New York - Wednesday 4th October

Well we've arrived in New York now - excellent flight with Virgin Atlantic. Rita had her spec cleaner, and two tubes of hand cream confiscated at Heathrow - she'd read all the notices about what you could & couldn't take but had failed to act accordingly. The flight was only a third full, which was great and we both managed a kip acroos the 4 middle seats at some point on the flight, luxury. After we landed we endured a 2 hour drive through NY rush hour in a people carrier type shared taxi, with a totally non-communicative driver (good at sign language).
Temperature last night in New York - at 8:44 p.m. was 78F. Lovely.

Again this morning it's like a summer's day (not a summer's day in NY fortunately).

Hello, my turn now. Leigh is now standing peering over my shoulder but this seat is so low down, I can't actually see the bloomin'keyboard!New York! New York! I feel like we are a couple of superfluous 'extras' in a movie set. This place is SO SO in one's face. Its like a three dimensional film set only we are not in cinema seats - we are moving with the flow, and all surrounding voices are that of Dustin Hoffman - even the female voices! The flow of traffic, made up of 80% of hooting yellow taxis, and people eating their breakfast, dinner, tea, supper, coffee breaks ON THE MOVE. Future shares should be in indigestion tablets. The service is good, everyone speaking loudly and clearly, everything geared to keep the place on the move, fast. Even the drains in the roads are smoking. Yup, you can actually see steam rising from the covers, intermittently when a yellow taxi isn't covering it!

We have booked our NY sightseeing tour bus jumping on and off for the next two days. We'll keep you posted. (You lucky bod!)