Cheers to Jarek and Evelyn!

Just as we were leaving New York, Johnny was treated to a true Big Apple experience: the man loading his (let's face it, overstuffed) suitcase on to the bus called him back to tell him it was too heavy, and he'd have to take it back into the terminal to get weighed and pay an additional $20. The man then helpfully pointed out that we'd probably miss the bus if we went back inside... so alternatively we could just give him the $20 right there and then and no more would be said. Given that we'd only paid $15 each for the bus trip, we think he did pretty well out of us. An expensive but amusing lesson of how things work in New York.

4 hours later we arrived in Boston, and were greeted warmly by our friends Jarek and Evelyn. They've been living in Vancouver for the past few years but happened to be staying in Boston for 3 months, in a lovely, spacious, Agilent-funded studio apartment downtown which, luckily for us, had a sofa bed! Another plus for us was that they've adopted a crazy kitten named Dot, who provided much entertainment and reminded us just how much we miss our own cat Tuesday (we'll see you soon Tuesy!)

Fortunately our visit fell on a weekend, and Jarek and Evelyn were both free to show us the sights of Boston, several of which involved drinking! One of our first stops was the Cheers bar, where the exterior shots were filmed for the long-running TV show.

Naturally we stopped for a beer, downing a few pints of the local Samuel Adams ale. We downed a few more the next day at the "authentic replica" of the Cheers bar, which is in a totally different location in the historic Faneuil hall marketplace, and has absolutely no connection whatsoever with the TV show. It doesn't even look like the Cheers bar!

Boston is really well set out for walking so on Sunday we took a stroll along the Freedom Trail, which starts out in the lovely Boston Common and follows a red bricked line through the city, passing many places of historical significance along the way. Boston was the site of the American Revolution and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and many of the patriots involved are buried in the cemeteries.

Samuel Adams' Grave:


Tribute to Paul Revere and his famous ride to warn his compatriots of the approaching British army:

The Old State House, where the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed:


Midshipwoman Bec on board the USS Constitution:


Taking a well-earned break from sight-seeing in the USS Constitution Museum:


We finished up our visit with a true taste of New England: clam chowder in a bread bowl, seriously yummy stuff. Thanks Jarek and Evelyn for your warm hospitality and great conversation, it was great to see you guys and we hope to repay the favour when you visit England.

New York, New York

Wow! How to summarise New York and not fill up the Internet with words? Better use bullet points. All at once, New York is:

• Hectic (Times Square, Downtown)
• Serene (Central Park)
• Reflective (Ellis Island Immigration Museum, Ground Zero)
• Manic (Everywhere else)
• Glossy (5th Avenue, Broadway shows); yet
• Grotty (Bronx, Harlem, Queens)

We expected it to be big, we just didn't realise just how MASSIVE it would be. Luckily Bec had booked the superbly-located Hotel Mayfair, just off Broadway in Midtown Manhattan which allowed us to use all of the extensive subway network as well as milk the Hop-On Hop-Off (or HoHo as Johnny called them) tour buses leaving from Times Square.

Again, we did far too much to write about, so here are some highlights in pictures:

Johnny gets dazzled by Times Square's neon explosion:


Mangling Chopsticks Tom Hanks-style on the Big Piano at FAO Schwartz:


Obedient sea-lions put on a show at Central Park Zoo:


Bec makes a little friend at Central Park while listening to some Street Jazz with all the power-Moms:


Bec gets taken out to the ball game - Yankees beat Seattle 12-3!


Johnny at the US Open tennis:


The magnificent (and busy!) Grand Central station:


Central Park - how's the serenity?


Gotta do a Broadway show. We saw Curtains starring David Hyde Pierce, aka Niles from Frasier:


The crumpled remains of the globe that used to sit outside the World Trade Center, now forms the focal point of the memorial park:


With Lady Liberty:


A slightly hazy view from the Empire State over the Chrysler Building:


In New York, even the street signs have attitude:

Cloud, Meet Silver Lining...

Warning - this post is being written from Frankfurt airport - some slightly non-standard German expressions may accidentally slip into it.

We're off! Up at 3.15am to get a Lufthansa flight back to Frankfurt so we could get to Noo Yoik. Our flight had to wait 50 minutes for the skies over Frankfurt to clear, so our 90-minute connection was always going to be tight, but the airport staff lady manning the (absolutely hopelessly slow) security check assured all of us that all onward flights would wait for us. She lied. LIAR! SCHEISSENTALKEN! 20 metres further on we were told our flight was gone. ACH! GOTT IN HIMMEL!

Then we had the runaround as various airport and Lufthansa personnel pointed us to different desks and Lufthansa personnel, before finally a smiley Lufthansa man gave us boarding passes for a flight a couple of hours later. Only upon arriving at the gate did it become apparent that these were Standby tickets (or in my new-found German, der waitenseeticketen).

We then enjoyed a nice long wait in Frankfurt's battery-hen-farm-inspired airport, watching in amazement as Lufthansa staff ignored enormous queues of fuming passengers-to-be in order to belt seven shades of scheissen out of innocent barrier gates, four staff standing around watching a woman computer operator going the kick.

But then, a major twist in the tale. The time drew near for our standby tickets to be called out. We knew from peeking at the gate lady's computer screen (das greenscreenklunkenboxen) that we were pretty close to the top of the (Schindler's) list - but were we close enough?

Agonisingly, we heard names called, and watched lucky punters grab their tickets and gleefully scramble aboard. It seemed like we'd missed out by a whisker, until the gate lady (die fatekontroller) did one last pass to see if there were any seats left. There were - two. And they were for us. Hooray! But the good news didn't stop there. As the gate lady handed us our golden tickets she whispered "You're in luck. They are in business class".