In the beginning was sleep, and sleep was disturbed and so began the epic journey over the pond!

The first leg of the journey began by car to Peterborough station, we we’re there before the staff started work, so that was early.

Nothing like a bit of Metro reading to start the day!

Adrenaline had clearly kicked in as we raced our suitcases up and over the bridge, and so we were on the train taking over all the regular commuter seats, reading, dozing, admiring the Pride and Prejudice morning sun rise!

We got in some weightlifting practice at London Kings Cross getting the suitcases on to the underground, Popeye would have been proud of us! Our challenge came later in the day when we had heave them all up millions of stairs! (Did anyone actually count them?)

As so, we made it to the airport!

We met Nay, who met Rachel’s very accurate description perfectly, complete with turquoise top and Roxy bag!

Slight hiccoup with the Weaver visa programme, a holiday isn’t a holiday if it was all plain sailing! So after tracking down a computer, shoving coins into the machine to make sure it didn’t run out Clare was allowed entry to the USA, for the SECOND time, so much for technology eh?!

We all weighed our bags… tense times, but we made it through, some people were clearly packing for 10 months not days! Clare was searched by security! It was clearly pick on Clare day!

The plane journey was good, I survived the airplane toilet after my childhood trauma of getting stuck in one.  Black Swan was probably not the best  movie to commence your holidays on, it lacked the feel good factor, but worth watching!

Gu pudding was Gu ey!

So of the several yellow taxi’s we could of picked, we ignore what the guide book says about sticking with yellow cabs and get ushered into a black huge car, with a driver named ANGEL. It was an interesting ride, less keen to talk about New York, more interested in getting us the best deal in town to get us back to the airport… talks of limo’s, 2 cabs, and his boss who owned the bus station! WE MADE IT AND PULLED UP OUTSIDE TO SEE SARAH LYNN – THE REAL LIFE NEW YORKER WAITING FOR US!

The apartment was our base, our home from home, a few minor issues, 2 of which provided lots of laughs.

 1) Clare making tea with a saucepan of boiling water.

 2) In true comedy style we arrived back to find all the electric was out, our inability to work the fuse box meant the handy man was called, just as he was about to take his last step up all those stairs…. There was light! Perfect timing!

I can’t quite put words down to describe Times Square and photos don’t quite capture the scale.

It was a bit of a Dorothy in Oz moment, we are not in Kansas anymore! Well we we’re definitely not  in Grantham anymore!

So with our first night underway we headed to our first American diner, burgers and fries all round, shakes and… gerkins – What’s that all about?!

America welcomed us with weather from home: RAIN and lots of it!

Bring on day 2! XOXO – Yay another sneaky American reference!