Los Pirineos 2010 – Part 1

27 Dec 09 – 2300 EST
Location: Somewhere over the Atlantic

Last night, I took the overnight bus from Norfolk to New York City. My time in Norfolk was great. I got to spend quality time with my family, see some friends and played in the annual Boxing Day golf tournament. All in all, it was a great week. Eventually, though, it was time for me to catch that bus at 11PM on the 26th and start my next adventure.

After sitting in the Norfolk bus station for awhile, the bus finally showed up. There were too many people heading to New York City for all of us to fit into one bus. So, they made one bus an express to NYC and the other a schedule bus, which means it stops at a bunch of intermediate towns. Since I wasn’t interested in getting to NYC early, I opted for the schedule bus, which was significantly less crowded. It was perfect, we all had at least two seats to ourselves and didn’t pick anyone up at the other stops anyway.

Soon, I arrived in New York City at 7:30 in the morning. I left the Port Authority and headed to the United Nations Headquarters. I had never been before and had an entire day to kill before my flight. Well, it turns out that they don’t give tours of the UN on weekends, oh well. Instead, I hopped on the subway and made my way to the airport. I figured I could check my bags and then head back into the city. Well, Iberia Air doesn’t start checking people in until 2:30PM. At this point, there wasn’t much sense in going back into the city with my bag. So, I hung around, read, slept and sorted out my bag for transit.

Figure 1: NYC! Empire State Building.

Figure 2: United Nations Headquarters.

Figure 3: In front of Trump Tower. Yes, I realise it looks like it says "rump".

Dan showed up at the airport around 2PM. We checked in, uneventfully. Waited around the terminal, looked at our maps, had some snacks and, eventually, got on our flight. We took our seats in row 35, blerg, and took off for Spain. The flight, so far, has been the usual, a movie, dinner, sleeping, reading, etc. I am looking forward to hitting the ground in Barcelona and getting this trip underway.