Day 170: To New York City

To say I was excited to finally be going back to the US would be an understatement. Oh the possibilities! Suddenly I would once again be the most fluent speaker of a country's official language, all the signs would be in English, and I could finally use the citizens only fast lane during passport control.

I woke up an hour before my 8am alarm and took my time getting everything I needed together, leaving the hostel around 9am. 

My train to Amerika!

I arrived at Schönefeld Airport with plenty of time to spare before my 12:25pm flight. Unfortunately, there was congestion at Schönefeld and our plane didn't leave the ground until 1:40pm. I should say that I was worried, because my original layover in Keflavik, Iceland was only 55 minutes, but I was partly curious if I had any chance of receiving some sweet, sweet compensation.

When it was apparent our plane would land only five minutes before my connecting flight to Newark, I could smell cash like a loan shark. I had dreams of lounging in 100 euro a night Icelandic hotels, courtesy of the airline. I envisioned the airline bending over backwards trying to satisfy my insatiable demands, begging me to take thousands of dollars in compensation in exchange for a later flight -- eventually chartering a private jet for myself once they realize that it's their only hope of not losing every last penny they own in airline court.

But it was not to be. They announced that the connecting flights (there were multiple scheduled to leave around this time) would all wait for us, and I made it onto my next flight uneventfully (if you could call walking out of one plane and onto another within five minutes, with no waiting in lines whatsoever, a non-event).

After landing in New York I bought a ticket for an express bus into the city. A new bus was supposed to arrive every 15 minutes, but presumably because it was rush hour, and the bus company can't plan for an entirely predictable event, I had to wait 80 minutes for the bus to finally arrive.

After the 45-minute drive to Manhattan Island, I bought a weekly metro pass and took the E line a few stops to Queen's Plaza, where it was a 5-minute walk to Q4 Hotel and Hostel.

It was only 9pm, but my body was still on Berlin time (3am) and all I'd had to eat that day was a small lunch on the plane and breakfast in Berlin. I wanted to cross the street and get a kebab or a slice of pizza, but excessive pride wouldn't allow me to accept a $3 ATM fee at the hotel or brutalize a business to the fees charged by credit card companies for such a small transaction -- so I walked half a mile to a nearby 7-11 and splurged on cliff bars, banana bread, and a healthy smoothie. Back at the hostel, I played an intense ping-pong match with another guest from Saudi Arabia before showering and turning in for the night around 11:30pm.