A bloody long journey

The Stock Exchange gets into the patriotic Christmas spirit

Having taken my own sweet time to get to Australia from home, the journey from Melbourne to New York was something of an eye-opener. After the short flight from Melbourne to Sydney came the 13 hour behemoth to L.A. The 4 movies shown during this time still left 5 hours to fill with many failed attempts at sleep. Arriving in L.A. a little disorientated, I was knocked sideways by the full-on Christmas cheer at the airport. Strangely, it reminded me of Die Hard 2 (Die Harder). Without being led by the hand to the gate where I was supposed to take my transfer flight to New York, I soon found myself walking out of the airport, where I was accosted by a tramp. Does anyone else understand why tramps always manage to find themselves Santa hats at Christmas? Anyway, this tramp wanted to help me out. Too confused to fob him off, I had to accept any help I could get. Even if it was from someone too drunk not only to walk straight, but to form coherant sentences, and who smelled like he'd been rolling around in raw sewage. Sadly, even in this state, this man was more reliable than my own sense of direction. After pointing me in the right direction, he, of course, expected payment. Unfortunately for my Christmassy friend, I had no dollars on me. He assured me that he would be happy to accept any currency I had on me. Judging by his reaction to my stuffing several notes into his palm, I can only assume he's not aware of the current Laos Kip - $ U.S. conversion rate.

The Empire State Building

I caught the flight to New York without any trouble, and got to my hostel in Manhattan by the late evening. Woke up fairly early the next morning, and with the train to Buffalo not leaving till the mid-afternoon, I had a few hours to take some photos of the better-looking landmarks. After 8 hours on the train heading up alongside the Hudson, I got to Buffalo, and finally met up with Angela, and met Mr Nyhout (Angela's Dad). I was smuggled over the border (well, the guy assumed we were all Canadians and didn't check our passports), and we arrived in London, Ontario at about 1am.

A bloody long journey

New York, United States