeking between the trees and the surrounding towers peeking in between those, the peacefulness of being just a matter of minutes into the park and away from the hustle, bustle, noise and franticness of the New York City streets was something quite surreal. After walking around the city for the past couple of days and hearing so much noise, being somewhere tranquil like the park was both extremely welcome but also a somewhat strange atmosphere to get used to. With the park being so very vast, thanks to the aid of a map, we headed in the direction of the Central Park Zoo, bought our tickets and went in.

Over the next two hours we wandered around both inside buildings and out, looking at the various animals on display. Having not been to a zoo for many, many years, I found it quite interesting and really enjoyed seeing the animals playing around in their environments. Parrots, parakeets and other exotic birds flew around within a large enclosed sanctuary, flying from tree to tree, branch-to-branch overhead as we walked through. Every now and again one would land on a nearby branch just long enough for us to take their photo, before flying off again to another tree. After viewing the birds, we spotted some lemurs over in another section of the enclosure, sleeping and laying around on some rocks.

Once out of the enclosure, we went over to another part of the zoo where a large crowd was forming around a glass tank. Once we got closer and a few people moved out of the way, a giant polar bear greeted us, literally posing full-length upwards in the water between the sidewall and the glass wall in front of us! It was amazing and at first I didn’t think it could have been real! The way he (Gus) was positioned was so human-like and picture perfect that I honestly considered that it was a man inside a suit! Of course it was in fact real, and he was absolutely beautiful. Having never seen a polar bear before, I’d been quite excited about seeing one when I first thought about visiting Central Park zoo and reading that they had two. Gus was amazing, just staring right at us, moving around every now and again, kicking his legs and stretching his ‘arms’, posing for photos. He’d obviously gotten very people friendly from having visitors every day and stayed there for ages. It was quite surreal, and in some very strange way, seeing him with all of his fluffy white/blond fur and the shape of his nose and mouth, made me miss Roxy, our golden Labrador dog back home, so, so much. Although I can’t wait to see everyone back home, I truly can’t wait to see Roxy! So many people on the trip have been talking about their dogs back home and sharing photos, and I’ve been talking about Roxy and showing people photos of her too, and each time I do I get even more melancholy about not being able to give her a great big hug and play with her in the garden.

After moving on and spotting the other polar bear, Ida sleeping in a corner against some rocks, we went back outside again to see the monkeys. We spotted around half a dozen or so playing on some giant rocks in the centre of the zoo, surrounded by water and a fence. Two of them were literally racing around the rocks so fast that I could barely keep my camera on them long enough to take many photos! They were very funny, wrestling with one another, throwing one another in the water and running off. As we moved around the central area we spotted a tiny, tiny little monkey, probably not very old at all and exceptionally cute, sheltering from the sun under an archway on the rocks.

Next we went onto the penguin and puffin enclosure, which mercifully was fairly cold! With the penguins and puffins behind glass in a very cold artificial environment, the cool temperature was radiating out into the viewing area, and would have made for a great place to cool down, that is if it wasn’t for the terrible fishy smell that engulfed the entire area and encouraged us to leave even though it was so hot outside!

After taking a brief look at the gift shop, it was then time to head out of the zoo, out of Central Park and back to the hotel so that Aaron and Jen could catch their train home. Once they’d packed up the remainder of their things, we said our goodbyes in the hotel room. I told Jen how great it had been to meet her, and I thanked Aaron for all of his help whilst I’ve been over in America, what with not only organising the hotel in New York, but also for bringing me a second suitcase and for receiving the large boxes I’ve been sending him throughout my trip, full of the many things that wouldn’t fit inside my suitcase and on the coach. They left the hotel around 2:15pm so as to catch the subway and be at Penn Station in good time for their 3pm train.

I then took a shower and freshened up, before packing my suitcases, making sure to distribute the weight evenly. As I packed my things I couldn’t quite believe how I’d managed to buy so much during my 36 days away! When Aaron brought the things I’d been sending to him throughout the trip, up with him to New York, having not seen so many belongings and shopping for nearly a month, I’d forgotten just how much I’d bought at the beginning of my trip out in Hollywood, Los Angeles and Disneyland! Added to the souvenirs and shopping I’d collected during the remainder of the trip and after I’d finished sending things to him, it made for quite a task to fit everything within the two cases!

I left the room shortly before 4pm thanks to Aaron arranging a very late check out time for us and headed down to the club lounge where it was nice and quiet, to sit and wait until my airport shuttle arrived, as opposed to the lobby where it can get crazily busy with people and activity. And with two huge and heavy suitcases and a bulging backpack to take on the plane, I had a feeling I’d only be in the way down there anyway.

I spent the hour or so going through some photos, reminding myself of all the things I’d done, surfed the web and caught up with my diary, before heading down to the lobby shortly before 5:30pm when my shuttle arrived. So as to travel to the airport as cheaply as possible, I’d booked a shared-van shuttle ride, so there were several other people on board already, and as it turned out I was the last one to be picked up. The traffic at that time of day was crazily busy, and despite the fact that the driver drove much of the way like a complete maniac, weaving in and out of the traffic and subsequently getting beeped at, it still took nearly an hour and a half to get to JFK airport.

Once inside the terminal and in the queue, I bumped into fellow Brit, Danielle in the queue next to me, checking in for the same flight home. We’d already mentioned that we’d try to arrange to meet up at their airport, knowing that we would be on the same flight home, but coincidence and timing obviously occurred long before the need to message one another at the airport did.
As I checked in, the panic of my suitcases being over my baggage limit reached fever point, and as I placed them on the scales I took a deep breath. Amazingly and as though it had almost been planned, both cases weighed a combined total of 45kgs, and with a limit of 46kgs of checked baggage per passenger, I couldn’t have gotten any closer if I had tried to! I was completely dumbfounded, and I couldn’t help but wryly smile when the snooty guy at check in noticed that I was only 1kg below the limit!

After saying goodbye to my cases until the other end, Danielle and I headed into the main departure lounge and looked around some of the shops, before getting a freshly made baguette at one of the (expensive) shops. As our departure grew closer, once through security we sat and waited at the departure gate until we were called to board row by row.
Once down the tunnel and onto the plane, we headed down to our row. With Danielle in 62H and me in 62K, I thought it was cool that we were in the same row as one another with only a couple of seats between us, however once we reached row 62, we couldn’t believe that H & K were actually next to one another! Obviously the letters I and J don’t get used and so we sat down, happy that we’d both have one another to talk to on the journey home.

It took a while to get up in the air, with the airport being quite busy and us having to wait a while until the backlog of take-offs had cleared, but 45 minutes after leaving the terminal, we took off. We chatted for a while until our meal arrived, and we laughed at how it’s always a choice of “chicken or beef?” Once we’d finished, Danielle selected a film from the seat-back entertainment console, whilst I put my eye-mask on and tried to catch some sleep.


(A trip epilogue will follow soon!)

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