The lady is a tramp (New York)

Mindful of being in a rut we decided not to eat Italian for a third night in succession.  This proved to a little more of a challenge than first anticipated.  We went for a stroll trying to find an ATM as cash reserves were running low.  In the process we noted that every second restaurant was Italian.  There were also ATMs located every 100m or so depending on what part of town you are in.  Be warned an ATM is not an ATM.  So far I have been charged $3 for using one particular brand and $4 for another.  The bank sponsored ones are free to use, if you can locate one and so the search continued. The most common variety is seen on almost every corner, nice, handy, convenient and highway robbery.  The most common machine charges $5 a withdrawal and you can only take out $40.  That's not a bad profit for someone.  We kept walking and found a Citibank machine in the 7-11, no charge.

We literally walked across the street for dinner to what appears to be a relatively new restaurant, Virginia's.  The menu was a little upmarket, but the door was held open for us and we were told that there was no corkage for BYO tonight.  Sold.  Across to the other corner to the liquor store,  a bottle of Sancerre sauvignon purchased and back to Virginia's.  

The restaurant is small and the tables are closely packed.  There is also a bar area as is fashionable around East Village/Alphabet City.  It is a trendy establishment, largely populated by Gen Y all speaking loudly to be heard over the top of the 80s music - Hall and Oates.  No further comment required.  The food is fine dining on a mid-range budget.  I had Atlantic Bass in a saffron broth - yum, and Jayne had a corn risotto (and stuff), also yum.  Main courses were around $24 and they were delicious, as was dessert.  We will be back to try other dishes on the menu.

Central Park part 1 (we didn’t see it all – this time)

The real news of the day – I slept last night for the first time – oh, yeah! 6 hours.  Still tired when I woke up, but that is beginning to make up for the last few nights’ poor sleep.  Anyway, moving on.

We braved the subway once again, which was all good.  Underground is incredibly hot and humid and on the occasion when you have to wait for a train it becomes uncomfortable very quickly.  Given how hot we were, we let the first over-crowded train pass by; the reasoning was that the platform was so crowded there must be another train close behind.  And there was.  Air-conditioned, not crowded, well worth the two stops we had to travel.

Changing trains is far more complex in Tokyo where one wrong step can sweep you into a current of people going in a different direction and you can end up lost, Finding Nemo style.  We made our way to our next platform.  The train arrived quickly and was relatively sparsely populated.  A couple of stations further on it was a little more crowded and a very tall African-American man got on and squeezed himself in between the two people directly opposite us.  All subway carriages have seats down the sides of the carriage that face each other with open standing room in between.

Once comfortable, he yells out, in his deep gravelly voice, f***.  The carriage pauses, including the two young men who had been doing some X Factor duet moments prior.  He continues, “You all on the same train as me” and then some stuff I couldn’t catch.  The train stops and the lady next to him moves to another seat.  At the next stop the two songsters get off the train.  In the meantime the man has been making vey loud statements punctuated with the f-word.  After the boys have gone, he has plenty of space but it doesn’t seem enough and he starts smacking the seat beside him muttering and swearing and throwing his arms around.  I bravely avoid his eyes and am fixated on the map Jayne has and how many more stops we will share this journey with a madman.  At the next stop he throws one more F-grenade into the carriage and leaves.  Furtive looks of relief all round.  We had just become a community, unified by this poor man.  Shakespeare, I think, said that adversity makes strange bedfellows.

Shortly after, we too left the underground and ventured back up into the sunlight and humidity.  After a couple of almost correct orienteering decisions, we re-directed ourselves to 5^th Avenue and the top North East corner of Central Park.

Someone providing the NYPD with some work

Despite its size (834 acres), the traffic noise is never far away.  The ponds/lakes that we came across today all had some unpleasant olfactory action at the end point where the wind collected all the detritus.  Not pretty.  Aside from that, it was lovely, but lacked a spectacular view, apart from the striking juxtaposition of nature against the Manhattan skyline.  The other notable thing is you are never alone in Central Park – it is known as the people’s park and they certainly make good use of its diverse facilities – seats, grass, paths, courts, playing fields, gardens, cycle ways, fountains, lakes, playgrounds, even a castle of sorts and an amphitheatre for Shakespearean festivals.  The formal gardens are tended by avid bands of volunteers who move around in teams wearing green shirts.

The Jackie O reservoir

We walked down toward the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reservoir that once was the water reserve for the city.  I’d die before I drank anything from that polluted, algae-infected dam.  As we circumnavigated the perimeter, more energetic New Yorkers shuffled, jogged, ran and rode (sans helmets) around it.  Clearly some were in serious training.  There was more lycra than you’d see at a cyclist gathering – oops, they were there too.  It was hot, it was humid, all this activity was making me thirsty.  It was time to head for The Loeb Boathouse.

Would you drink that? It smells as good as it looks.

Don’t think we hadn’t earned a rest.  By this time we had walked over 7km.  Did I mention it was hot and humid dear reader?  Oh, OK.  We found the Boathouse before we made our next stop, the Alice in Wonderland statue.  It was almost 1:30pm.  The lunch rush should be almost over.  Incorrect.  If we wanted to wait – oh, maybe 45 minutes, we could take a beeper.  Time to re-hydrate, so the answer was yes.

We gathered our beeper and went to the outside bar and there were … no vacant tables.  We went to the bar and ordered drinks - uncharacteristically I opted for beer.  Jayne lassoed a couple of stools and the nice young Australian couple sitting at the bar moved down to allow us space – you can’t block the serving area.  There we sat, watching the barmaid (can you still use that term?) pour wine into glasses with such careless force that I would have been happy to wring out the bar mat at the end of the day and fill a bottle or two.

Shakespeare's garden

More of Shakespeare's garden

One beer turned into two as 45 minutes grew into an hour.  I drew the line at a third pint before food.  We drifted back over to the restaurant to see what progress we had made in the queue.  Almost there, two more parties in front of us.  So we waited and watched – people.  And then, “It was worth the wait, you have a waterside table” said the girl at the desk.  It was true - it was a great spot.

The view from our table

Menus arrived.  "Order everything and eat slowly," I said to Jayne. "I want to make other people wait too."  The menu listed ‘Appetisers’ and ‘Entrees’ - no mains.  Hmmm.  Confusion.  Good wine list.  Happy days.  I selected the wine and Jayne asked the waiter the obvious question.  When he had gone to give us time to deliberate, the lady at the next table, from Perth, explained that this was the same as ‘Entrée’ and ‘Main Course’ at home.  Similar to what the waiter had tried to explain.  Jayne was well behaved in not explaining to all concerned the etymology of the word ‘entrée’.

We chatted to the West Australians for a while – they have a son living here – and then relaxed into our wine and food.  Both were delectable and the serving sizes were, well, American.  I ordered the New York strip steak for ‘entrée’ thinking it would be strips of sirloin, you know, a New York cut.  No no no.  It was a steak the size of Texas.  There will be no need for dinner tonight.

Over lunch, we amused ourselves by critiquing the rowing styles on display on the lake.  It was a miracle that there were no collisions and that people made it back to shore without assistance - a lot of 'unco' oar action was on display.  We also spotted a sizeable turtle coming up for air in the lake just adjacent to our table.  As we whiled the afternoon away, the cloud cover increased and some of the taller buildings began to disappear.  Rain and thunderstorms were predicted for the evening so we thought it best to have a shot at peak hour travel on the Subway, but only after locating the statue of Alice.

Alice

An uneventful trip home saw us safely in the apartment before any rain.  Disappointingly, the internet had died in our absence.  Being such a tech-savvy geek (I’m wearing my glasses), I planned a course of action.  Turn the modem off and then on again.  Nothing.  Turn the wifi link on my computer off and then back on … blah blah blah.  Tried everything, nothing worked. Jayne phoned the emergency number – it will be fixed by 9pm.  At this time they have another hour.  I’m not sure they realise that there will be people in Australia who have to commence their day without reading of our exploits.  This is an emergency.

And the title, since you've made it this far, a song by Lady Ella herself.  The full quote, "I like a prize fight that isn't a fake.  I like the rowing on Central Park lake. I go to Opera and stay wide awake. That's why the lady is ..."

And tomorrow?  Well that is largely weather dependent, but we shall probably commence our New York City Pass and explore the Guggenheim.

A knife, a fork, a bottle and a cork that's the way you spell New York.

Thanks to Dillinger for today's song reference.

I only briefly touched on what we did yesterday, so here is a fuller version plus today's expedition.

The subway

We chose Sunday to try out the subway because we had heard conflicting reports of how easy/difficult it is to navigate.  As it turns out, it is both.  It is easy once you get the general idea, but it differs significantly from Le Metro or any other underground I've used in Europe or Australia.   It's not a major difference but local knowledge helps.  

The basis of the Subway is it runs uptown or downtown, so some basic geography and map reading skills are essential.  The most confusing part is that, at some stations, the different sides of the platform can only be accessed from discrete entries. For example, 1st Ave on the L line, which we use, has separate entrances: the SE corner for downtown and the NE corner for uptown and there is NO underground access to the other platform if you walk through the incorrect gate.

A complete map of the Subway is absolutely essential and so is understanding the key.  Stations marked with a black circle are local, i.e. part of an all stations run.  Those with a white circle are express.  This is not stated anywhere that we have seen but it is basic knowledge for New Yorkers.

Other than that it is reasonably efficient, albeit stifflingly hot underground, but the trains are air conditioned.

Mass at St Pats

It wasn't the most inspiring Mass to which I've ever been, but it was 1pm and crowded.  The building itself is beautiful, the pale sandstone contrasts with the surrounding buildings, the stained glass windows are exquisite and I'd love to see the rose window lit from outside.  Unlike Notre Dame in Paris, the continuous tourist foot traffic doesn't impact on the service.  The disappointment was with the sound system, as we could barely make out what the priest was saying.  Lucky we are regular attendees so we knew what was happening (plus we found Missals in the pews).

In a fascinating contrast, as we walked past I noticed a Jewish man, complete with yamulca, leaning against the Cathedral wall next to the door, smoking. Perhaps he was waiting for his son (haha, that's too much).

The United Nations

The Empire State

Just down the street from St Pats is the United Nations building and its flags. Sadly the defining aspect of this area was the smell of urine.  Now I've heard plenty of criticism of Paris for a similar reason, but the French seem to deal with the clean up much better.  There have been several parts of New York that we have wandered through in the last few days that had a similarly unpleasant perfume.

The Australian flag was very difficult to spot amongst all the other Union Jacks

The French exhibition

We thought we would walk down 5th Avenue, well, because we could.  I can't remember the cross street but we walked past the Empire State towards Little Italy.  There was a massive police presence, even for America and road barricades everywhere.  We asked a shopkeeper what was happening.  In typical New York fashion, he shrugged his shoulders, "Dunno.  Maybe there was a parade yesterday or something."

Times Square the French Exhibition

As we found out shortly after, the police were there to escort the French President, Monsieur Hollande, who was visiting New York, amongst other reasons, to be a part of the French Exhibition in Times Square.  So we turned our attention in that direction.  Oh joy. A bigger crowd than we'd left.  The exhibition was like Expo for those of you old enough to remember - a big advertisement.  There was food etc etc but you needed to buy coupons to purchase a sample, at $5 a plate we passed. Although we did stop to talk to the guy who was spruiking Chamonix and the Alpes because we haven't been there.  Jayne opens with "bonjour" and explains in English that we have been to most of France blah blah... how utterly soul destroying when the dude opens his mouth and replies in a beautiful Texan drawl.  Sad face with tears.  But in walking through the crowds we heard plenty of French accents.

Dinner and the F word

In the evening, we returned to the scene of the crime, Eleven B and had a pizza.  There is still some in the fridge.  It was Sunday night so it was pretty quiet, but you could hear the F word being dropped left, right and centre.  There were more F ... maybe I won't use that analogy, you can come up with your own. I've heard it on the street walking around, I've heard it float up from the street while trying to sleep and I heard it from the kitchen of the restaurant, from behind the bar and from customers. I'm beginning to think it's NewYork's most popular word.

Dinner was great, again, and we had a chat with the guy who orders the wine.  We discussed price points, what sells when and how the change of seasons affects customer choice.  We also discussed how stingy with tipping his young hipster clientele are.  He pointed out the best wine on the list and said we had to order it next time we were in and he would look after us.   I love New York.

The Staten Island Ferry

The lady herself

One of the best places to view the Statue of Liberty is from the Staten Island ferry, so we've been told. After Jayne poured over the Subway, she declared we could get there with only one change of train. The day was not what we had hoped, it was overcast and just as hazy, but with the forecast closing in on us this week, we thought it best to stay outdoors while we can.

The ferry ride was pleasant enough and the view was very good although the touters who lined the road kept telling us the best view is from a Statue Of LIberty tour.   We are going to do this later anyway, so she will reappear.







The Highline

This should be the sign at the beginning of the walk

The Highline is a wonderful piece of ingenuity.  They have taken an old train line and turned it inot a garden walk above the city.  In most places it was peaceful, except for the crowd and whingeing children and me, swearing under my breath at the inconsiderate morons who meanered all over the path like lobotomised lab rats.  Its the United States of Amreica people, we walk on the right, just like we drive.  It's not that difficult.  Then there were the infirm and the dawdlers who just blocked the path by being slow.  Or the Gen Y fashionistas who were about to halt proceedings for a selfie.  They were easily spotted, teen girls with too much make-up who beagn flicking and coiffing their hair when they approached a likely selfie-site.  As an aside, did you know more people have died this year taking selfies than have been taken by sharks - there's a win for the gene pool.  And of course there were those who are so wrapped up in themsleves that can't see anyone else anyway and are perpetually in everyone's way.

Anyway, the Highline is great.  They have a similar thing in Dallas.  There is an expressway that divided the city and not much could be done about that, so they built a garden over the top it.  Brilliant.

The beginning

Random flower shot

Wall art along the walk

The old rails are still there

Thought you might like this shop Cait.

And now dear friends it's time for dinner, I know not what, I know not where ... we are about to go for another walk.  Tomorrow, weather permitting it will be Central Park.

au demain

New York state of mind

OMG. This is the amended version, the one with the title. I didn't realise I'd published it without any title at all :(  If you've read it already, sorry, I wasn't trying to trick you.  So, thanks to Billy Joel for the title.

So, we made it!  Not to New York, that was never in doubt, into the apartment.  There's a certain act of faith involved when you use AirBnB or HomeAway to book accommodation online.  We had a key arrive in the mail for the apartment block back in July but I didn't get to test it until last evening.

When we reached the airport we had to phone the car company we had pre-booked to give them our exact location.  The three clusters of phones  that I could see near baggage claim were standing alone, strong and silent like ring-barked trees contrasting the movement and noise of the airport.  Each of them had a yellow sticker, like the tape used to identify trees that are to be removed because they are dead or dying.  All the public phones I could see were identified by a yellow sticker and were "no longer in service" awaiting removal.  Easily resolved, use my mobile.  A short time later we were standing outside waiting for our car watching the local police force move cars on who were not "loading or unloading passengers".  I had a strange yearning to watch Flying High.

The car arrives, a Lincoln something-or-other with the biggest boot - I wonder if gangsters used cars like this - the boot was so deep you could easily fit three bodies in there, but I digress.  Into the car and out onto the motorway - America might worship the car more than Australians, but freeways in both countries have given way to toll ways.  I don't know how long the drive actually was - the trip to Manhattan itself didn't seem so long until we left the motorway  - then it was like being at home again.  The time was soaked up as we looked around trying to spot familiar landmarks, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building proved easy targets.  Into the streets which were teeming with people - there's your first contrast to Dallas - this place is alive.  And I love it already.

Finally we arrived at our destination, East Village, East 11th Street, in between Avenue B and Avenue C.  Never again will I suggest the cartographers who named early Australia lacked imagination.  We have arrived after a magical car trip.  I hope I can locate some of the places we drove past, Lafeyette's in particular.  Bags unloaded, standing on the pavement, get the key out and a local resident saw we struggling, stopped, went back and opened the door for us.  Nice.

Jayne standing outside of the aparmtent - we did a lot of that

We are on the first floor and the key was to the building, not the apartment.  I left Jayne with the bags and went upstairs to open the apartment.  The code we have doesn't work. I try again, this time holding the handle down, then up, then pressing a button that causes the panel to light up, but each time I push the last button, a red light comes on.  I went back downstairs and calmly informed Jayne of our predicament (like that really happened).  Ok. Be calm.  I remembered there was a youtube clip of how to use the combination lock on the door.  Get the phone out, type in the incredibly long address and "clip could not be found".  Jayne goes upstairs and tries.  No luck.  Then I notice on the letterbox for the apartment next to ours is the name Chu.  That is the last name of the apartment manager.  Jayne knocks on the door.  No-one is home.  We re-examine the address for the youtube clip, maybe that is VV and not W, "clip could not be found". 

Can you imagine our frustration?  The love I felt in the car was gurgling down the drain like Janet Leigh's blood and I could soon become Norman Bates.  We can't get in, we have nowhere to go because we don't really know where we are and we can't contact anyone.  Back to the phone and old emails to find contact details for HomeAway.  Onto their website, login, lots of pages of QnA, nobody wants to speak to a real person anymore, contact details - another email address.  Finally, two phone numbers.  The first is not connected, the second, it rings, it rings.  I felt like Frankenstein at the moment his creation came alive, such excitement: it's alive - a glimmer of hope. 

I swear I am talking to an automated voice, or the world has been overtaken by aliens while we were in transit.  She recorded my details and verified who I was - I wasn't certain anymore, and then, and then she provides me Thomas' phone number.  Hallelujah!   I punch the numbers in, it rings and rings and rings and when I thought I was going to voicemail, Thomas answers.  He seems surprised that we are having trouble, although it has happened before when the door has been incorrectly coded and gives me his code.  Success! We are in!  And the love returned, after we unpacked and sat for a while.

Look David, your spiritual heartland.

It's an edgy little area, on the cusp between Alphabet City and East Village itself, where trendy restaurants and shops sit uneasily beside the longer term tenants.  We went walking last night just to get some bearings.  Within two buildings a couple of blocks down the other end of our street we had the contrast of a poetry reading in a basement and next door a couple of rasta boys on the street enjoyng a smoke.  There are restaurants everywhere, from the typical New York walk-in for $1 a slice pizza to good local fare like ElevenB the Italian place we ate at, to a couple of relatively new looking, white linen table cloth establishments across the street.

Dinner was great.  We went for a walk to relieve the stress of the day and to acquaint ourseleves with the neighbourhood we will call home for the next three weeks.  There are plenty of options which ever way we walk and we found ElevenB by accident on way back from getting some groceries. Small, authentic looking local Italian.  We dropped the groceries home and went straight back which was fortunate because they had two large parties booked in.  We left before the second group of 15 had arrived.  It was already extremely noisy, I don't how you would hear anyone who wasn't whispering-in-your-ear close.  They had pizza - well they had ingredients, it was all create your own. I'll be back for that at some point, but tonight, I opted for lasagne and Jayne had meatball parmigiana served with zito and more sauce.  A small, international wine range: Australia, Chile, USA, France. 

They love flags in the US.

See previous caption.

The first night.  Mythology tells us that the first night is always special.  If we were honest, reality tells a different story - and so, reality wins here.  There were only two issues and one of them didn't really worry me - the room could not be blacked out like a cave.  The blinds on the windows are light and there is one space completely uncovered letting in light from the street.  Somewhere around 2am Jayne resorted to eye covers that I had kept cunningly close for just this occurrence.  The second issue?  Sound from the street.  It's like there is no barrier between us and as the waves of drunk twenty-somethings who began to flock back to their lodgings at 1:30am. We were privvy to every slurred word.  My personal favourite was the young lady (?) who went down the street proclaiming to her gf and the world about how f...ing frustrated she was. She would then bang on a car or bin. Where were all the young men to help her with her frustration?  If she'd stopped otside my window I could have given her some advice, like shut up, it's 3 in the morning.  And so, it was a very disrupted night, the last interruption came around 5am, but I'm not sure if they were leaving or arriving home. Anway, Jayne sleeps still and it is 9:30am, so I am going to wake her before we completely invert our day and night time and become bats.

Just for you Del.

Went uptown today to get used to the subway and go to Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral.  Then we did a little shopping, mostly window shopping, ate a hot dog from a stand and couldn't find coffee anywhere.  We then went down to Times Square and up to Grand Central Station to get a subway map.  Then it was hometime for a rest.

St Patrick's Cathedral

Question: On holidays I walk everywhere but I am rarely hungry.  Why is it so?

Random stereotype:  I've been wanting to talk about stereotypes, because at times, as I said previously, I feel like I'm trapped in a sitcom. There have been so many female characters with that whining, nasal voice that I always thought was just part of a character.  Nope.  Like all characterisation, it began in reality and I have heard that voice and heard that voice - even tonight in the Italian restaurant down the block.  And believe me, that was a challenge, it was packed and like all good Italian restaurants, it was multo noisy - and I still heard the nasal whine. 

While we are on the subject, we also nailed a standard stereotype of NYC the steam rising from a grate in the footpath. We have seen this so often on our first afternoon in New York we hardly seem to notice it.

Our favourite stereotype is that raspy, hoarse voice of the Godfather or Al Pacino.  He was the boss where we had dinner on Saturday night.

Is this the best mullet you've ever seen? Wearing a suit!

One for you Alycia

And one for Dan.

Crossfire (Dallas)

And so to the real Texan dinner.

This post is named after a Stevie Ray Vaughn song, one of Texas' own.

We couldn’t leave Texas without eating a steak, a buffalo steak.  I Googled the ‘best steakhouse in Dallas” and the number 1 hit was not within walking distance, but number 2 most certainly was: the YO Steakhouse in the West End.  It was still very warm as we walked the 800m to the restaurant.

They greeted us like long lost friends as they do in the States, our request of a table for 2 was met with, “We have just the table for you.”  In hindsight, I’m not sure that wasn’t meant to be an in-joke.  We were led outside and seated, the server arrived expeditiously and gave us our menus and time to read through them.  We speculated as to whether we had made a good choice, sitting under trees has disadvantages.  When the server returned he assured us it wouldn’t be a problem, even when Jayne showed him the fresh bird poo on her menu.  We decided to stay put and ordered our buffalo steaks with a Texan sangiovese.

The food was lovely, if somewhat expensive, and the wine was the same.  All was going well until we neared dusk when all the birds of the city began returning to the trees around us.  In massive number.  At one stage the maitre d’ came out and clapped some menu books together and they all took flight.  Peace and quiet, momentarily.   They soon returned and were as raucous as before.  And they kept coming, in waves that blocked out the sunset.  I started looking for Tipi Hedron (Google it Gen Y) as the debris commenced falling from the trees.  In a moment of chivalry I swapped seats with Jayne so she could be, at least partially, sheltered from agent orange like aftermath of the arrival of the birds.

Our dessert arrived, (as did more of our feathered friends), demonstrating the great interest shown in us by the wait staff was as false as the welcome we received.  We received the wrong desserts because we had changed seats.  Leaf litter continued to fall, we both ditched our glasses of water due to the floaties and debris.  Thankfully the wine was finished.  We ate our desserts quickly, but not before the friendly natives had left matching epaulettes of bird poo on each of my shoulders.  The price of gallantry.

The announcement over the speaker on the plane, “and your captain today is Captain Kirk” I didn’t hear his second name.  Given the trouble Captain Kirk always found himself in on Star Trek I’m not sure that means we’ll have a smooth flight.  I’m on the lookout for tractor beams and Klingons.

Things I learned in Dallas:

1    1.   It’s big and shiny and new.  There seem to be two iterations of Dallas, the older historical side and the new, corporate, mirror-glass entity.  The city itself is vast and given the amount of high-rise, relatively unpopulated.  There were no crowds, anywhere with the possible exception of the State Fair.

2    2.  If LA is “a great big freeway” so is Dallas.  Freeway building and general construction is going on everywhere.

3   3.  Everyone here is friendly and ultra-polite, no exceptions.  Except maybe the cab driver we had from the airport who didn’t utter a word all the way to the hotel.  Strangers are likely to strikeup a conversation and tell you things you didn't really want to know.

4   4.  There is definitely an underclass that exists if you stray outside of the city surrounds.  The Greyhound Bus Depot and West End light rail station demonstrate this clearly.

5   5.  The police presence in the city area is very visible – on foot, on segues, in cars, they were everywhere.

6   6.  There were times I felt like I was living in an American sitcom with people around me all playing their stereotypic roles.

Back to economy class for the three hour flight to Newark.  The upgrade to First class was only $135 each, which is looking very attractive now as I sit crammed against the window trying to get some thoughts down.  The person in front or behind is a heavy smoker and that is pretty much all I can smell.  Choice, as they say.  For a three hour flight in the front of the plane the extra $135 was questionable, until you look at the other costs.  Checked baggage was an extra $25, priority check-in was an extra $15 and food was complimentary in First class too.  Priority check-in also meant you didn’t have to queue at the security check – wished I’d known that before I declined the upgrade.  So, really, an upgrade to First only cost around $80 with food – absolutely worth it from I am currently sitting.

As the plane climbed to cruising altitude the air that we breathe was quite visible, moreso than when we arrived three days ago.  The entire horizon was shrouded in a purple haze (cue Jimi Hendrix).  At what point is any generation of people on this planet going to take its degradation seriously?  Air pollution, climate change, destruction and degradation of habitats across the world in the name of money/progress/commerce/jobs (insert whichever is applicable in your situation), when will act?  We only have one planet and I’d like to be sure that we are leaving it in good condition for children and grand children.