BW0807

Background

Having been on secondment in Munich for the last 6 months, and having decided we should go to New York for Christmas last year and not gone, it seemed like this year I was on the hook for delivering as promised.

"Women always worry about the things that men forget; Men always worry about the things women remember." - Albert Einstein

So that was sorted - we would be in New York for Christmas, but I made myself a promise last time I visited the USA (2009!) that when I went back to the East Coast, it would involve Washington so I could visit my favourite pizza restaurant, and hope to high heaven that it was indeed as good as I remember it, or forever ruin the family memory from 6 years ago! Hence the detour.

The next slightly complicated part was that I needed to be in London (stress needed) to go out with 23 of my buddies for New Year's Eve, but I also had to sign out of my apartment in Munich on 31 December, and not knowing how much stuff I would have I might need to return to Munich to pick up and extra suitcase (that I didn't want to haul to the US) - so the routing became a whole lot more convoluted – particularly after the PHL-MUC flight was cancelled by AA.

Itinerary

Onto the specifics that I know you my dear readers really care about I booked:

Flights

SAS MUC-CPH Y
BA CPH-LHR J
BA LHR-JFK F
BA IAD-LHR F
BA LHR-MUC J
BA MUC-LHR Y - (Flexible separate ticket - booked by my firm when I came out here so the outbound was back in July).

Hotels

D'Angleterre Copenhagen 1 night
The Surrey New York 4 nights
Mandarin Oriental Washington D.C 3 nights

The report will primarily be written in dead time e.g. on the plane and or trains, and airport lounges etc. over the next 8 days, anything I can’t finish will be completed shortly after getting back home.

I hope you enjoy the report.

Want to know where I'm going next?

LGW-VIE-LGW BA Y // Sofitel Stephansdom (February 2016)
LHR-BOS-DTW-ORD-LHR VS J DL J/F // Fairmont Copley Plaza - Park Hyatt Chicago (April 2016)
LGW-ARN-DOH-SIN-HKG-BJS-PVG-DOH-ARN-LHR QR J CX J BA Y DY Y // Mandarin Oriental - The Peninsula - Hilton Wangfujing - Four Seasons Pudong (May 2016)

BW0807

The SAS flight was rather uneventful, boarding commenced on time; and we boarded a fairly dated and tired looking A321 from Munich to Copenhagen. The most interesting part of the flight was the taxi, where clearly something was going on with the landing gear that sounded like what can only be described as a hyperventilating donkey for c. 2 minutes, this eventually subsided and we took off on schedule, which I was pleased to be able to watch via an on-board camera in the nose, which is not something I have seen very often on a short haul aircraft.

The seat layout was peculiar, with several seats missing making rows of two clustered in several places around exit rows. I was located in seat 25D, directly behind the crew seat next to the over wing exit, allowing as expected much needed extra legroom. The guy next to me was fairly tall at about 190cm, and I saw his face drop as he saw the legroom in the seats one over to me was significantly reduced. Fortunately the load was about 75% so the middle seat remained free, allowing him to stretch his legs into the middle seat. Although in general the seat map was a bit of a lottery – so be aware of that in the future.

The SAS safety video commenced during taxiing, and was laughably old fashioned with a try-hard English accent from the 1990s, and a woman in the video dressed in a suitably poor suit to match. After take-off the purser came on the PA system to announce the in-flight beverage service for the short 1.30 hour trip from MUC to CPH, having not flown SAS before I was surprised to find that no free beverages were offered (with the exception of coffee or tea which was complementary), not a major issue at all, but I would have expected at least water to have been offered, as I had believed SAS to be a full-service airline.

The IFE was on the blink, and announced about 30 minutes into the flight that we would be landing in about 20 minutes. It was reset a few times, but when it failed to be fixed a cartoon was put on for the children on the overhead screens which I was more than happy with, and in any case the young children around me were very well behaved throughout.

We landed on schedule and I was mighty impressed by the time it took from landing to get through to the arrivals area in terminal 3 by the metro station in just 12 minutes (having lived in Germany I have really been enjoying the liberties of Schengen, which I will miss when I move back to the UK). Unfortunately this efficiency wasn’t really required, as I needed to wait for my girlfriend who was arriving from LHR on a separate flight some 45 minutes later.

Overall the flight “got the job done”, the interaction from the crew was limited, no in-flight complementary beverage besides coffee was disappointing, but really a non-issue. The cabin was tired, but really no different to that of EasyJet, and for the price I paid (c. £60 one way), I have no complaints – but on 2 hour plus flights I might reconsider flying SAS short haul unless it was cheaper than alternatives.

Owing to my shyness with cameras where it looks “weird” (I need to get over this in time), I will only take pictures during this report on flights where it can either be done discreetly, or would really add value to the report. Most people know what a short-haul A318-321 looks like, and pictures of BA First are plenty. However less documented are the hotels I am staying at, and the restaurants I visit, which I will document with pictures, alongside selected pictures from flights.

humanoid94

Please tell what this amazing pizza place is in DC. I have been looking for one for a long time.

BW0807

http://www.matchboxrestaurants.com/

I recommend the Capitol Hill location, we visited the China Town one for a very quick lunch before coming to the airport today and it was very, very busy and not as nicely laid out and spacious - the food however was "equal" at both venues.

CHOPCHOP767

Oh no! Matchbox? Really? I was stuck commuting to DC for a year, and I agree, there are no decent places for pizza; but I would have to disagree with you on Matchbox. If any-thing, there was that Wise-guy Pizza that was only few blocks east of that Matchbox location. Matchbox was a puppet show.

BW0807

Oh really! Interesting how opinions differ, of course not going to argue with you - but surprised to hear you strongly disliked it (by the sounds of it) - the reviews online look reasonable as well? What made it a puppet show for you?

Will try and get the next installment up this evening.

HALA330

A good pizza place in DC is 2 Amys in the Cleveland Park-ish area ... other than that there's no pizza in DC... For the past 1.5 year living in DC, I just burn some Amtrak Guest rewards points to go to NY for a weekend and get the real thing LOL

BW0807

Once my girlfriend arrived with only minor complaining about “how difficult the metro was to find”, we bought metro tickets and headed to the platform. The tickets cost about £3.60 each way per person, and the metro only took about 12 minutes to get us to Kongens Nytorv, where the D’Angleterre is located. I was disappointed to discover that the square in the centre, which the hotel overlooks was a construction site, meaning that it didn’t look as picturesque as it could have. However the front of the hotel in its traditional Christmas dress was stunning, truly very unique; and was a very festive spectacle to welcome us to the hotel.

Check-in was welcoming and efficient, pulling my details quickly; and informing us that, owing to our Virtuoso booking we had been upgraded to a Junior Suite, and would also be entitled to complementary buffet breakfast, and a $100 credit towards dining at the Marchal, the in-house Michelin Star restaurant, which we had booked at 9.00pm. We had considered cancelling this reservation, as I was more in favour of bar food, but we decided to keep it.

We headed up to the room with about 1 hour before dinner, using the rather unique room key in the rather sophisticated locking mechanism allowed us to enter the newly renovated room.

My first impressions of the hotel room were not “wow”, but rather “solid”. The room was well equipped, with a sparkling new nespresso machine, a clear differentiator of any room for my girlfriend (a self-confessed coffee addict), a comfortable sofa, work desk, and ample sized closet with the safe and typical shoe care and laundry facilities. The bed was generously sized, and exceptionally comfortable – the most important part of any room for me, but was the typical European two singles butted together, with a mattress topper over them so the crack can’t really be felt once in bed.










The bathroom was tasteful and featured a well-proportioned shower, with Amazing Space amenities. It even had one of those Japanese style butt-washers (albeit simplified), which I don’t often see in Europe. You could tell that the room had recently been redone, and it really was a solid quality room, but it lacked wow factor, and the specific room was let down by a lack of air-conditioning, which the hotel tried to fix with no success. Which given the unseasonably warm weather let the room down a little, as we ended up sleeping with the windows open all night.






Overall I would rate the room as a solid 7/10 and would happily return, but I think I was very fortunate for the upgrade to a Junior Suite, as it was very small and basically just an attic room, I think I might have been less comfortable in a regular room and may have rated the hotel room more harshly.

Where the hotel really excelled was its dining facilities, we dined at the Marchal restaurant in the evening and the food was very impressive.
We started off with a basket of deliciously almost black rye bread with butter whilst we decided on our other courses. I elected for the pork belly with apple, potato and onions which was the highlight of the meal, exceptionally flavoursome and the meat itself paired very well with the trimmings of the dish.




For the main course I shared with my girlfriend the Chateaubriand, outvoted on the Monkfish which I would have gone for, owing to our varying meat preferences, the waiter was instructed to cook the middle to a medium rare, and do the outsides as far as he could without compromising the middle – it was a success, and came back perfectly cooked for both of us, me taking the outside, and my girlfriend the more red centre. The meat was a very high quality, served with marrow, parsley, potato puree, lightly dried cheese and truffle gravy. Unfortunately the dish was let down by an overpowering glaze, which killed the flavour of the meat, and was so rich, that it needed to be washed down with a cucumber side salad, which came paired with the dish. The truffle gravy was fantastic, and the marrow was to die for, but given the meat was the centre piece of the meal – it couldn’t be made up for, very good dish, yes, just not for me.




The wine list was extensive, but very over-priced in my opinion. For damage limitation we stayed away from the French, and elected for a 2011 Giacomo Grimaldi Barolo, which paired well with the meat; but definitely shouldn’t have been sold at €117 a bottle. Desert for me took the form of the Comte Cheese with Black Truffle, aged balsamic and cloudberry puree, very nice cheese that matched well with the wine, but was very thinly sliced – I’m somewhat of a heathen and prefer chunkier and fewer cuts, but a minor complaint. The highlight of the deserts was definitely the macaroons which were white chocolate and salted condensed milk, and gave Laudree a serious run for their money – beating them according to the other half.




Dinner overall was a solid 8/10, even though I didn’t like the steak, I could appreciate it for what it was. The service was impeccable, however I think the waiter tried to match our wine consumption to the meal, which meant it was a little slow for me, but this was minor – service otherwise was flawless, refined and polite throughout. We then transferred to the bar for a couple more drinks, I had an espresso martini, and my girlfriend another glass of red (Malbec), where I had to be very careful to avoid wondering eyes, as this bar seemed to be the place to be for some absolutely (other than my girlfriend) gorgeous women. The check came in at €400 for two, which I think was about on point – more fairly priced wine and a main that I liked more (rather than appreciated), could have pushed it up another half a point – but overall I would recommend the restaurant to anyone in Copenhagen, particularly if you’re already staying at the hotel.

The following morning we got up and headed down to the same restaurant in the hotel which was laid out for breakfast. The buffet breakfast was included in the rate (€35 rack rate, which we wouldn’t have paid). There was a good selection of juices, cheeses and breads, and some very high quality cold cuts of meat. Included in the buffet was also a selection of cooked to order egg dishes, which I went for alongside a couple of glasses of juices, a coffee, and a couple of slices of meat and cheese.





After breakfast we had about 3-4 hours to explore the city before needing to head for the airport. We left our bags with the concierge, where there was a cock-up with the bill; as we had moved to the bar the bill was booked by them and not the restaurant, this meant they didn’t apply the credit and had to issue a refund (although they were happy to do this), but I don’t think they got it right as the bill looks a bit high, so will need to follow up with the CC company.

In the city we wondered over to the Kastellet, which is an active military site; but is primarily used as a local park for runners on the high banks. It is very beautiful and a pleasure to walk around and snap pictures and take in – it was very cold up on the hills however with the wind blowing in over the water. We then walked back through the city and watched the changing of the guard at Amalienborg Palace, where I discovered the panorama function on my iPhone, which worked incredibly well whilst everyone else was waiting for the guard to march into the square. After that we went into the central shopping district to have a look round. There were lots of nice luxury brand boutiques, and the main shopping street was open on 23rd of December, but a lot of the nice independent boutiques were unfortunately closed for Christmas break, which was a little disappointing. We were short on time on the way back to the hotel to collect the bags and head to the airport, so we grabbed a quick Gluehwein and Bratwurst at the Christmas market. After collecting the bags we made the short walk to the underground station and took the quick 12 minute journey back to the airport.

BW0807

Given this is my first trip report I would be pleased to get feedback on whether it is too wordy or picture heavy / light, whether you would like more objective / subjective reporting etc.

Up next CPH-LHR-JFK on BA J and F.

mentor of monty

Spot on so far- really enjoying it.

arlflyer

Re: DC pizza, the scene here has grown a LOT since 2009. At that time Matchbox probably was the best show in town, though people would argue that Paradiso was. Me, I never like Paradiso, the pies are just too spartan, nothing to them. These days there are a lot more options though. Of course, it depends on what you're specifically looking for. If you want a true pizza Napoletana, the best in my opinion is Pupatella out in Ballston. Downtown, if you're over checking out 14th St, Ghibellina is one of my favorites as well and they do a fantastic happy hour.

If you like a NYC style slice, I agree with CHOPCHOP that Wiseguy, over on Mass Ave (location also in Rosslyn) is the closest you're gonna come in DC.

There's also been the custom pizza movement, which can be hit or miss. The bad ones are real bad and the good ones can be fantastic on the right day. &pizza is the front-runner and probably the most "gourmet" of the bunch from a topping perspective; my personal favorite though for flavor and value is Pizza Studio on 19th in Dupont.

If you want the true DC pizza experience though, you gotta go for a jumbo slice sometime after midnight.

lamphs

d'Angleterre...funny.

I stayed for one night when in was in my early 20's...very inexperienced traveler. I was traveling with a group as part of a cruise and rooming with a buddy. That was my first experience with the European 'double' bed... we were insistent that we were not sleeping in the same bed. Low and behold, the beds separated. That was also the first time I had seen a 'butt washer', also known as a bidet. Of course, I turned it on as I was curious, and was quickly splashed in the face!

Oh yes, 2 Amy's claim is its Neapolitan oven certification from the officials in Naples. It is good pizza and a nice neighborhood.

Great report so far!

BW0807

We arrived at Copenhagen airport at about 3pm, roughly 2.15 hours before departure. Clearing security was painless and took roughly 5 minutes, despite the couples with young children in front of us. After clearing security we had a quick nose around duty free before heading over to the Aviator lounge located up a staircase opposite Starbucks in the A gates section, accessed using a Priority Pass (but I think BA Club passengers can also enter here).

The lounge is done to a reasonable standard and certainly isn’t a terrible place to pass time. It offers ‘partial tarmac views’, by that I mean rather uninspiring, and seen only from a handful of sitting locations in the lounge. Tap beer (Carlsberg?) and wine are complementary, along with a mediocre looking food spread – the exception being the breads, which looked very good, although not being hungry I can’t confirm my suspicions.
I left the lounge roughly 50 minutes before departure, thinking that would be plenty of time to make it over to the gates from which BA depart.

Unfortunately I had overlooked that passport control stood between me and my gate, with a long snaking line of a couple of hundred passengers and only two border police checking passes, at T-35 I started to sweat a little, realising there was no way the queue was filtering enough, and at T-30 I thought I was going to miss the flight – I politely asked a Swedish couple about 75 people ahead of me what time their flight was, their reply was 6.30pm a full hour and a bit after me, I asked them if I could rudely push in front of them, and after seeing which gate I was leaving from and that my flight was boarding, they kindly let me push in front, and remarked “you better run, that gate is quite a way”. Passing through security at T-25 or so, I ran for the gate, armed with a four wheel roll on and a briefcase on top I was able to eat up the yards very quickly and arrived at the gate at T-22, noticing a few chuckles from people as I haired passed. Fortunately my flight had yet to begin boarding at T-20 unlike the screen at security had said, so all was okay – with boarding actually only beginning 5 minutes later. I made a mental note not to be so clumsy at unknown airports in future.

The short hop from CPH to LHR was operated by a BA A319, and I was seated in Club Europe 1D – the only person in row 1. We pushed back about 8 minutes before departure, with the purser having a good play on his iPad during take-off at 17.19, 4 minutes later than scheduled. I ordered a glass of Bailey’s, followed by a quick flick to check the watch, much to the amusement of the purser “It’s always after 5pm somewhere in the world sir”. They have an obsession with trying to give away multiple packs of these nuts, which basically have no nuts in them, which are labelled Club World – I always think they must have got a good bulk buy deal with Costco, always giving me two packets. The purser forgot to pull the curtain across whilst preparing the food, but remembered half way through, not that it stops the smell of curry wafting through the cabin!



I opted for the prawn curry, because for once it actually looked quite good. I usually skip the meals in Club Europe as they don’t usually look that appealing. I opted for a glass of Spanish Tempranilo with my curry, which, as expected tasted like bong water – the curry itself however wasn’t bad, however they fooled me with only a handful of prawns, the rest of the curry was bulked out with disguised cauliflower and other vegetables. The accompanying seeded bread was also piping hot and good, and the butter melted perfectly in the middle – the cheese was very bland, but blended together well with the accompanying condiments on the top of the bread. The dessert however was terrible – apple if I recall, and I left it after a single spoonful.



We landed on time – which given my 1.30 hour connection, was much appreciated. I sped through T5 connections, opting for this route as opposed to out and in, and was rewarded with a very reasonable arrival hall to Concorde room (via Duty Free) in just 15 minutes. I ordered a beer and a sparkling water with ice and no lemon to quench my thirst (which arrived without ice and with lemon, go figure…) from all the rushing through security at both Copenhagen and London. I also wanted something I wouldn’t feel too bad seeing off quickly, as after my scare in Copenhagen, I decided to play getting to the gate more carefully (even though I know T5 very well). The CCR itself was relatively empty, at maybe only 20% capacity from what I saw when I arrived. I didn’t really get the chance to explore it properly this time, so will not give it a detailed review like others here who know its intricacies, but will post a couple of pictures from my return leg later in the report. But in my view it is a nice homely space in which to kill time, it is comfortable and the particular sofa upon which I sat, near the fire escape opposite from the bar, to the left of the dining room was not too run down. It is not however a show-stopper, where you would go out of your way to visit. I might turn up 30 minutes to 45 minutes earlier to squirrel down some food if I were hungry, but I wouldn’t ever arrive hours early just to enjoy the environment like others do. What I will say however is that the toilets are not good – I do not know what BA were thinking building hospital toilets in a First class lounge, and why they can’t at least try to imitate a hotel toilet is beyond me, and a piece of artwork on the wall does not hide this fact… I’m not trying to be unfair to BA here, but on the outbound I only took pictures of the toilets as I was somewhat surprised.






Following my scare in CPH, I left the CCR at 7.00pm, 55 minutes before departure, when I usually would have left it to 7.15pm (irrational I know, as it almost always takes the same amount of time to get to the B gates.) I got to the B gates around 5-10 minutes before boarding was called.

Now I booked into BA F on the 747 to JFK, only because I was too tight to pay the disgusting £88 seat selection fee to get an UD seat. Having not had BA status for a while, only flying cheap short haul for leisure on BA (25 sectors or so annually), I found the thought so repulsive that when award space opened up 1 week before departure, the 17,183 avios (random?) and £32 for F sounded a lot better than £88 for Club. I also figured that, since it was a late night flight east, I could drink that £120 out of them.

Boarding was painless, and I was about 10th or so in the fast-track line, my boarding pass and passport were checked, and I was down the air bridge, and on to the plane. At the door my boarding pass was checked, and then I was handed off to a middle-aged male colleague who escorted me to seat 1A.




My first impressions of the seat were that is was very well designed and visually appealing, but that it looked a little small. I was the first to board, and a couple of minutes later an older female colleague came by to take my drink order, I requested a glass of champagne and sparkling water, which arrived a few minutes later. About 10 minutes later the rest of the F cabin began boarding, and it quickly filled up to a near-full 13/14 load, I understand it was due to be full, but clearly someone opted (in)voluntarily not to fly. The cabin was, to be honest a bit of a zoo upon boarding (this will be my only moaning in the report, I am usually not like this), with a very noisy American passenger, and another very well-spoken but il-mannered, entitled English gentlemen contributing a significant amount of unwelcome literally hot-air.



Mr USA decided to educate the cabin on the composition of the A380, and how, because of its high composite content, he couldn’t sleep, because of the noise from the kitchen. He also proclaimed to Mr England that the A380 was the only plane in the BA fleet that carried Wi-Fi, not the 747 that we were on (which was actually supposed to have Wi-Fi, and didn’t), much to the dismay of Mr England, who only booked on this flight as it was the only BA plane scheduled to have Wi-Fi. They then decided to start discussing how much they don’t like the 747, and why it hasn’t been phased out yet – clearly none of them have had a look at oil futures lately. I was happy to be in row 1 as it meant that I was largely shut off from the zoo before take-off behind me, and had no problems with the privacy of the seat, only seeing the young lady in 1K when I leant forward.

The cabin crew came round to collect drinks before we began taxiing out for take-off, and again to tell Mr England to get off his mobile phone, who continued to talk until he was told again, “Sorry dear I have to get off the phone now, they’re telling me off, apparently I’m not allowed to talk now” – quite amusing given he was talking loudly about how he had flown in from JFK this morning and out this evening, and thus, I assume is a frequent flyer.
After take-off the flight attendant came through the cabin to take drink and dinner orders, this time referring to me by name (as opposed to Sir, for those of you who care about this kind of thing). Having unusually eaten on the Club Europe flight I wasn’t hungry, and asked for my dinner 3 hours into the flight, pre-ordering to ensure I didn’t miss out on the busy flight.
To drink I ordered a Nespresso shot to keep me awake for the 7 hour flight, owing to my terrible sleep in Copenhagen. Mr England shortly after proceeded to complain about his power-socket being broken, at which point I was tempted to just offer him mine – but fortunately the flight attendant managed to fix it, which placated him somewhat – but he couldn’t resist a jab about the Wi-Fi.

During the wait for the first round of drinks I went off to use the men’s room, at which point a rather sheepish flight attendant caught me on the way back, “Mr BW0807, I’m ever so sorry but we haven’t loaded any caffeinated Nespresso on this flight – but I can make you a really strong mix of pond water coffee”, a little disappointed I accepted, what else could we do – these things happen. The coffee arrived shortly after, accompanied by some warm nuts (primarily almonds), I picked out everything except the almonds, and the honey roasted cashews in particular were very good. Fortunately the cabin began to quieten down after the first round of drinks, and Mr England had one final complaint about not liking sitting in row 5. After my coffee I knocked back another few champagnes whilst reading the Economist, and the cabin largely went to sleep shortly after dinner (which surprised me as it was 9pm UK or 4pm US), whereas I and a couple of others stayed up the entire way, planning to make it to 11pm US, or 4am UK up on landing.




At around 10.20 the cabin crew came around to ask me whether I was still wanting to eat, which I was. They advised me that they would have dinner ready for around 11pm, I asked for one final champagne, and advised him that I would switch to red wine with my meal. On a couple of occasions when I ordered drinks they were quite slow to come, and always just before I was thinking of checking-up on the order, the drinks did come. Sure enough at 11pm on the dot, serving began. I started with the Amuse-Bouche which was a trout like dish, not actually bad at all, but not to my taste. The Italian red that I paired the dish with (not liking white wine), was very bland even when held lingering on the tongue for some time. I enjoyed my salad which was actually rather good, which the attendant kindly served with a Club World vinaigrette, after wrongly informing me that the First dressings were either creamy or vinegar based (both were creamy). The Bavarian pretzel bread was also very enjoyable with butter, and I began to enjoy the Italian wine a little more with the excellent prawn starter, which was, very, very good in my opinion.







I switched to the 3rd growth Bordeaux with my Veal main, and it was indeed much better than the Italian wine I had before. I was slightly dreading the Veal, given the bad reputation the board gives it, and even more so given I had eaten Michelin star beef the night before. The veal was tough, chewy (negatives) and well cooked (not necessarily a negative for me), but tasted reasonable enough – akin to something you might get in a lower mid-range restaurant, not really fitting for the quality of wine I know. I finished up with the cheese course to accompany my last glass of red wine for the flight, which was very well put together, tasted delicious and was also well proportioned, well done BA.




In total I had by this point 4 glasses of champagne and 5 glasses of wine, and with about 3 hours to go until landing I decided to recline the chair further, sit back and relax with the IFE. The IFE was abysmal, I couldn’t quite believe it, and thought it was broken! There were more films in the recently added section than the overall directory. There was a choice of 5 movies, and random episodes of various TV series (such as the Big Bang theory).

I selected Entourage which I hadn’t seen before; which was cheap enough humour to make me chuckle a little (which I muffled to avoid disturbing sleeping passengers), unlike Mr England and/or America who sounded like they were being asphyxiated as they slept. I went back to the galley half way through the movie to order a glass of Cognac, telling myself that 10 beverages was a good round number, and an amount I would be comfortable with in terms of redeeming the cost of the “forced upgrade” mentioned earlier.

After the movie I watched 2 episodes of the Big Bang theory, which took us up until 40 minutes before landing; at which point the rest of the cabin was woken up. By this time I was getting my usual foot twitches that I get when I am tired (given it was 4.20am CET, I had slept badly in Copenhagen, and I was a few Shandies down), but pulled through without drifting off. We landed on time at JFK, a little bumpy on the way down, but a smooth landing put us in JFK on time.



Up next New York City in pictures, including The Surrey Hotel.

milesinthemiddleeast

Really good report so far.

Nice to see a report of D'Angleterre, as I am planning a visit in April.

BW0807

Apologies for the misquote and delay, work has kicked off and it is a bit hectic.

I will try and get the next section up sometime next week.