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It's 4am. I haven't slept at all. I'm excited, really really excited but I'm also ill. Mums are right. You should always wear your coat when you go outside.
My alarm will be going off in 15 minutes and I still have to pack my bag and have a shower and try to find my shoes without waking up Richard. He's our room mate.
5:15am (GMT) We managed to check out of the hostel in record time and are currently waiting at Hammersmith tube station. I'm glad it's too dark to see my reflection in any of the shop windows because if I look as bad as I feel it will be a truly horrifying sight.
None of this seems real yet. Is it the shock of being awake at such a ridiculous time or the tube full of businessmen going to work that keeps bringing my thoughts back to the real world?
8:30am (GMT) Being a security guard in the airport must be awesome. What would they ask you in your interview?
"Do you have any problem asking people to undress? Will you watch them on the telly as we scan their naked bodies? Can you spot a suspicious item if it's hidden inside their a*******?"
You always see one passenger being pulled from the queue and they look terrified. No surprise here that Tasha was the one they pulled aside. While she stood nervously answering all the questions she was asked, I was stood behind her grinning so much my face hurt. I don't know why, I just thought it was funny.
"Are you travelling together?" "Yeah, we're going to New York!" "I don't care, have you been in contact with any drugs".
Then the little tissues came out and they wiped the contents of Tasha's bag, I was hoping the cameras would appear to film us for 'Nothing To Declare'.
Thankfully I'm not having to explain to you what a prison cell looks like, the tests were negative and we are now free to explore the only good thing in the airport, duty free.
9:45am (GMT) Welcome to Virgin Atlantic. Gone are the days where you strain your neck trying to see over the seat in front to watch the flight attendant demonstrate how to inflate your life jacket. Now we get to watch a 10 minute cartoon on our own little TV. As I fastened my seat belt a voice could be heard throughout the plane. "Good morning ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking we would like to welcome you onboard this Virgin Atlantic flight direct to JFK, New York City."
Those few words are what made everything real for me.
"Tasha we're really going to New York". "Oh God you're not going to cry are you?"
In all honesty yes, I was about to cry. I've never felt so happy before that it reduced me to tears, well maybe once when I met Bryan Adams but that is a whole other story. After all these years of waiting my dream is finally coming true.
11:00am (GMT) Our plane has 'Uptown Girl' painted on the side. I'm glad to see I'm not alone in naming things that aren't alive. Naming things helps me when I'm scared. When I was younger I named all the clouds in the sky 'Shelly' so whenever there was turbulence I would have something to blame, something I could tell to f*** off really. I still do it now. So far, so good though. 'Shelly' isn't here yet.
12:30pm (EST) I'm writing this to you from one of the largest airports in the world, JFK. We have officially landed in New York City! The flight was uneventful, no sign of Shelly. We did get to witness the man next to Tasha climb over another passenger. Imagine trying to sleep on the plane and waking up with another man's crotch in your face. If ever there was a thing as a Kodak moment that was it! Now we're going to join the queue for finger prints, eye scans, passport checks, the lot.
3:30pm (EST) We'd been warned about the subway system before arriving here. The map alone is enough to scare the hell out of you. I was certain we'd wind up lost in the Bronx surrounded by stray dogs and gangsters. No need to panic though, it's the easiest transport system I've ever come across. If you can count to 100 you will survive in the City.
The subway from the airport to the City must have been annoying for the other passengers. Whist we were excitedly shouting "oh my god look at that house, it looks like a film set" or "oh my god look at that car" I'm almost certain they were thinking "oh my god, more tourists!".
For the next 7 days we are living in a hostel facing Central Park. That made it very easy for us to find our way here.
It's true what people say about the skyscrapers and the tourists, all you can do is look up. We are 5 blocks away from one of many hotels owned by Mr Combover Trump. It's instantly recognisable, not because of the Columbus Circle Globe at the side of it but because it's where Borat had a poo in the bushes.
Our new "home" is great. A TV and a swimming pool in a hostel? Are we in the right place? For me, and probably millions of others when I think of New York the first thing I think of is the Empire State Building so that's where we're heading.
4:30pm We failed our first mission to get to the Empire State. We were walking down the street and could see loads of lights.
"It can't be Times Square it's too close, look at the map". "Where else is there gonna be loads of telly's on the wall? This is it!"
It is so easy to get distracted by things here. I could sit here all day long watching people come and go. I thought Manchester was eventful but this is awesome. To my left there's 2 men playing chess in the middle of the street, and to my right there's Betty Boop chatting with the Cookie Monster. Straight ahead, there's the NYPD HQ and the infamous Times Square skyscraper.
I swore that we would not stand out as tourists, we were going to blend in. The lights are on red… so you must STOP. We were the only ones who did. Standing on the other side of the road, directly in front of me was the Statue Of Liberty. Seriously. I couldn't shout about it because I was being cool and American. Obviously not cool enough because Lady Liberty ran over, handed me the 'flame' and put an American flag and Liberty hat on me and posed for photos. So my plan to blend in with the locals is going well.
If you stop and watch the big screens around you sometimes you see nice things, like clips of Mary Poppins or Hershey's adverts. Other times you see weird things, like me and Tasha waving excitedly back at ourselves as the image was projected for the rest of Times Square to see.
5:00pm White flag alert, I didn't believe any of the things people told me about jet lag. I have a combination of illness, sleep deprivation, excitement and time adjustment. Maybe a meal will bring us both back to life. Where do you go in New York to eat, surrounded by so many great places, so much to choose from? It's taking far too much effort to decide.
"Let's just go to McDonalds".
6:00pm We've been awake for over 36 hours and we're standing in one of the most famous places on the planet. From dragging our bags through the horde of commuters in London to landing in New York City and being on the TV in Times Square, and now feeling like death in a McDonald's there's only one phrase that pretty much sums up our entire day. "Oh my God!".
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