Day 1 - Fri 15 Oct 2008

When I wrote this entry in my journal, I was sitting on the plane about to take off for the first part of my journey...

Suffice to say, it was a long night spent organising some final details / clearing the boards so that there was nothing hanging in the air whilst I am away.

It's always surprising how much time, cumulatively, all the individually apparently-minor things take to complete when done immediately one after the other.

However, all elements that were carried out were essential for my own piece of mind rather than for anyone else's. Ultimately everything that I needed to be done were and those that weren't done...well obviously they weren't essential at that point in time.

It seems as if there's an issue with th air-conditioning at the moment so the plane;s captain is waiting for a seal to be fitted on to it before we can depart. I find it quite ironic that the departure is at least five minutes late - obviously the captain seems to concur with my philosophy that five or ten minutes here or there ultimately doesn't make much difference in the long run.

So, as I have a few minutes more than I expected before takeoff, you may ask what my thoughts are as to what lies ahead of me in the coming days, weeks and months.

Within the organisation of part of the trip having taken top priority since I left my workplace about six weeks ago, I've not really had much time to think about it to be honest.

Over 200 days to plan, even on only a very rough basis was a difficult proposition compared to all previous holidays / weekend excursions on a whim where the entire plan could quite easily be sorted out from scratch in less than a few hours at the most!

Although there were reasons as to why a longer trip than a week and a bit was possible - work being one of the main ones; the other being general tiredness.

Oooh, the air con system is fixed - I'm off! Taxi-ing now, London lit up like a Christmas tree; hopefully we'll be in the air shortly.

To make matters "interesting", there's a lady sat two seats down from me with her young kid between us and so far it looks as if he's just a bit excitable; this could well be a longer flight than I imagined; he's already used the safety notice as a colouring book with a big pen that came with a pack "kindly" provided from the air crew to keep him entertained; it wouldn't surprise me if he accidentally used the headphone wire he's playing about with as a makeshift noose the way he's trying to trash everything in sight! I'd hope he's going to get bored soon but at the moment that looks quite unlikely...

Meantime, the inflight computer has indicated that its 1.40pm in New York, 6hr56 and the minor matter of 5,546km (about 3,446 miles) away! We've turned and at 6.42pm on Wednesday 15 October 2008 the World Tour begins. Bye bye England, hello World!

First thoughts? - COME ON!! From being at work until all hours to flying to New York and missing out on yet another gloomy winter; hubba hubba!

Strange thing though; the captain sounds like Mark Nicholas; as well as a cricket commentator and a second-rate food show host, is he also an air pilot? To be honest, I doubt it, but anyhow - there's the first cricket-related reference on the blog. I wonder how many others they'll be throughout the coming months?

After having only had 3 hours sleep last night, I think a doze on this flight could be useful. Now we're finally above the clouds, it looks as if there's a big cloud over the country at the moment; for all my friends in England, look up and say hi as I soar over you (though probably that big lump of lights was the M4 and the northern part of Reading with traffic boot to bumper for mile after mile during the later parts of today's rush hour!).

When I was doing some research I came across a very relevant quote that I will do my best to remember during the trip..."If I'm not doing something new then it's something I've done before".

In terms of "firsts" today, I've already experienced a few! My first evening flight ever and the first time I've ever had an in-flight console to play with (given that all previous short-haul flights I've been on there's not been that option available).

Now 32,000 feet up in the air, with 6hr30 left of the flight. The headwind's at 88mph, being twice the speed of Andrew Darley's bowling speed!
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By English clocks its just turned midnight although having just passed over Halifax I'm at a bit of a loss to work out what time zone I'm in at the moment, further exacerbated by the fact that I've just woken up from an hour's sleep.

Thankfully, the little lad who was sat beside me dozed off in no time after the evening meal of chicken, vegetables with what tasted like poached salmon salad subsequently followed by raspberry & redcurrant trifle and a small chunk of milk chocolate.

Compared to some of the food I cook myself this was a veritable feast however it would be fair to assume most meals I hope to have in the coming months will be of a better "quality".

Thanks to the flight staff for some sandwiches just midnight; thats now five meals for the day. I've been well-fed and well-watered on the flight; copious quantities of orange juice, "traditional" lemonade and tea.
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I saw Indiana Jones 4 ("The Crystal Skull") during the flight; decent fare though probably not in quite the same league as the first three I thought. Sufficient to pass a few hours by though.

As I'm about to fly into America, I've put on Michael Jackson's Thriller album to take me the final few kilometres.

The sky's wonderfully-clear tonight and from this height the "block" layout that the Americans have used for their cities is quite apparent; straight lines of lights bisecting over straight lines of lights at right angles.

And here comes New York; Wow, loads of lights...and its a big city too.