Tomorrow’s the day! To say that I’m excited is probably a massive understatement!
I have a fairly mammoth journey ahead of me, starting at 7am when (hopefully) my local taxi co should be picking me up to take me to the station. From there, it’s a couple of hours on one of East Midland Trains’ finest (bwah!), then a long jaunt along the Piccadilly line from St Pancras to Terminal 4. Then, a 1.5 hr hop over to Amsterdam Schiphol airport, and then the nasty transatlantic leg across the pond to John F. Kennedy International.
Of course, that just gets me to the airport at the other end. There’s no point whatsoever in hiring a car in NY, so you have to rely on public transport to get you from the arrivals hall to your hotel. Assuming you don’t want to be stung by the ridiculous $45+tolls+tip taxi fare (so, in reality, more like $60), this isn’t as straightforward as it might first seem.
In the UK, this is a doddle – at Heathrow, you either get on the Piccadilly line and make your way into the city and get to your hotel. Or, you take one of the ‘Heathrow/Gatwick/Luton/Stanstead Express’ trains which run directly from the airports to a main station in the city (Paddington, Victoria, St Pancras, Liverpool St, respectively (I think!)) and proceed from there. It’s easy, and the Underground maps are absurdly well designed so that even the most nervous of travellers can understand things.
Compare and contrast:
The New York subway map makes it look terrifyingly complicated. I suspect, and hope, that it isn’t all that bad and I guess I’ll find out when I get there. Why there’s not a less convoluted and complicated map, I don’t know, but I guess locals are completely familiar to the map, just as Londoners are to theirs, and any change would be met with much disdain.
At JFK, it’s a different kettle of fish. JFK isn’t actually on the NY Metro. Well, it is, but it’s not – there’s a couple of stations for the airport, but to get to those stations from the airport themselves, you’ve got to ride an entirely separate light rail system (called the AirTrain) which visits the terminals of the airport itself. This is, of course, chargeable, and isn’t covered by any Metro ticket you might have already bought.
Now, from looking at the map, I figure I need to get the AirTrain to ‘Howard Beach’ station, and then get an ‘A’ train (the blue line) from there to ’42nd St & Port Authority’ (my hotel is near Times Square), whereby I utilise something called a ‘free transfer’ to ’42nd St & Times Square’. I suspect that a ‘free transfer’ actually means a glorified underpass, which I walk through to emerge at the Times Square station? A bit like Bank and Monument on the London Underground?
Anyhoo, assuming that I manage that, I should end up at my hotel at around 9pm-ish, New York time, tomorrow night. This will, however be around 3-4am James-time from all the travelling! I need to adjust my body clock and combat jetlag ASAP.
I will try and write some stuff throughout the journey, if possible – no guarantees of updates at 35000ft though!
Related posts:
- New York, Part 4 I'm finally here, typing this up in my hotel room...
- New York, Part 6 Didn't really stay out late last night - got back...
- New York, Part 1 Thankfully, my taxi did arrive on time and I had...
- New York, Part 5 Ok, so, the updates stopped. Even my mum thought I...
- New York, New York I find myself with flights booked to New York, next...