Trump chocolates

We were up astoundingly early this morning, and sat, for some time, at 4.30am, on the subway at 50th waiting for the train to arrive whilst two Malaysian forty-somethings snogged on the stairwell. They were really going for it and the noises they were making were preposterous. Hollow, salivary, slurping sounds. Hugely disconcerting.

Sam chatted to a Chinese bloke on the long journey to JFK. I tuned into their conversation at one point to hear Sam talking about James the First. We could have taken a taxi to the airport, but it seemed such an unnecessary cost after such a ludicrously expensive holiday. What's an extra half an hour if it saves each of us $50?

We reached Sutphin Boulevard, where you leave the subway system and get on the Airtrain to the airport. As Nathan topped up our Metro card, we were accosted by a man who told us we wouldn't be able to pay for tickets for the Airtrain using the card. It was, of course, a scam, because he then said, "so as you've no use for your Metro card now, can you give it to me?" Well cheeky! For the record, you CAN pay for the AirTrain with a Metro card!!

This particular monorail is covered in little posters of JFK himself, with a series of quotes which appear to want to paint him both as a martyr and a saint, "he saw a world where nature and science would work in balance." The quotes, of course, aren't attributed to anyone specific, and got more and more preposterous. I'm no great follower of American history, but I'd suggest that although JFK was an interesting, handsome, effective, popular, fresh and deeply charismatic president, he wasn't Ghandi! In fact, the Vietnam War pretty much kicked off during his tenure, and the Cold War got a heck of a lot colder.

They were selling Donald Trump chocolates in the Duty Free shop. I couldn't work out if it was meant to be a joke; an ironic gift you get for a friend back home who hates Trump, in the way that we used to buy my Dad pictures of Charles and Di's engagement so that he could deface them. I wanted to turn every single chocolate bar around on the shelf. Or run at the display with flailing arms like a toddler. Or stick a radiator in front of it so the chocolate melts and looks like that bastard's warped face with a Shredded Wheat shoved on the top. An airport seems a funny place to be celebrating that desperate lummox.

The flight was not the greatest time I've ever spent in mid air. A fair amount of turbulence royally freaked me out, and because we'd got up so early, I kept lolling off to sleep. The problem is that I've developed an insane tick which means that every time I drop off to sleep on a plane, I immediately (and violently) wake up again whilst punching the person next to me! Anyone who's ever done a long haul flight sitting next to me will attest to this insanity. And of course the bloke in the seat in front immediately pushed his chair back, so I was boxed into a tiny space.

So, I sat for some time, thinking about our trip and wondering if it could possibly have been any more magical. Again and again, nature provided us with perfect sunsets and sunrises. We had just two hours of rain in three weeks. There were magical mists in San Fran. And then that remarkable eclipse in clear, clear skies. We never missed an appointment. We always arrived in cities and at locations on time. There were no rows. It was the perfect trip in every way.

We touched down in Heathrow at 7pm. I can safely say that I've never crossed the Atlantic that speedily. Considering that the flight to San Fran was over eleven hours, we were really quite surprised when the captain told us that particularly good tail winds would see us back to Heathrow in under six. We were warned that we might need to faff a bit in the sky over London, waiting for air traffic control clearance, so were astounded when the "cabin crew prepare for landing" announcement came. Seconds later we felt the wheels hit the runway.

We were through customs and baggage reclaim remarkably speedily. Taking a morning flight out of New York is massively preferable to the night flight, when you arrive at Heathrow having not slept a wink, feeling like death warmed up. Yes, we were up supremely early this morning, but we'll be home about 9 o'clock, be exhausted by 10, and, with any luck, be able to sleep through the night and wake up feeling fairly refreshed. That's the plan anyway.

Could do without this epic tube journey home though!