BACK IN NYC (Dalek's in Manhatten)

Friday 11th Feb, 2011...The sun was going down behind us by the time we hit New York yesterday evening and there she was, The Empire State Building, shining back at us, all lit up...and looking out of the car window to the right, The Statue of Liberty. We'd left Philadelphia in good time, around mid afternoon, but now we're in rush hour traffic, New York style. Eventually, we get to the hotel, completely fried from the last couple of hours trying to forge our way through the ugly traffic. We neck some egg fried rice, watch some films on tv (The boat that rocked) and crash!
Dawn breaks and Liz looks out of the window to check our car is still in one piece.
"Shit! Is that a ticket on the windscreen? Bob, we've got a ticket!!"
Oh well, we don't want to let this ruin our day do we, oh supreme queen of parking fines...we breakfast and pack our bags and by the time we're ready to leave, we've got two parking tickets all loved up next to each other on the windscreen. Liz is mortified. I suggest that if we spread the cost over the six months we've been gone, then actually it's nothing really (yea right).
We drop the car at JFK Airport and after 4880 miles driven in it's protective surrounding, say goodbye to it, forever. We get a taxi to our lovely Days Inn Hotel, New York style.




It's still only just gone eleven and we can't officially check in till 3pm, so we leave our impressively large collection of bags with the grumpiest shit we've come across in six months. Then, off we go!

"Courtesy is contagious and it starts with you"

What a nice looking traffic police woman. There's quite a shift in attitude here, we've gone up a couple of gears on the brash front. There's the lady in the ticket booth at the Metro, answering Liz's queries with cartoonish, deliberately unhelpful replies, before bellowing at a couple of unfortunate tourists with little grasp of English, who are stuck at the barriers, "SWIPE THE GODDAMN CARD! PUSH IT!!
SWIPE THE CARD!!"
Liz is standing her ground in a controlled fashion and you can see something switch behind the eyes of Madame Metro, there's even a hint of a smile. She mellows and we're on our way. Yea, don't fuck with us! A few stops along on the Metro, we exit the subway, turn the corner...and there it is, Empire State.