Wednesday 5 December - Chicago to New York City

No photos in today's post so for those who need visual stimulation please accept our heartfelt apologies!   Left our hotel in Chicago at about 10.15am today and headed to O'Hare Airport. Self checkin which ended up being performed by an American Airlines staff member or two was fun. Jenny went a shade of grey when she saw the weight of her suitcase on the scale. Poor thing she has only one suitcase allowed for her return from the USA on Air New Zealand.

Then through security - boarding pass plus photo id just to get to the scanning lines. Oops Alison had made a special trip this morning to a super-market near our hotel to buy new bottles of water for each of us. No that wasn't going to get through so they had to be binned! Jenny tried to drink a third of hers before throwing it away and that came back to haunt her as we were approaching JFK airport - circling and then taxiing for quite some time. Our plane was a 737 and was packed - Alison and Philip thought that they had seen some Asian tourists in their travels pushing the boundaries of what was okay as cabin baggage. American travellers are obviously past masters at getting as much on board for free as possible. Bight the time our group (Group 4) was called to board there was very little space left in overhead lockers. Jenny ended up travelling with her backpack between her feet. At least they served a complimentary soft drink during the flight and Philip now knows not to have one in future - needed to visit the lavatory but by the time he made the decision, descent into JFK was starting and he had to return to his seat. Thank heavens for a relatively short walk from air bridge to terminal concourse!!!!

Up and down escalators in the terminal until we reached baggage claim and our luggage cam through on cue. Had paid and booked for a Supper Shuttle transfer so checked in with the operator and we had a 15-20 wait before loading with 6 other brave souls and taking what amounted to a roller coaster ride into Manhattan. Fortunately, we were the first group to be dropped off at the Beacon Hotel.

Our room here is on the 20th floor and looks down on Boradway and straight across to the Fairway Market which is a dream for shopping. We shopped and have just finished a real home cooked dinner of minute steak, mushrooms, baby potatoes, green beans and butternut pumpkin thanks to the facilities in our kitchenette. Only hassle was the smoke detector which went off as Philip cooked the mushrooms.

It is quite cool and breezy outside this evening. Tomorrow's forecast is for fine but ending to rain for the weekend. Alison and Philip have just returned from a walk to check out the distance to the closest subway station (72nd Street) and then continued a large block walking to Central Park and around the Dakota Building before coming back to the Beacon along 75th Street which is primarily a residential area of brownstone walk-ups. Poor photograph of the Beacon entry below. Time is now 10.16pm and the walk required jackets, scarves, beanies and gloves for Alison.