New York

So I've made it to New York! And seeing Akeli (the friend we're staying with) is like there hasn't been an almost 10 year gap since we've seen each other. It's uncanny how we just kind of picked up where we left off... same jokes... same way of talking... poor Stephan's haveing a hell of a time trying to keep up... but I'm not sure if it's the jetlag or that things have gotten just a tad too weird for him. lol.


Morning started out okay, the plane from Amsterdam left on time after half a douzan checks and an inquery into who Mrs. Richards was... aparently there was someone else on my ticket. That was luckily corrected immediately. I wouldn't have wanted to have a problem with that in the states! I got some reading done, we played a lot of 'shit head' and half watched the inflight movies: Nim's Island, Catch Me If You Can, Spin City, and an episode of Wonder Woman. (Jan, it was the original Wonderwoman.... Absolutely crazy... oh, and the bad guy is played by the nambypamby judge from Boston Legal! He already looks like he's 60 there... he must be 80 now or something cause besides for the wrinkles he look EXACTLY the same!) Oh, and the pilot of the flight's name was Kirk. I kid you not! Immediately the two of us started up with the star trek jokes!


We arrived about a half hour early and had to gather our luggage, go through customs, put our luggage somewhere else, go get our hand luggage checked again (had to take off our shoes too) and then had to wait for the shuttle to take us from the A pier to the F pier. In a rush and worried we were about to miss our connecting flight we arrived to find out that our flight had been delayed by half an hour. We grabbed what would have been a late dinner and waited for our flight, which was futher delayed for another 15 minutes. Eventually we borded the antiek and what had to be held together by tape Dash 8-100... for those not familiar with airplanes it's a propellar plane which seats something like 40 people. 20 minutes taxi-ing, 26 minutes flying and 45 minutes circleing awaiting permission to land and we were in La Guarda. A 10 minute cab ride later and we were in Akeli's place.


Now this apartment bares mentioning. In it's time it must have been a fantastic apartment. it could easily fit a couple starting out with a livingroom, bedroom, bathroom and kitched. The living room is akeli's bedroom and has a screen to separate the areas and the bedroom is where her gay roommate sleeps. He's over at his boyfriend's place for the next few days so I have akeli's bed, Akeli's in her roommate's room and Stephan's got the pull out couch. About halfway through the evening Stephan decides to go freshen up, and Akeli tells him that the bathroom door does kind of stick, but no problem, turn the knob to the right, lift, and then turn to the left and it opens easily. Well, that didn't happened. What did happen was that Stephan got stuck for about an hour with us trying to get him out. With no luck with the sticky handle I eventually removed the knobs with a knife/screwdriver so we could fiddle with the inside. That seemed to have been broken, which was causeing the problems, so after trying a number of different tactics Akeli went to look for the Super. They don't have one. But luckily the guy in the elevator could help and eventually using an old creditcard he jimmyed the door open.


Dinner was ordered, I watched the first 3 innings of the Philidelphia Phillies against the Tempa Bay Devil Rays... Game 1 of the World series and Stephan passed out on the couch.So all in all an eventful day. Tomorrow, who knows what it will bring!


Now I'm going to pass out. Enjoy your day tomorrow, and I'll send an update soon.