Solo Travel – Page 9 – ThePassportPrincess

Day 42 – New York to London

September 24, 2015November 30, 2016Sarah1 Comment

I was so wrong!
I take back my negativity about Iceland Air.
I judged before I experienced and for that I am sorry.

Yes that picture above is correct.
I was near the back of the plane but I got the whole row to myself!
I started talking to another girl across the aisle from me who had the same deal. She had the whole row to herself as well! When we realised that the flight attendants had ‘armed their doors’ and no one had sat next to us we were stoked.
Not to mention the whole flight was smooth and I happily watched a movie ‘The longest ride’ (one of my faves) and then had a nap.
I had 3 blankets as well and a bag of candy. Life was plane perfect!

Apart from not understand half of what the pilot and stewardesses were saying as they spoke Icelandic, it was a thoroughly enjoyable 6 hour flight to Iceland which went so fast.

I am so glad I could look out the window on take – off too. New York City at night was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve seen. It made me so happy inside to be able to see such a massive city all lit up!

And as usual, my camera didn’t do the night time shots any justice… :evil::evil:

When I arrived in Iceland around 7am, I just hung around the very basic airport they had going on. I think I just read a magazine and looked in their gift shop.
Thank god I wasn’t staying in Iceland because everything was so expensive! I didn’t even get a magnet because the cheapest one was $10 NZD
Even the tea towels were about $16 each!!

When it was time to board, I had to sit between 2 others which was fine. We all pretty much slept the 3 hours into London.

When I landed, I got my bag and dragged it to the ticket kiosk to get my Heathrow Express train ticket into London. I should have asked the attendants where the actual Heathrow express left from because I then spent the next 20 minutes going up and down the lifts at the airport trying to figure it out!
Eventually a guy could see I needed help and pointed me in the right direction.
Not gonna lie, the train was pretty nice for an airport train.

I got off at paddington and then bought an Oyster card to take the Underground train to my hostel.
It honestly sucks having no internet on your phone and having noo idea where you going.
When I got off at my station I walked off in the wrong direction of my hostel until I eventually figured it out and walked 15 minutes to Wombats Hostel on Dock street. 😧 by this stage my bag was killing me.

Once I’d checked in, I headed upstairs to my room (a really nice 6 bedroom dorm ) and pretty much flopped down onto my bed and chatted to my room mate Sheree for a little bit.
She was heading out so I had a shower, took out my contact lenses which were drying up on my eyeballs from the flight and then went for a 3 hour nap.

I woke around 6.30pm and dragged myself out of bed to head downstairs at the hostel to their bar area.
I’m glad I did because I met an American girl called Nicole who was really fun. We ate pizza and challenged everyone to games of beer pong. I also played some pool and drunk lots of cider (yay they have Cider in London!)
Overall it was a really fun night. I didn’t even get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning because of all the drinking and meeting new people.

I slept in until about 1pm in the afternoon the next day, I know – my first day in London ever and I’m having a big sleep.
But don’t worry, I did get to experience some London which I’ll write about in my next blog 🙂
Xx

Day 41 – New York City (8)

September 22, 2015November 26, 2015SarahLeave a comment

My final day in my favorite place!
I have been waiting years to get to New York and now that I’ve been I don’t want to leave. 😥

However, from a tourist point of view. You can defintaly get alot done in 1 week.
I saw Central Park more than once, I experienced taking the Subway, I saw the lights in Times Square and spent my money in the stores. I travelled to the Top Of The Rock, ate at the Chelsea Markets, walked the High Line and lay in the sun on Coney Island. Not to mention had dinner out in Brooklyn and went past Jersey on my way to JFK airport. (Which by the way does look exactly like the Jersey shore from MTV)

It’s all been a wonderful 8 days but now it’s time for me to take my Iceland Air flight to London (with a quick stopover in Iceland on the way)

I woke up at a respectable time this morning. The girls in my dorm room always get up early and drippy phone girl makes the most noise! She slams her locker closed, rustles everything really loudly and talks to her mate in NOT a whisper.
It drives me insane.

I got up and washed my hair, did my make up etc… and packed my bag. It kind of ended up looking like this

So not quite closed…
I had breakfast with Alicia this morning at the hostel cafe (bagels again suprise suprise)
Then we walked to the post office together which was thankfully down the road.
After talking to the rude lady at the counter, I bought a box and put what I thought was 6 pounds (3kgs-ish) in from my backpack.
Alicia went to go weigh it and I could tell by her face it was defintaly over 3kgs. It was 6kgs!
I really don’t see how clothes can weigh that much 👿
I did have my old pair of nikes in there though and my small hairdrier and a pair of heels.

I ended up taking the heels and hair drier out and ended up getting a different box from a different lady which made it about $15 cheaper.
I didn’t get to send my magnets back home but currently on their way to NZ are pretty much a bunch of clothes that I really should have just thrown out. I think the postage was worth more than what was in the box now that I think about it.

I have a hard time parting with stuff unless I’m in a I-dont-care kind of mood.
At least I had room in my bag to zip it up! I think when I get to London I’m gonna throw out the travel hair drier I never ended up using. All the places I’ve stayed at have hair driers, plus the voltage is shit and it barely blows out any air. My ugly platform shoes can go as well (Even though they’re incredibly comfortable) they’re just so hideous. And they’re not looking so clean either…

At some point along the way I’ll buy a duffle bag and add it to my luggage but for now I’m not doing too bad…

After the post office experience, Alicia and I headed off to Sephora where I bought another bottle of fake tan. I’ve only just run out woohoo! That big bottle lasted me ages.

By 1pm I thought I better be on my way so me and Alicia said our final goodbyes 😥 and I hopped on the subway to Pennsylvania Station.

Alicia is defintaly one of my favouritest people I’ve met along my travels. We must get along because we’re both from Wellington haha. She’s moving to London though so hopefully we’ll catch up when I’m there!

It was a bit confusing once I got off the subway in Madison square Garden and finding the Pennsylvania Station but I got there eventually after asking like 3 different people.

I had to get off the Amtrak at Jamaica and then take the JFK airport train take terminal 7.
I was super early. I was so early in fact that the Iceland Air counter wasn’t even open 😯
I had like 3 hours to pass, which went by really quickly actually. I ate at subway and wrote a blog. Re-organised my suitcase on the airport floor and took a picture in the bathroom.

Haha!
By 5pm, I checked in and I asked the lady if I could choose my seat. She said no and when I looked at my ticket I saw I’m in seat 32c.
Not just the aisle seat, but the BACK of the plane as well. This is like my nightmare. Back of the plane = lots of turbulance. Aisle means I don’t get to see NYC lit up at night :'(:'( either.
I hate this so much.

And my flight from Iceland to london, I’m in the middle seat. I’m not loving Iceland air so far… Air New Zealand would never do this to me 😐

Also JFK has been a disappointment.
I couldn’t find a MAC store when I came through security into duty free. OR a Victoria secrets store. I asked one of the counter staff and they said all that kind of stuff is over at terminal 4!!!
I wouldn’t even be allowed in there because my flight doesn’t depart from there.
So I saved some American money and purposely didn’t spend any more at Mac so I could buy make up duty free. 😥
Instead I bought a Buttermilk chicken burger meal deal from McDonald’s and a reese’s mcflurball.
What a disappointment.

The mcflurry was good though.

It’s 7.30pm now and I don’t board till 8pm. I’m going to try and upload this blog but to be honest it probably won’t work until I get wi-fi in London. I get like no internet reception at JFK!!

I don’t have a UK SIM card either so will have to get onto a travel SIM or something when I land.

Lots of love,
Your little passport princess x

Day 37 – New York City (Day 4)

September 19, 2015November 28, 2016SarahLeave a comment

On Thursday morning I had a bit of a sleep in because I got home so late the night before.
I missed out on breakfast because of the time I take to wash my hair and do my make up 😅

When I was eventually ready, I took the subway downtown to see the 9/11 memorial in Tribeca.

I stopped and saw the North and South pool which was built in memory of the twin towers.
Everyone who died on that horrible day has their names engraved around the pools which is nice.

I was considering getting the New York City Pass where you get unlimited visits to all these places around NYC for 2 days for $140 and get to the front of line but I didn’t.
I was actually faster in the normal line than the people that bought the pass.
I also took like 3 hours at the museum so I don’t know if it was actually worth it in the end. Like, how many places can you actually properly experience in 2 straight days by buying the pass?

Anyways, it cost $24 to get in to the museum which was worth it. There was so much to see!

The museum is about 21 metres below ground and houses two tridents from the Twin Towers. One of the museum’s walls is an exposed side of the slurry wall retaining the Hudson River, which remained intact during (and after) September 11th.

Other stuff that I saw in the museum were wrecked emergency vehicles like this fire engine

There were also pieces of metal from all seven World Trade Center buildings and recordings of survivors and first responders (including 911 phone calls) which are quite sad to listen to. Ecspecially the recordings of people on the plane that knew they were being hijacked who called their loved ones.

They also had a room with pictures of all the victims and an audio telephone where you could click on a person and listen to a snippet of audio from their loved ones describing what they were like.

I also saw photographs from the wreckage and other media detailing the destruction (including the crashes, collapse, fires, those who jumped and the clean up)

You walk out of there feeling pretty sad and you really feel for America. Like so many people lost someone and that day was so horrific. The people on the street who thought they were going to die from inhaling so much dust is even scary to think about.

When I had eventually had a good enough look around, I left the museum (partly because I was freezing in there. They really blast the air-con!)
And I went outside in the warmth and headed to an ice cream truck for my first meal of the day. A sprinkle cone…

Please girlfriend, I’m on vacay!
😋

I wasn’t sure what to do with myself after that. I wanted to see the statue of liberty but didn’t know when the ferries were running and couldn’t really be bothered walking down a few blocks #lazy

Instead, I went to Chipotle and had some proper lunch. Chicken tacos for like $8

And then I headed to a nail bar and paid $10 for a basic manicure haha. (Plus $4 tip)

It was nice at the time, but I’m currently writing this the next day and 4 of my nails are already chipped. Average!!!

I was also in desperate need of my eyebrows being done so I Googled the nearest Benefit Eyebrow Bar and it turned out there was one like a 15 minute walk away.
I walked the few blocked and got my eyebrows waxed for like $25. (Not that cheap I know but they always do such a good job)
Now my make up looks heaps nicer when I out it on without all these stray hairs!

When I was done, it was literally like after 5pm so I headed back to the hostel.
I changed my clothes and topped up my make up then headed downstairs for the $7 dinner they had.
To be honest, I don’t know why I bothered. It was another BBQ and since I’m so picky with the meat here, I got a burger but basically pulled out the pattie and just had a bit of bread and some salad.
At 9pm there was a pub crawl going on so I joined up with that.

We all took the subway and hit up 3 different pubs.
I tried to drink and get into it but I think I was just way too tired. I couldn’t really be bothered making conversation with anyone and even playing beer pong I just wasn’t enjoying it.
I guess every night I can’t be a party animal! Haha.

I ended up heading home with another girl who lives in Cali and is here for a Wedding – Amy.
And a couple of the other guys.
We did a McDonald’s stop where I got fries and then we headed back to the hostel. Very Un exciting night for me then! Haha.