Goodbye New York hello France

Goodbye New York hello France

Breakfast (ham, cheese and crackers left over from last night), packing, sorting, checking, then finally checking out.  

There were a few of these sculptures in the hotel, they looked almost like a hologram

We left our bags with the hotel porters, our transit bus wasn't picking us up until 4.30pm.  Our hotel was  next to the grand central station and David wanted to take one more look at this majestic building and take a few more photos.  

These ticket booths were spaced around the walls of the main concourse and are so beautiful.

We still had one gift to buy, I knew what I wanted, a 'Yankee' baseball tee shirt, for a kid of 10. So it took us most of the morning not to find one, any other size, ok, but a not boy size 10.  We ended up buying a different one, which was ok, and the search had given us a final look over midtown Manhattan. 

These stalls were set up in a sort of market by Times Square

Notice the bike stands - a pay-as-you-go slot machine, you could think that it's a quick way to get to where you are going - but be careful, it's dangerous out there.    

 We ended up at Macy's and had lunch there, using their wifi of course!

We arrived back at the hotel in plenty of time to catch our transit bus back to the airport.  Our flight wasn't until 9pm.  Again the little transit bus was packed to the gills, and he made another stop to pick up two more - and their baggage!  It was quite dangerous, I was sitting in the back seat and the way the driver had chucked the luggage behind me meant that the cabin luggage and small stuff was above my head, I thought, one sudden stop or a swerve and it would come down on top of me.  Fortunately that didn't happen, although the driver was a bit of a cowboy the way he drove. Suffice it to say that we got to the airport in one piece.  Next time....?  We learned that the taxi to the airport was a fixed price of US$45, so it breaks even for the two of us, much safer deal!

No flight dramas this time, apart from being delayed an hour out of New York.  Fortunately it didn't affect our connection to Toulouse as we had a three hour wait between flights. 

Once again it was wonderful to see our French family there to meet us at Toulouse airport, such hugs and kisses, how the kids have grown, how happy they all look.  And we are whisked away in a flash to our 'home' in Toulouse.