The start of an overseas trip can sometimes
be a bit of an anti-climax: you’re excited about the adventure ahead, have
visions of far off places, have spent weeks planning and days packing your
bag…but before you really start you need to negotiate a sterile airport and
spend hours trapped in a plane. Anxiety rises around customs, the poor and
expensive coffee outside the gate.
This morning Billy and I started our
adventure the moment we set foot out the door at 5am. In the spirit of our hiking trip, we kept on
walking…all the way to the airport.
It’s pretty quiet in Sydney at this time of
morning, a few garbage trucks are out, but by the large, most houses are asleep
with the lights off. We passed by the
Henson Park Pub, recently sold and refurbished as a cosy local, with Resches on
tap, but it had closed long before.
We crossed the boundary between trendy
Newtown and more grungy Marrickville and immediately noticed the transition in
frontyards – from neat curated plots to concrete jungles and vegie patches. A few
red lights stood out on the industrial Sydenham road, but even these seemed
quiet at this time of morning.
A beacon of light announced that Double
Roasters Coffee was open at 6am. Fantastic! Bacon and egg rolls all around!
Refuelled with coffee we continued through the streets, natural light starting
to take over from the orange glow of the street lamps.
We paused briefly to appreciate the grandeur of Swedish design at Ikea before continuing quickly with our destination almost in sight.
We knew that the airport was close when we passed the distinctive Tempe Water Tower, an unusual
landmark along the flat approach to the airport, then crossed the Cooks River,
which was very serene in the early morning light.
The airport loomed ahead of us. It looked a
bit tricky to access – airport drive, trucks and overhead roads entangling our
destination for the morning, but this was a route that Billy had practiced
before, and we cut neatly through a carpark to arrive at the International
terminal. 7:10am and right on schedule!
Quick showers all round, we were refreshed
and ready to check-in for the long flight ahead. 12hrs to LA then a further
5hrs to JFK. The rest of our flight is best described by Billy's boarding pass map!
We had made it! It was an amazing feeling emerging from the subway onto the streets of NY. Walking down 9th Ave we were greeted by movie-like scenes: the heat rose up from the subway grills, yellow cabs bustled on the streets, and an NYPD car sped past with a distinctive, stuttering siren. YAY! We're in NY.
It didn't take long to find Diana and Leon's apartment in a typical NY building, filled with charm and a tall staircase. They are a really laid back couple and quickly helped us settle in and find all the important local places. A great tip was to go to the Westville for dinner, down on 18th St, where we nourished ourselves with smoky pulled pork and a light trout salad.
Exhausted from a long day of travelling, we've made it back to the apartment, temporarily putting ourselves on a sugar high with our first (of many I suspect) tub of Caramel Cone ice cream.
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