Back to work
Still feeling a bit of jet lag after the 6 and a half hour flight back to the UK. For those interested here is a brief itinerary of what happened: Tuesday:<br />Left home for the airport at 9 am, Plane was on time and it departed at 2 pm. The plane was less than 50% full so we could sit wherever we wanted <img src="https://www.arsoftware.co.uk/blog/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png" alt=":-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" /> Arrived in JFK at 6pm (US time) and found our Cosmos representative who arranged transport to the Skyline hotel NYC. Arrived at 7pm. Wednesday:<br />Site seeing tour of NYC (empire state, rockafella center, grand central station, central park etc), afterwards we (Parents and I) had a boat cruise around Manhattan island visiting the Statue of Liberty. Then we had the rest of the day to ourselves. So we headed for Times Square for some shopping. We visited the world's largest Virgin Megastore and the world's largest toys r us (which has a 50ft ferris wheel inside!). Then we walked over to Central Park and visited the rather disappointing Strawberry fields (a tribute to John Lennon who was shot opposite the spot just outside of the park). Thursday:<br />Travelled to Canada Niagra at 7am (long coach journey). On the way visiting the Niagra Whirlpool and Niagra park. Arrved at 4pm. In the evening we had a meal and a show (Oh Canada, Eh!) which is an evening where you get served a meal while a musical show is going on. The stars of the show also server the food when they're not performing. It was an unusual show but I'm not keen on the bits where they start mucking about with the audience (flirting etc). Friday:<br />Spent the day in Niagra, Maid of the mist was excellent and very wet. Had a helicopter ride over the falls (marvellous) and visited the local Movieland wax works. Saturday:<br />Long coach journey back to Philadephia. Visited Independence Hall where the constitution was signed, the liberty bell (needs repairing <img src="https://www.arsoftware.co.uk/blog/templates/default/img/emoticons/smile.png" alt=":-)" style="display: inline; vertical-align: bottom;" class="emoticon" /> ), and had a horse drawing ride through the magnificently beautiful town/city. Sunday:<br />Traveled to Baltimore, stopped for about 2 hours before leaving for Washington. Monday evening we had an evening meal in Washington followed by a night tour of the city. Monday: Memorial Day!<br />Early morning visit of Arlington Military Cemetary. There was more than 10,000 people there in the morning because Bush was making his address at 11am. After seeing JFKs eternal flame and tombstone we went to the Lincoln memorial (nice), followed by the wall of names (veterans were getting ready for a memorial thingy), then the Korean War memorial park. Finally we were given the afternoon to ourselves and we visited the Old Post Office followed by the Smithsonian Natural Museum (Dinosaur central) Tuesday:<br />Began the trip back to the airport. Dropped off at Newark airport and shuttled to JFK. After 5 hours at the airport we boarded DL1 for our flight back to the UK. It set off at 8pm US time. Wednesday:<br />Back in the UK at 8am.