1st day in NYC

Neadless to say, I was anxious to finally go to USA, to New York City! I knew it was going to be a long journey, so I went to bed early in order to have a good rest...Heh, this didn’t really work out and I slept about a half an hour:D

At 2.35 (at night!) the taxi arrived and me and my mom started our journey. We took a night bus from Tartu to Tallinn. This was when things started to go wrong...after stepping inside the bus and presenting our tickets, it took unusually long for the bus driver to check our tickets.Finally, he asked when we wanted to go to Tallinn. I explained that today (Sunday night) and I had bought tickets a day early to make sure we get there on time. Well, then we discovered that the tickets were for Saturday night and the ticket salesman had just misunderstood me...or I hadn’t explained myself properly enough...Oh well, I was quite confused and upset but luckily the bus driver was kind enough to let us on the bus without asking us to buy new tickets (PS: the night ones cost 17 euros per person!!!!) So, we were finally heading towards Tallinn. And if you think that I releaved my sleeping deficit, then you're wrong....couldn't sleep on the bus, like always.

When we finally arrived in Tallinn and got our tickets to Amsterdam, we thought that the worst was over and we can go on with our day/night. But what we found out in Amsterdam was that the check in desk in Tallinn had made a mistake with our tickets...the person had checked us in but not given us boarding passes, whereas in Tallinn we were told to check in again in Amsterdam and get our boarding passes there....So after a 15 min wait, the nice Dutch lady managed to get us our boarding passes and because of the previously made mess, our seats were really far apart (one in row 17, other 42)! But she said that we needn’t worry and we can change them at the gate.

It took ~3 hours at the gate to get rid of the queue...cause what happened there was that people were let in one by one, their passports were checked and tons of questions were asked (questions like „Did you buy your own tickets?“ „What kind of work do you do?“ "Where are you exactly staying in USA"etc). Luckily, after that we managed to get seats next to each other...  But when we got to the plane, we discovered that our seats were in the middle row and at the far end of the aircraft...which meant that we couldn’t really lower our seats like the others could. Wohoo, again no sleep?!?! After we had our first meal, I took a sleeping pill for the first time in my life. I don’t think it worked too well but my mother said I managed to doze off for a while...this was good!

When we arrived in NYC, our plane could not go to its destined gate...But after arriving at the new gate, the airport staff assured us that everyone in the waiting areas would be notified about this change. Hell they were! After I became upset again since we didn’t find Salme (my grandfather’s cousin’s wife), we decided to walk to the initial gate which was in the other terminal. And surprise, surprise, she was waiting us there, clueless of the fact that we were somewhere else! J We got a cab to the city, to our hotel that Tiina (Salme’s daughter) had booked for us.

Airport

tunnel on a way to Manhattan

 

And guess what! When we got to the hotel, we saw that it's the „W“ hotel at TIMES SQUARE! Yep, exactly there! So Broadway is the main street to walk on and Rockefeller Centre just at a few minutes walking distance...I’m so grateful for Tiina for this experience! How many people can say that they stayed in a fabulous hotel at Times Square! There’s such a view from the window, the room is just amazing and I’m not gonna even start with the bathroom(Check where the water is coming from) :):)!!! I'm not sure exactly why (I think it's for safety reasons) but the reception is only on the 7th floor. So, first you walk into a room that has a ceiling and walls made of water (i'm not kidding) and then you need to take an elevator to the 7th floor and in order to get to your room, you need to change elevators and use your room card to get on to your floor:P

Our hotel

When walking into the hotel

24th floor!

Our room

Our room

Our bathroom