halftwo
Wird Batcher
Part One: New York, New York.
Well the day I thought would never arrive finally did.
Set off from Manchester Airport only 40 minutes late, into a head wind that cost a similar amount, so, having heard about the notorious officialdom in the U.S. it was some relief that we passed through controls at Newark in minutes. Couldn't have been sweeter.
Our two-plus-hour connection time reduced nicely to a convenient half hour before re-boarding meant a quick look out of the windows was in order. But first...
Coming into land at Newark with a nasty crosswind that had us passengers holding on & yelping as, at the same time, watching the Statue of Liberty slide by the Manhattan skyline backdrop - caused mixed emotions there I can tell you; then I had the first bird of the trip:
Northern harrier quartering the grass verges of the runway!
And so out of the windows & the first tick. American herring gull, several in fact - with Mew gulls - giving good views.
And so, off we set to Costa Rica, after a visit to the taxiways of Newark, where we endured a seventeen-plane (count them!) queue for the runway. (Again with Continental, who have to go down as having the worst airline food I've ever had - & I've had some bad food on flights before, let me say!) As the sun set we sucked larva-hot goo from cellophane (apparently this was a sandwich of some description) which consisted of super-heated cheese-o-rama on (?)meat in a (?)bread-style mush. The whole soggy singularity of steam & additives was, as the man said, "something else". They repeated this delight for us on other legs of the journeys.
Being consistent the head-wind stayed with us & delayed us further until we turned across it at San Jose for another memorable landing - this was to be a theme - and we were in Costa Rica!
Midnight local time, but we had gained six hours - so that was fine, as we were driven to our first hotel (the Bouganvillia) and the first bird of Costa Rica made its presence known: Barn owl. The augurs were good, so a not-surprisingly fitful brief sleep before dawn: and the hour of daylight I had in which to bird the garden, before our first pick-up at 06:35 the next day.
I was as excited as a kid at Christmas, and the first dawn did not disappoint.
Well the day I thought would never arrive finally did.
Set off from Manchester Airport only 40 minutes late, into a head wind that cost a similar amount, so, having heard about the notorious officialdom in the U.S. it was some relief that we passed through controls at Newark in minutes. Couldn't have been sweeter.
Our two-plus-hour connection time reduced nicely to a convenient half hour before re-boarding meant a quick look out of the windows was in order. But first...
Coming into land at Newark with a nasty crosswind that had us passengers holding on & yelping as, at the same time, watching the Statue of Liberty slide by the Manhattan skyline backdrop - caused mixed emotions there I can tell you; then I had the first bird of the trip:
Northern harrier quartering the grass verges of the runway!
And so out of the windows & the first tick. American herring gull, several in fact - with Mew gulls - giving good views.
And so, off we set to Costa Rica, after a visit to the taxiways of Newark, where we endured a seventeen-plane (count them!) queue for the runway. (Again with Continental, who have to go down as having the worst airline food I've ever had - & I've had some bad food on flights before, let me say!) As the sun set we sucked larva-hot goo from cellophane (apparently this was a sandwich of some description) which consisted of super-heated cheese-o-rama on (?)meat in a (?)bread-style mush. The whole soggy singularity of steam & additives was, as the man said, "something else". They repeated this delight for us on other legs of the journeys.
Being consistent the head-wind stayed with us & delayed us further until we turned across it at San Jose for another memorable landing - this was to be a theme - and we were in Costa Rica!
Midnight local time, but we had gained six hours - so that was fine, as we were driven to our first hotel (the Bouganvillia) and the first bird of Costa Rica made its presence known: Barn owl. The augurs were good, so a not-surprisingly fitful brief sleep before dawn: and the hour of daylight I had in which to bird the garden, before our first pick-up at 06:35 the next day.
I was as excited as a kid at Christmas, and the first dawn did not disappoint.