We wake up to a little sunshine this morning but with that, it is much cooler - 8 degrees and there is supposed to be much more cool air coming this way in the next few days. A good time to leave. Yesterday I discovered a short cut through the Prudential Centre to the Sheraton Hotel from where we are to catch our bus to New York at 9:15am for the 4 hour journey. Our plane is scheduled to leave at 4:45 pm and we have already checked in online. The Prudential Centre is all glass and polish and a pleasure to walk through especially as it enables us to escape the cold morning air. Going through the centre, we stop at the Microsoft shop, a clone of an Apple shop, to admire and ask questions about the new Surface tablet. Impressive! Maybe when the netbook dies of natural causes! Outside the Sheraton we hear some Aussie accents and find they too are taking the bus to NY and have spent the last few days in Boston not being able to get away due to Sandy's aftermath in New York. The Limoliner is the most comfortable bus we have ever travelled on - leather reclining seats, a super attentive steward and a brilliant driver. The steward Peter is in control of navigation too and when we strike a bottleneck on the motorway due to a brush fire, he navigates us safely onto other minor roads through small towns, eventually getting us back on to another motorway bound for New York. This has delayed us by about an hour which we really don't have to spare. Peter announces that the ETA is now 2pm. Eventually we arrive in the outskirts of New York and the traffic is already slower. We can't see all that much evidence of hurricane Sandy - most of the damage is in downtown Manhatten and in the subways which have partially opened today. The traffic is horrendous and time is ticking away. Finally we arrive at the Hilton Hotel where the bus terminates. Brad waits for our cases to be spat out of the luggage hold while I get a place in the taxi queue. Yellow taxis are everywhere doing a roaring business today with most of the subway out of action. At last it is our turn and Mario Andretti's Bangladeshi cousin whisks us away on a dodgem car journey to JFK. It is now 2:25pm and we have to check our luggage in by 3:45pm. "Mario" says he will do his best to get us there in about an hour. The agreed price is $80 which is $28 more than the flat fee normally charged by NY cabbies to JFK from Manhatten. But because of road blocks due to water damage, the route is very roundabout so we agree to his price. Memories of a taxi ride in Istanbul come flooding back as we navigate the route to the airport along with just about every other taxi in New York, also with horns blaring just like in Istanbul. How there are no major bingles, we will never know but somehow we arrive at JFK Terminal 1, check our baggage in and make our way to the boarding gate with 15 minutes to spare. Egypt here we come!