Travel Blog #1, Royal Tunbridge Wells > New York City

Repeat after me: “I will never again travel hungover”, “I will never again travel hungover.” I say this every time, so why exactly did I find myself rushing to the bar in the Prince Blusher in Twickenham with seconds to go until last orders, then compound my error by having another beer when I got back to the flat? The upshot is I awake at 4am to the sound of heavy rain being lashed against the window. I never sleep well after drinking, and I’ve spent considerably more time over the past week or so packing away friendships and pints of real ale than folding shirts or practicing my Spanish. The one phrase I am confident of using: “No hablo Español.”

I’ve never driven into Heathrow before, usually I sneak up underneath it on the tube. It really is an abomination, especially in the near-dawn and the pissing rain. Monolithic warehouses loom out of the darkness and hyena like pairs of streetlights prowl the car parks. I can’t see that a single thought went to making this place look anything other than a sprawling mess of concrete and steel. Never mind expanding it, they should probably bulldoze the whole thing.

The flight to Dublin is horrific. Surrounded by preening businessmen I clutch my stomach, fight wave after wave of nausea and sweat. Fortunately the flight is less than an hour and I manage not to vomit. Back on terra firma and armed with water, I begin to feel better. I steel myself for American Immigration, which is situated at the Dublin terminal rather than JFK. Maybe I was lucky, but I really didn’t find it too bad. Polite, though definitely not friendly, a few searching questions are asked, I hand over my onward tickets and struggle to stop my hands shaking long enough to give a fingerprint. Overall though, patience and understanding were shown to my shambling corpulence and I was waved through with little delay.

Strangely, after the nightmare of the previous flight, Dublin-JFK is a marvel. I feel relaxed, and only picture apocalyptic crash scenarios once or twice an hour. The highlight of the flight is passing over Greenland. Ice ringed and covered in thick snow, the rocky peaks of the mountains the only terrain not covered. I have mixed feelings on seeing a glacier snaking a slow path to the sea – it is a wondrous sight, but as the jet wash from the engine hazes the view, I realise that we may not be seeing this for much longer. Once we pass the far shore and ice field around it, I draw the blind down and sleep until we begin our descent into JFK.