Worcester to New York

Victoria and I are woken by a number of alarms although I don’t know why we bother setting them as I neither of us get any sleep.

We are on the road by 4.30am and arrive at Birmingham Airport just after 5.00am.  I am still worrying about the weight of my bag as I have been unable to weigh it easily on the bathroom scales.  I am already checked in on-line and just drop my luggage off at the desk – miraculously it is half a kilo under!  Good job they don’t weigh my hand luggage as I can hardly lift it.

The flight to Amsterdam is quick and uneventful but I am not looking forward to the 5-hour stopover there, even if I do have the relative comfort of one of the private lounges.

In the lounge a nice man from a Houston computer company chats to me to wile away the time but I am still bored witless and am pleased when it is eventually time to board the Continental flight to New York.

I discover that the seat reservation system lies – the single seat that it showed is a double and the other seat is occupied by an elderly Dutchman.  He introduces himself to me as Gerry, shakes my hand and then gives me his life story (some of it quite interesting) but I would like to watch the film, especially as this particular plane is not equipped with the latest dip in, dip out entertainment system, and every time he begins to talk to me, I miss another part of the plot.

I manage to sleep for an hour or so and we land an hour earlier than my schedule says.  My luggage is almost the last piece to be thrown out of the black hole and onto the conveyor.  The immigration official looks me over very suspiciously as I have filled in the visa waiver form and I have a visa (they made us do this in St John so I think I am following procedure) but lets me in.  I check-in my luggage in for the next day’s flight and manage, eventually, to find the courtesy bus for my hotel.  On the bus, I find myself sitting with a planeload’s worth of Continental flight staff who think that I am Australian.  Or South African.

The hotel is close to the airport so the transfer only takes a few minutes.  I’m glad.  Newark is not pretty.  My room is comfortable, the bed is huge with lovely bed linen and after sending a couple of e-mails from the business centre, I settle down to watch “The Perfect Storm”, one of my less than brilliant ideas.  A good, no, excellent film but in view of next year …..

I fall asleep as soon as the film finishes.