Hi, and welcome to New York!

So, we finally made it..but not without some hiccups along the way!

After some traumatic coach-travel, a mediocre 4 star hotel and an early(ish) morning we realised mum's first mistake.

BAD SUITCASE.

When travelling do not take an awful suitcase that's older than the ages of your children combined, doesn't have a proper handle and falls over lots. It is not a good idea!

So, trotting around Heathrow, navigating escalators and generally being bashed about by all the other holiday makers with a ridiculous bag was the first faux-pas.

Mistake two.

So, apparently to get into America you have to have the address of where you're staying. Who'd have thought it. Of course this is what any normal and sensible human being would have done, but not my mother! When asked where we're staying the unhelpful airport woman was told Montgomery. Apparently that's not enough. We didn't have a number for where we're staying, or an address or anybody who could help us with it. We were pretty stuck.
Luckily Miss Las Vegas, the girl standing next to us had an Iphone, so with some nifty fingerwork and a cunning mind we googled 'cheap hotels in New York', and there we had it. Our first 'port of call in America', The Marriott.

The plane was delayed for an hour and a half and we generally did a lot of waiting around, then we boarded, only to find that the film selection was appalling and there wasn't much to do for a very long time.

The highlight of the trip was the kosher meals we'd somehow managed to put ourselves down for. While the rest of the common travellers were eating bags of own brand crisps, we were chowwing down on smoked salmon bagels and apple pie!

We arrived in New York a while later and set off to find our bags, only to fall upon:

Mistake three.

While stood waiting for our luggage a sniffer dog comes up to us, he seems very interested in mum's bag.
'Excuse me ma'am, do you have any food products in your bag at all?'
Well, we just so happened to have brought a banana with us, all the way from the little Co-Op in Columbia Road.
Damn.
So the man writes 'BANANA' all over our little sheet and sends us off to the 'Agricultural Goods Scanning Department', or whatever it's called.
After some scanning and some lecturing on how we could have got a $200 fine we were finally let loose to find Dodie and leave!

We took a few detours on the way back from the Airport, arrived pretty late, did some sleeping and here we are! Relaxing in a lovely house in Montgomery.

Now it's time to hit the shops!
Catch you later :)
Laura x



Right. Now for the real version!!! No thats pretty much what happened and I wont bore you with the justifications!!
My good friend Dodie (with whom we are staying) just kept emailing me saying it is hot, hot, hot in US so I just brought hot clothes and told Laura to do likewise. Of course it is now cold and wet!!! But we shall manage. Must go now as everyone is looking over my shoulder (more later). x Stephanie