new york, new york

So this is coming at you from New York, New York. Arrived yesterday after a hellish day of travelling. The UK part was ok despite overestimating how long it would take to get there and arriving a fair bit early. So we were travelling Air India which was unto itself an experience. It seemed that the ground control were used to certain behaviours and so as they announced that boarding was to be done 'strictly' by seat number and then EVERYONE getting up to board, totally ignoring what had just been said, the staff took charge. Once we got on the plane, which incidently was a huge double decker of a plane, we got settled into our seat. Our movie selection looked set to be a kid's movie starring Abigail Breslin and some Bollywood movies. Fun. But the only problem was that our projector only showed the first line of the three lines of subtitles. So some educated guessing was in order! Food was actually quite yummy and we both had an Indian chicken curry (although it was obviously just a chicken curry when ordering). And the service was great. Our middle-aged gent of a steward was the pinnacle of polite as he handed out drinks with a white glove worn. The problems occurred when our lovely co-companions started getting sick. One woman lost bowel control and another lost her lunch. And feeding everyone a curry for lunch produces some funky smells about half an hour later. Nice. The people also totally ignored all requests by the cabin crew so we saw several people going to the loo while just about to land and everyone undoing their belts immediately after touch down and seeing to their bags.

But the worst part of the journey had to be our treatment by staff at JFK airport. We arrived into the new wing at the airport already an hour late having taken off late to face a queue of around five hundred people going through customs. The only problem was that they had 3 staff on to deal with visitors and 3 for citizens: no queue on one side and hundreds on the other. Oh and the queue took forever as each person is checked in VERY thoroughly. Eventually, after an hour and a half, we reached the front of the queue and noticed about 2000 people now behind us. And so we reached the lovely customs official WANG. I approached him with Michael.

WANG "Are you related?"

ME "No we're travelling together"

WANG "Go and stand over there" (nasty tone)

The US Visit scheme pledges for their staff to greet people and welcome them to the country, to deal with people in a friendly and courteous manner and to hear the requests and questions of all. Well WANG didn't even look at me. He was rude and unfriendly. Oh I didn't mention but we were first in line for his queue as he started work. I'm not joking when I say he spent 10 minutes cleaning his screen, obviously knowing it was pissing off the line of people who were all watching him. Talk about power trip. So I had my biometrics taken (both index fingers scanned and a photo taken) and finally got through to collect my bags. All in all I was tired, grumpy and dishevelled. Both of us vowed this was our last trip to the USofA after the harsh reception we received.

Left our flat at 9.40 UK time. Arrived at Jonathan and Nick's apartment at 8.00 pm US time. 15 hours travel time.