This was the day I flew home so I got up had breakfast then packed things up. We rode the bus into Manhattan and decided to take a look at the top of Central Park having only gotten about half way up it on our wanderings. We rode the subway up to 100 and something street at the top of the park then began a gentle walk down. My flight was at six and I had decided I would take the subway and airtrain out to JFK which according to google took about an hour. So I planned to leave at 3pm to allow plenty of time for security and so on.
We walked past the boating lakes found the courtyard gardens which were lovely saw lots of birds Central Park is alive with wildlife which is strange in a big city but I guess it's sheer size means it can maintain a decent population of things. We walked down the various meadows and then it was getting to lunch time so we went out of the park and found a whole foods that did sandwiches and had somewhere to sit. After that we walked past the Swedish cottage and then went up Belverdeer castle.
After that it was more or less time to go so we walked out of the park and found a metro station at 81st street. I said my goodbyes and then went down to the platform. There was some sort of problem and a powercut up the line so trains were running slow so it was a good half an hour before a train turned up. Plenty of express's went by but nothing local stopped. The platform kept filling up and up and by the time a train did come I was a bit worried I wouldn't get on but I squeezed in.
I rode down to 7th ave and changed trains to one that would take me to the airtrain. Here I was a little confused as the normal conventions of uptown and downtown didn't make sense as I was going across the island then out to Brooklyn. I eventually found the right platform and got on a train which turned out to be an express but luckily it did stop where I wanted. Express trains seem to vary and in my short time navigating the metro system I didn't work out the trick to finding which stations an express train will actually stop at. A very few trains had electronic notice boards telling you where they were stopping but not many. Anyway I rode the metro out to the Airtrain terminal and got there to find a train waiting so I jumped on and rode that to terminal 5.
At this point I discovered my plane had been delayed by an hour. Still I was there ready to fly I went through security found the gate and got a sandwich and drink to pass the time. Eventually they called us to board I was sat next to what appeared to be a mother and teenage son who spent the early part of the flight arguing about his homework and then his phone use. After that they went to sleep and the boy slumped over and began resting his head on my shoulder. I discouraged this and he went back to sleeping upright. The flight was otherwise uneventful I read my book and then got a little sleep later on landing in SJC at about 11:45.
I had a fun week got to see New York and visit places I've always wanted to see got to see my parents as well and enjoy some good times. It was quite hard work walking all over the place so it'll be nice to have a bit of a rest before work starts again next week.
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