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Up at 3.45a.m.!! I finished off bits and pieces of packing,
feeling very sad to be leaving Tracy's place as this was the beginning of saying
goodbye once again. The three of us drove out to Norfolk Airport and
boarded a Skysaver plane for a 6.05a.m. flight to La Guardia airport, New York.
We were about to take off when they decided to de-ice the wings, but they had
trouble with the truck so we eventually took off at 6.55 a.m. There
was the most beautiful sunrise over Chesapeake Bay and all of its islands.
We saw our first little dose of air rage while we were waiting. A
woman verbally attacked the steward over some trivial little thing.
Tracy said this is fairly common in America. We were just
being served refreshments, which is unusual on short flights in the U.S.A., when
"holy s..t" was uttered by yours truly as we hit amazing turbulence.
Luckily the stewardess nearest us was holding on to the trolley as she went up
in the air. The male Steward fell to the floor and nearly knocked himself out and the panic on the faces of all
the crew was enough to give me the shakes. "That's it", I
thought. "Great holiday, but we're going to die." My
God it was rough! David and I both thought it was awful but Tracy
thought it was fun!! She did admit however, that it was one of the
roughest rides she'd had for a long time. The pilot took us a bit lower to
try to find smoother air and thank goodness, it worked.
The rest of the trip was smooth and we flew in to La Guardia in brilliant
sunshine - what a view of this big city. At the airport we saw the amazing
case of air rage. A woman was yelling and shouting abuse because
they wanted to search her bag. They had to call the police.
I'd never heard of air rage before.
We managed to get all our
luggage in a taxi and in to Manhattan we went. We were taken
to the UN Plaza Hotel right opposite the UN Building and up 
32 floors!
It was such a great room with the most wonderful view of the Manhattan skyline in glorious sunshine. We were
lucky enough to get our room straight away, instead of the afternoon as we had
been told. Just before we left to 'attack' New York we saw on the
N.B.C. Today show that Cathy Freeman was to be interviewed on the show that
morning. We then set out through the streets, gazing up
at the buildings of course. On the way we saw Saks, Fifth Avenue with
Christmas decorations. When we got to our destination, Rockefeller
Centre, we watched Today through the glass windows. After a while
our Cathy came on and we could see her being interviewed on TV. The
cameras came on the crowd and David said he saw me as he was standing back
further. I was pretty chuffed to see Cathy live on telly in New York.
We then crossed over to the Rockefeller Plaza to watch the skaters, but had to
wait a long time while a zamboni scrape the ice. There was a group of
older skaters who took to the ice and boy did they know what they were doing.
Lois Thorpe's twin was amongst them.
We were frozen by this time so we went down to the subway where we had coffee and delicious
garlic bread 'thingies' and then set out to go on the Staten Island ferry.
After changing trains a few times, we arrived at Battery Park and wandered along
to the ferry terminal. This ferry gives you a wonderful FREE look at the
Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline. The queues for
the Statue of Liberty ferry were humungous as it was Thanksgiving holiday.
We'd been out there before, so decided to skip it this time. We rode out
on the ferry to Staten Island and thought we could go straight back but that
ferry went out of service, so we had to wait for another one. While we
waited we bought some big pretzels which were awful and some donuts which
weren't much better. David ate most of them though! When
we docked we caught the subway to the Empire State Building but the queues were
terrible - a two hour wait - so we skipped that too - been there, done that.
On the way there we saw Macy's, surrounded by so many people as the Thanksgiving sales were on.
We caught the subway to see the huge toy shop FAO Schwarz but the
queues (to spend money!) were too much there as well. Then Tracy and I had
delicious pizza for lunch, but David wasn't hungry - I wonder why. 
After the pizzas we walked over to Central Park and waited for a hansom cab ride
through the park. David didn't want to go but enjoyed it when Tracy
paid, once again and off we went. The driver was great - so was the horse.
It was so peaceful riding through this lovely park in the middle of this huge
city. The carriages are all decorated and the horses just plod there way on,
whether their drivers are on the carriage or not. Our driver got off
at one stage to take our photos and on went the horse. I gave him a pat
when we got off - the horse of course. I then 
needed a New
York hot dog, so of course... It was only a little
one! We got on the subway once again, to Central Station this
time. This is magnificent, so old fashioned looking, then we walked back to our hotel where we had a snooze. If the view form
our room was good in the daylight, it was magic with the lights on. It
couldn't have been more beautiful.
We were getting ready to go out for dinner when Tracy told us about the surprise
she had for us. She had tickets for the Radio City Music Hall
Christmas Spectacular - they were early Christmas presents for the two of us.
I cried. What a great way to finish our trip!
We changed and took the train to Times Square. This place is mind
blowing - so many lights - garish, but wonderful. We walked down the
street amazed at the lights and signs. In a side street Tracy took
us to an Irish pub, Langans. She knew of this from an earlier visit.
The atmosphere was great and the meal delicious. Then it was time
for the Radio City Music Hall!! We arrived to find that we had
to queue, even though we had tickets. It was a huge queue, but
once we started moving, we were soon inside. The place is
wonderful. It's been refurbished in an art deco, 20's style
and had so much atmosphere about it. The show was unbelievable,
featuring the famous Rockettes; Father Christmas; a skating rink, complete with skaters, that rose up out of the
floor; a nativity scene with real live animals; a wonderful orchestra that also
kept rising up and down out of the floor. It was quite
overwhelming and something that could only be seen in America!
Tracy thought if was the Superbowl of marching girls, band leaders, dancing
girls and all other flashy, high kicking things known to man. She was
pretty amused by it all. David and I both enjoyed it - it kept
us both awake!! In fact, it was a once in a lifetime experience and, once
again, thanks to Tracy. One thing that I couldn't get over, was that
everyone took photos during the show - flash bulbs going off everywhere!
After the show we walked to see people skating in Rockefeller Plaza once again,
then walked back to our hotel via 5th Avenue. Everything looked so
pretty with the Christmas lights. David 'mumbled and grumbled'
about having to walk so far but Tracy had offered to take a cab. It was cold, but the walk warmed us up and allowed us to
'soak up' a bit more of New York and its atmosphere. When we got to our
room Tracy and I stuck our heads out of the window- up 36 floors! - "Oh
what a feeling!" The Empire State Building is lit up especially for
Christmas and it looked wonderful. What a view - we couldn't have had
better!
We woke up to realise that the fairy tale was almost over. Dull grey
skies were over the city in complete contrast to the day before when we flew in.
We'd booked a station sedan for all our luggage, but they must have heard about
our luggage and sent a van! This cost more of course so we did
wonder if they had done in deliberately, but we didn't argue. Why bother? We drove out to the airport to say goodbye to New York, goodbye to a dream
holiday, goodbye to the USA, and more importantly goodbye to Tracy.
Tracy was wonderful to us and I can't thank her enough. She made the trip
so much more fantastic. It was awfully hard, as usual, to say
goodbye to our girl. We had four wonderful weeks with her, but I think I
heard big sigh of relief when she walked off to a few hours of 'peace' in New
York. Her life would be back to normal at last - well, as
normal as that ever is!! We flew out of New York at
midday on Saturday (me with tears of course) and it was an uneventful, long,
long flight to Tokyo. We had individual TV screens so we could watch what
we wanted to. I chose Meryl Streep in "Music of the
Heart", an entertaining little film about a violin teacher in a tough
school in Harlem, so quite topical. David watched "The
Gladiator" and "X Men." I managed to doze a bit but
David didn't get much sleep. We crossed the International Date Line into Sunday. My legs cramped up
dreadfully, so much so that when we finally arrived in Tokyo, I could hardly
walk. Also I felt dreadful - faint, tight chest - panic, panic.
David was great. He had to do all the carrying etc. It felt just as
though my blood pressure had suddenly dropped. David went and got me
a bit bottle of water and I sat and sipped this until I felt better.
We both sat and dozed for the four hours or so we were there. Then
we took off for Sydney at 9.10 p.m. Sunday. Luckily, the plane was not
very full so we both had three seats each and could sprawl out to have a sleep.
We arrived in Sydney on Monday morning, both tired, confused and a bit flat.
Collected our luggage, quickly through customs and when we had booked our
luggage through to Adelaide, we caught the bus to the domestic terminal where we
boarded the plane for home. As we took off we had a good view of
Sydney. The countryside looked so dry as we flew o!
ver and when we landed in Adelaide we were in for a rude shock.
It was 39 degrees celsius!! Boy, after what we had been in, it was awful.
Raylene and Frank were there to meet us and drove us home, where Nick had been
frantically cleaning up in readiness for our return. It felt such a
let down to be home to such dry, hot conditions, but nevertheless it was good to
be back in Kangy and good to see Nick again.
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Our heartfelt thanks go to Tracy for her kindness and generosity. Without this we could not have had anywhere near as good a trip. We had a wonderful time and it has left us with such happy memories through our photos and this diary.
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