Have a nice bagel

So after that last message we went and had our Last Meal (bean paste sandwich) with Catherine, and then set off to get the bus to the aiport. A police car was stopped near the hostel so we asked them where the stop was and they told us but said it was DANGEROUS to wait there. So we went anyway, and when we got there, there was the police car waiting for us! They were like “just wait here, be careful, it’ll come soon” and of course as they were saying this the bus went past and we didn’t have time to wave it down. So we got the next one and got to the airport around half 9. We found a place to sleep with a few other people, and got the sleeping bags out, as they were getting excited about the air-con again. Paul went and checked in for his flight at 5am, and his plane left 2 hours late in the end, at 9am. After he’d left I had a very long and boring wait, where I sat and stared at people and got to know the cleaning ladies as I went back and forth to the toilet (yeees). At one point a scary lady also waved at me and started blowing kisses (no, there actually wasn’t anyone else there), so I made it clear I thought she was bonkers (not that easy) and ignored her. My plane left at half 2 in the afternoon, and it took 4 hours to get to Charlotte. “Where’s Charlotte?” you ask. Well it’s sort of in the south and in the east. North Carolina? Something like that. It took a million hours to get through immigration as they tried to find an excuse to turn the Latinos away, and then I went through, got my fingerprints scanned by an exciting flashing green pad thingy, and had my bags searched (-What’s in these sandwiches? -Tuna -No ham? -Er, no, what’s up with the ham anyway? Ooooooh riiiight). And then a couple of hours later I was in New York! HOW EXCITING, people. I settled down to sleep at La Guardia airport, but then a man came and said it was best to sleep in the other terminal but otherwise would I just like to go out for a drink cause he was leaving now and he knew some good places. This time I slept on the floor with a load of other people (why don’t people think to bring their sleeping bags though??) and didn’t wake up til just before 6, so it was a pretty good night really.

I found a bus into Manhattan with the help of a nice bloke at the bus stop (everyone’s nice in New York though, or at least in Manhattan, maybe all the horrible people are in Brooklyn or something), and got a bus and a train to Penn Station, where I left my bag with a beardy Jewish bloke (everyone’s from all over the place there, it’s brilliant, and practically every other person seemed to be speaking Spanish. Love it.) and sorted my train ticket for that evening, and then STARTED WALKING. My walk took me to Times Square where a bloke sold me a bagel and told me to Have a Nice Day (yes, REALLY!). There were a load of garden chairs out in the middle of the road so I sat there for a bit, and then kept walking, up towards Central Park. Central Park is the best park ever! It’s massive! And it’s got great trees! And ponds! And lawns! It’s NICE. There, a group of Young People jumped out at me and asked if I’d like to “draw something for free” (errrr)… so I did, and then came out of the park at 5th Avenue, crossed over Madison Avenue, and got the subway down to the top if the island to have a look at the Statue of Liberty. I’d actually seen it the night before as we were flying over and ohmygod it’s so cool to fly over Manhattan at night, you recognise all the famous stuff and it’s so beautiful. From Battery Park you can’t see the statue that well so I moved on, along Broadway up to Wall Street… all the older buildings are really nice by the way! The old ones are nice, the skyscrapers are nice, it’s just basically really cool. After Wall Street I headed over to Chinatown, which is kind of like being in China, so they’ve done a pretty good job there. And then I got on a bus and slept all the way to the United Nations building, where there are a lot of flags flapping about, and although the building’s not that amazing, it’s still pretty cool when you think about all that goes on in there (actually I have very little idea, but you can IMAGINE, innit). And then I got my last subway (just trying to get the most out of my Metrocard there) back to the station, and go the train to Newark airport, where an exciting AirTrain takes you to your terminal. I spent my last 3 dollars on the New York Times ($2), and caught up on the whole Honduras saga, and on a Nutri-Grain cereal bar (99 cents), which was the only thing that cost less than a dollar. What did I do with my last cent, then? Um, I put it in a charity box, which I’m sure they greatly appreciated (hmm).

New York to London takes 7 hours, and I was with Virgin Atlantic cause they changed my flight (it was supposed to be Air India). And it was lovely, they gave me special socks and there were about a million films to choose from but I didn’t manage to watch any cause I just fell asleep. They gave us muffins for breakfast as we arrived in Heathrow, and there was Molly, come all the way from Cambridge, waiting for me with a sign that said “Luton Express”, which is about as jolly as it gets! The satnav got us to Luton in plenty of time, and we had sandwiches and managed to fit a lot of words into 2 hours, and then it was time for me to fly away to Bordeaux. I had a window seat and the weather was really clear but I kept falling asleep again, can you believe it, and plus it’s hugely frustrating when you can’t manage to recognise which bit of France you’re flying over, espcially when you spent 3 years of your life besically looking at maps. So the effort must have tired my brain out, but anyway, I landed in Bordeaux at 4 and got a bus with a moody driver to the train station, and funnily enough there was no reggaeton blaring, the bus wasn’t a multicoloured ex-US school bus, there was no cobrador (guy who takes your money – not saying it was free, mind) and therefore no-one to shout DALE DALE!! (go) and whack the side of the bus to tell the driver to get moving, no-one to shout SUAVE!! (slow down) when someone was waiting by the side of the road, no-one to grab your bag and chuck it on the roof, no-one to shove you up the step shouting SUBALE SUBALE! (get on!), and when we stopped at a traffic light no ladies got on selling FRESCO FRESQUITO TENGO TAMARINDO TENGO CACAO TENGO PITAHAYA, QUE LE DOY MI AMOR? or QUESIIIIILLO or TORTILLA CON POLLO TORTILLITA CON POLLIIIITO!! Aaah, it’s just NOT THE SAME!

But then I got on the TGV, fell asleep, and got to Orthez at 9pm. Got home, and went to sleep! After a little chat that is…

So that’s the end for now, just have to play Daddy Yankee for the campers to relieve any Central America withdrawal symptoms, and keep the old pinto tradition going, at least once a week. What have we learned over the last few months then? Central America is cool! Good tortilla action! although they say the tortillas in Guatemala are even better than in Nicaragua, so might have to go and check that out… I’ll keep you posted. Hasta next time xxxxx