New York Part 1

The Empire State Building taken from just down 5th Avenue

Well, another long pause in the blog, yeah, it's just that mostly I've had nothing really to particularly write about nor the mood to write, three weeks ago I came back from my third USA visit but it's been a real struggle getting back into my usual rhythm of work, it's not usually this hard for me.

So yes, New York, it was wonderful visiting the states again and it was a blessing to be able to go with my boyfriend, one thing I'll say right away that this was hands down the -best- visit I've had to the USA.

We stayed with cousins of my boyfriend and they were the most accommodating, kindest, nicest, most pleasant people I've ever had the pleasure of staying with, the hospitality we received was truly exceptional, they made us feel like close family, barely halfway through the visit they were asking when were we coming back, it was such a delight to meet and be around people of such pure kindness.

To you all if you read this, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, Thank You.

The flight was more than fine, despite a issue which had caused some discord when I had pointed it out, in a nutshell Finnair decided to pull some of their planes to do maintenance on them, specifically the Airbus A330/340 and that they got LOT Polish Airlines to co-run with their 787 Dreamliner.

Uh oh, I thought.

A odd thing about Finnair's Airbus is that there isn't a B row in the seats, it goes AC DEF GH, why? I don't friggin' know!, me and my boyfriend had booked 25A and C, so we're sat together, when I learned about the aircraft change I looked up the 787 seat plan, ABC DEF GHI, er a seat's appeared between us, so I voice my concerns to my boyfriend whom promptly rang up Finnair whom said 'nothing changed', so we relaxed and thought nothing more, until we're at the airport and it's the 787 Dreamliner sat at the gate, thankfully the lady who was going to sit between us moved and sat at the window so we sat together at least.

The entertainment centre of the LOT 787 Dreamliner

The 787 is a lovely aircraft, it's one of the quietest planes I've been on and one of the most up-to-date ones, the windows don't have shutters they have these windows which darken at a push of a button so you could turn it all the way down but you could still see outside, it was really nice, plus all the seats had smart screens which had a variety of content on with cool little controllers which popped out at a push, I watched The LEGO Movie and The Hobbit 2 on these, the lady whom moved into what was my seat, her screen wasn't working properly, the sound didn't work, so she moved to another seat, leaving me and my boyfriend with the row to ourselves, quite lucky then.

That's me sorted, The Hobbit and Lego Movie!

The USA border was fine at JFK Airport if not exceptionally busy, we queued for quite a while, luckily when the US citizens had gone through they opened up the other gates to the rest of us, they filtered off the line from where we were standing so we got lucky, didn't have to wait for bags as they were already off the belt by the time we got through.

So tired from the flight, we had to make our way to East Northport, we had both never been in the area and we had a still sizable chunk of journey left to make, luckily the trains were not too hard to figure out, about a hour or so later we arrived, got picked up and taken to the residence.

"But I want the toy!", Cutest dog I've perhaps ever met.

After getting a quick tour of the home, and introduced to two really sweet dogs, whose names I cannot remember how to spell, pictured is Reina (I think thats how you spell it!), we got taken to a local Indian restaurant and had what was the absolutely best curry I've had, despite jetlag catching up like a looming shadow over the both of us, we had such a great meal, I knew that we were going to have a great time, I was falling asleep in the car on the way home, thankfully we got to bed and I slept like a rock!

"We got the Mini!"

The next day we woke up, minimal jetlag which was a blessing, we set off to get our rental car, which ended up being a wonderful little cream white Mini, it was such a perfect little car for us to have whilst in the states, my boyfriend was very anxious driving for the first couple days but he got the hang of it, and getting that car really helped us explore, no waiting on public transport or lifts from others, we could just go where we wanted and whenever.

My Boyfriends starter from Cheesecake Factory, Fried Calamari 

We took ourselves to a Cheesecake Factory, we'd seen it mentioned on The Big Bang Theory and decided we should go, it was a wonderfully presented restaurant, the interior was really lovely, we decided to get a starter each, whoops!, they were HUGE, one could've easily fed both of us with no issue, the food was great, the service was good.

My Starter, rustic garlic bread with a garlic oil dip and tomato dip

Over the days we went to alot of malls, I know that sounds so weird but, we're not really the 'sightseeing' types, we like retail therapy, one thing we both noticed is that in nearly every shop we went into we got seen to by a assistant, sometimes that's lovely but other times it's nice just to browse!, one time I was looking at a item and upon asking the assistant if they had any he kinda quickly answered yes but then decided to point me towards another similar item which was darn near double the price, I played polite and looked around, but it's that sort of tactic which can and did scare me off.

'Medium' (!) portion of boneless wings with Parmesan oregano sauce and ranch dip, drink was Mountain Dew.

Independence Day, we got given tickets to go see a baseball game, proper american!, earlier in the day we went to a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, there we got served by the nicest lady, even though working on a national holiday she was so nice, tended to us exceptionally well, chatted with us, asked what we was doing, all round wonderful service, why doesn't Europe have this level of service, yes we know they're working for tips (and we ALWAYS did tip), but you didn't feel that they were doing it for the tip, you felt like they were doing it because they could and by goodness, this lady did.

Wonderful view we had during the game

The baseball game was good fun, we got really into it, the weather was sketchy at first but cleared up lovely, one thing which amused me and my boyfriend to no end was that during one break in play, they played a scene from the film Independence Day, where the president makes a speech that rallies the troops for the flight against the alien forces, er, hang on, that doesn't seem quite right, yes it's a great scene from the movie but...erm... bares no relation to this day?

Also being a spectator is highly dangerous, at least 7/8 times baseballs shot into the stands, one got kinda close to us but that was NOTHING compared to the last pitch of the game, he swings, we hear a crack, great big baseball bat shooting towards us, the section we were sat in DUCKED, and I mean EVERYONE did, thankfully the net just behind the players caught it, but it would've been nasty if that bat hit somebody!

The Long Island Ducks are a minor league team but it was still a lovely evening out, we got some 'quackers' and baseballs from the store, I would've loved a team shirt but by god I'm not paying $80 for a single shirt even my Wigan Warriors shirt with custom naming on the back didn't cost that much!

There is so much to cover, I'll try make another post detailing more later, this one's gone on long enough!