Getting there is half the fun

Day 1
Actually the title should read: Getting there is only half fun.  Things started well in that we arrived at Canberra airport on time (5am) and headed to the Qantas Club for first breakfast.

Then things took a dramatic downturn.  Our flight was delayed for maintenance reasons - by about 45 minutes.  Still, better safe than sorry.  We travelled to Sydney and headed to the Qantas Club for second breakfast.  It was even better than our first breakfast (they had baked beans in Sydney), and we had extra time to enjoy it because our flight to the USA was delayed, due to the late arrival of the incoming flight.  About an hour late we boarded the plane, and settled in to enjoy our first complimentary champagne - sorry, sparkling white (to be fair to France).

We started to taxi out in preparation for take off, and the flight crew announced that there was a problem with a heat sensor in the cargo hold - so we returned to the departure gate to allow the engineers to check things over.

That only delayed us for just over another hour.  (Wow, writing this blog this is going to take forever!)  After about another hour we took off and flew safely to Los Angeles.  Rhonda slept quite well and I watched the complete third season of Game of Thrones and the first three episodes of The Blacklist.  We entered the USA, collected our bags (they must have had a lot of baggage handlers on duty because the assembled multitude of passengers could barely keep up with the speed of arrival of cases and assorted other belongings on the baggage carousel), took them to the transit area and checked them in again, and then reboarded the plane (or one that seemed almost identical) for the flight to New York.  We landed without incident and then went to collect our bags.  Apparently, JFK International Airport only had a single baggage handler on duty, because it took forever (or over 40 minutes if we're honest) for our bags to arrive on the carousel.  Actually it was only Rhonda's case that took that long, but she enjoyed watching everybody else get their bags and leave the airport to start their holidays.  I enjoyed standing beside the baggage carousel while people (who had forgotten they were wearing backpacks) kept turning around next to me.

While we waited I noticed a poster on the wall which might provide a partial explanation for childhood obesity in the USA - it's a lack of understanding of English grammar.

The poster might be more successful if it read: "Replace fast food and junk meals with fruit or vegetables."  Thankfully we had a very quick taxi ride to Manhattan and our hotel (The Hotel @ Times Square) and both had a good night's sleep.  We'll take you through Day 2 tomorrow.