Day 1: New York arrival

Nobody likes getting up at 6am but Viennese people are really good at making you feel responsible for their early morning misery. So after 1 hour of running into school kids and having business people turn away when asking for directions I was very happy to finally meet a smiling airport employe at the check in. Soon I got my two tickets, free chocolate and an 80€ gift card for my next flight. Turned out that Airfrance was celebrating its 80. birthday today so hooray for my laziness that made me fly one day later as originally planned.

The flight to Paris was short but the weather was basically shit so when I arrived I had 15 minutes to run through security, board a shuttle bus, go through identity check, another security check and, of course, head to the very last gate in this area. I´m neither very fit nor a smooth person that answers security questions with a wink and rushes through so yeah I missed my flight to NY.

That was new for me but things turned out well: I was able to board the next plane without any extra charges and my bag also didn´t go to NY yet so there was no need to worry, just another 3 hours of waiting. While waiting for the shuttle bus to take me to the other side of the airport (where my new gate was) I met Cheick, a very nice guy from London that was waiting for a flight to visit his family in West Africa. He was looking for Gate 48, mine was 53 and after getting breakfast we found out that they were just next to each other. So there really was no need to hurry for one of us and we started making music in the center of the other passengers. I sang him some of my songs and played the ukulele. After that, he sang some african folk and reggae. Turned out that missing my flight was a good thing because I found a new friend :)

Flying to NY was also a very new experience for me. We could watch movies (I watched "Now you see me", "Iron Man 3" and a documentary about dark matter), listen to a radio station and they served us food all the time. I was sitting between an elder ukrainian guy who works at the metro and came back from holiday and a 20 year old guy from spain/sweden who visited his father whom he didn´t see for 12 years.

The weather was even worse than before and it felt a little bit like riding a lame roller coaster. Especially as the plane just kept falling for a few seconds. Everyone screamed. After that incident the guy from spain turned to me and asked if everything was ok. I was listening to the planes radio station at this moment, gave him a look of horror and said: "Fuck no, I nearly died to a Lana Del Ray song". Yes, this is my brain in emergency situations.

22 hours after leaving Vienna we arrived at New York airport. Spain guy and I teamed up and spent another lovely 1,5 hours in line for the identity check. The first american guy I talked to complimented my hair, the second one never heard of "Europe" and didn´t believe me that "Euros" existed. Getting to my hosts place was another 1,5 hour trip and when I finally arrived Alan and his brother welcomed me with open hands.

We tried to get to know each other a little but conversating is hard when your brain just won´t work so at some point I just took a shower and went to bed. My bed is a sofa in the kitchen and it´s pretty comfortable. I can´t complain.

Good night :)