LOST IN QUEENS

Woke up at 3:00am and left the hostel. Walked to the subway station on 44th street, passing bars and diners and coffee shops still going as if it were happy hour!!

Went down to the subway station and stood for a while and when no trains came we asked this woman when the E train was due. She replied with 'Of course no E train aint running boy!!' Then she proceeded to speak in numbers and colours to try and explain how to connect with the E train via about 4 different trains.

We somehow found our selves some where in the middle of Queens, in the black dark, wondering whether to venture out of the safety of the subway and flag down a cab to take us to the airport. Then help came in the form of a drunken, snaggled toothed, homeless woman. She talked at us for about 20 minutes about the pro's and con's of each of the different train lines we could catch to JFK. She was brilliant. She only had two bottom teeth in her whole mouth and they looked like they'd had a quarrel and were trying to get as far from each other as possible.

I talked to her for a while after getting a good enough route and she was cool man. She had bags of 'stuff' she'd collected and was just riding the subway to find more 'stuff'. She asked if I had a spare subway ticket to give her, which I didnt. Then she asked for a buscuit, I didnt have one of those either. Then she went on her way stopping at this shivvering young lad, who was on his way home from a night out and offered him a hoody she produced out of her bag of 'stuff'. How nice is that? I think she was an Angel!! All she has in this world is a bag of 'stuff' and she wanted to give some of it to a random lad who was in need of it and all she wanted was a buscuit. Not sure if he accepted it as our train came. I wish I'd had had a biscuit to give her - might carry one round with me from now on just in case!!

Caught 3 more trains and finally arrived at JFK. Only to find out from the guy on the desk that we were booked onto a flight to Heathrow in a weeks time and not today!!!!!!!!! Originally our return date was the 16th of May, which was a estimated date untill we fine tuned our plans, then we changed it to the 10th May. We got sent to another desk and a couple of minutes of mixed feeling later it was all sorted and we were checked on to the flight!!

There was a bird flying inside the departure gate, dont know how it got in there, hope it had to go through security like we did. Then the poor thing slammed into a glass wall right beside us with a dull thump and died instantly.

6 hour flight to London Heathrow. We got a good flight time 8:30am landing at 2:30pm (7:30pm British time) so hopefully not have any jet lag as we're not loosing any sleep really. Fingers crossed anyway!!!

Got to the travelodge at Terminal 5. Last leg of the journey tomorrow: London to Manchester, where we'll meet Kev and Jill who are going to take us back to Leeds and home sweet home!!!