Around the world in about 4 days – Friday, March 30, 2012

I saw London, I saw France, I did see someone’s underpants (only in London they’re called “knickers”) but more importantly, I also saw New York. Yes, we visited 3 major world cities in about 24 hours.

Right after Bjorn’s sister’s wedding, his dad took us to the train station so we could catch an overnight one to London. Being us, we had an episode that occurred a discomfiting 15 minutes before our train was to arrive that involved pulling over to the side of road and even more disturbingly, dry heaves from me (dang those roads are windy in England). However, we still made our train.

After a depressing stop at Exeter (apparently, not all places in England are quite so charming. Side note — there seems to be an international fashion code for young street toughs which involves wearing baggy clothing that doesn’t match the weather. I don’t know how many young men we saw in short-sleeve shirts and baggy shorts even though it was bone-chillingly cold), we made it into London at around 6 a.m. Our flight didn’t leave until around 11 a.m so we figured we could hit the town for 3 hours.

Is it possible to see London in such a short amount of time? I don’t know, but we sure tried:

The requisite picture with an English telephone booth

Me at Piccadilly Circus

Then it was off to Paris, where we had a 5-hour layover. We took this opportunity to catch up on sleep, but woke up in time for a little picnic in Paris (with a quiche and a fruit tarte, natch).

Seven hours later, we arrived in New York, at around 8 p.m.

And we went to town.

By that, I mean we proceeded to eat. Dunkin Donuts is not in our part of the country, so of course, first we had to have a dunkaccino and donut. Bjorn was also on a mission to try New York pizza. Our first attempt was at Artichoke in East Village. We had the Sicilian. Interesting, but not what I would call true New York pizza (for one thing, it was square).

After pizza, one must have dessert, so we headed to Veniero’s (which is pronounced Veh-near-ohs, but for years I thought was pronounced something more akin to “venereal”). That was fun until they kicked us out at 1 a.m. into by-then pouring rain.

(At Veniero’s with friends)

To cheer ourselves up we headed to Papaya Dog to have their papaya drink (word to the wise: Try this drink only when a bathroom is nearby).

The closest bathroom was at Hot n Crusty, which was ideal, as this gave Bjorn his second chance to try New York pizza. He chose one with tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and basil, which is still not a true, regular New York slice, but which he said was very tasty.

Then it was off to play tourist at Time Square, where we found Ray’s Pizza still open, and Bjorn finally had a plain cheese slice—with oregano, red pepper flakes and parmesan, of course. Unfortunately, it only ranked “OK” with us.

Bjorn at Time Square

My favorite pizza joint, Broadway’s Jerusalem II Kosher Pizza, was not open at that time, but that was fortunate because we didn’t have any more time to spare in the city as we discovered our passports were not in my bag; nor were they with Bjorn. Our conclusion: They were in my luggage…which we had checked in.

We rushed back to the airport and told an American Airlines supervisor about our plight. After rudely hassling us (seriously, AA? If you’re going bankrupt, shouldn’t you try harder with customer service so you could, I don’t know, get out of bankruptcy?) and after much sighing and eye-rolling, she finally made the call to retrieve our bag.

I waited for what seemed like forever at the luggage carousel. Finally it dropped and I raced to reach it. I dragged it to a corner, searching frantically through its contents.

I found nothing.

I rocked back on my heels and thought long and hard. What if?…
but it couldn’t be….
it wasn’t…
but was it?

It was.

Turns out the passports were in Bjorn’s carryon luggage, which we had put in baggage storage. There had been no need to rush back from Manhattan, or to endure the ire of an irate AA supervisor.

Sigh.

But at the least, we were on time for our flight to San Franciso and after another 5 (or 7, at this point time is very hazy with me) hours we arrived in the city by the bay, which was our point of origin, which means, finally,

THE END
(of this series)

Around the world in about 4 days – Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Around the world in about 4 days – Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Around the world in about 4 days – Thursday, March 29, 2012