Hello folks! Welcome to the first instalment of the Escapades and Adventures. I will start with the real boring stuff, the trip over :) The trip over was good in one respect and crap in another. My doctor - Dr Heng is wonderful. The medication he gave my for motion sickness worked well, though I did get squeamish from LA to NY, it was not anything like what I usually get. The plane ears worked really well too. It was good that I didn't spend the whole trip puking my guts up & in agony from the cabin pressure. Had a bit of a scary landing in LA - I think the pilot must have been imbibing on the trip over. We landed & the plane was jerking side to side all over the runway. One woman started screaming and some other shelia yelled out "we're gonna die!" Me - I was laughing at them - how terrible of me. Bris -> LA there was a screaming infant most of the way and her 'big' brother was a hyperactive little terror who had irresponsible parents - as in they didn't give a damn & let him be wild. The poor air hosties - they tried to manage him, but with a full flight, they weren't very successful. Not to mention the family of 6 pre-teen -> teen, bunch of mongrel, I mean lovely little sweethearts! Again, parents who didn't care. The flight into NY wasn't too bad. But the smell of the food had my stomach flipping.

So, I got to NY and I found the air train. That was an ordeal in itself. Stupid woman went from b**** to concerned when she managed to reduce me to tears. And there were more tears when I caught the LIRR train to Penn Station, this time they were grateful tears to the conductor who held my connecting train & helped me get my luggage on & told me when I would need to get off etc.

I asked a group of police men for directions to the hotel (from Penn Station) and they stood there arguing with each other how I should get there. I ascertained they were in consensus as to the best exit point and went that way, asked a guy at the newspaper stand for my next set of directions and headed off. It was further away than I had been led to believe and by the time I got there I was just so damn exhausted.

I had a very pleasant surprise waiting for me at the hotel. Scott came up from Georgia to meet me. And will be with me on my trip. And I have been very glad of it. Several circumstances occurred in the last 24hrs that if I had been on my own, would have been too overwhelming for me. It is far more enjoyable to be travelling with someone, to be able to share the experience than to be on my own.

I got some pictures of scenery while travelling on the Amtrak yesterday (NY to Boston). It was so beautiful. It's raining here in Boston, not expected to stop until the day we leave - Friday. This morning I woke up to the rain and seagulls calling out in the distance. I think I will employ my snow boots as gumboots to combat the rainy weather. My feet got very wet yesterday. Don't want to be getting sick.

Last night we made a trip to the CVS Pharmacy store to acquire an umbrella, I had intended to bring one, but somehow, out of the two I own, neither made it into my suitcase. Anyways, umbrella purchasing trip, we passed this place that had all these carboard boxes waiting to be collected for recycle. Scott, being very resourceful, made me an 'umbrella' for the walk to the CVS (picture included). It worked rather well too :)

For the foodies out there - I have visited two grocery stores so far and am reasonably impressed with the easy access to gluten free food.

Well, I guess I post this and load the photos and then find me some coffee. Leave a message or send an email. Would love to hear from y'all. x x x