Friday 5 January - Boston & New York City

Another full day of ePace training. Or at least it should have been. Making today a lot easier (apart from the fact that we didn't have Ab take us for training as scheduled, given she's such a hard taskmaster!), was the fact that our facilitator Dan "Hassel" Huff finished at 2:30pm, which enabled me to get onto a Greyhound bus bound for the Big Apple at 4:30pm. The bus was preferred to a flight as:

• The bus is $30 one way or $55 return (a lot cheaper);
• It doesn't have the queues associated with airports, particularly US ones;
• It doesn't require a cab to and from the airport (it's $45 set fare from JFK to Manhattan alone);
• There's a lot lower chance of my baggage being lost, which it appears to be a "high" chance in the air given we're 0 for 2 so far;
• There will be no airport security possibly conducting an uncomfortable physical search;
• There would probably be little difference in the time taken to complete the total door-to-door trip; and
• On the bus, you can see a bit of the US landscape as well.

The only downside of the bus (apart from what would later happen on Sunday night) was that when we arrived in NY, the city was shrouded in fog, thus the ideal introduction of approaching the big lights of Manhattan didn't eventuate.

The bus took just under the scheduled 4.5 hours, and was pretty comfortable (particularly as I had two seats to myself). Obviously it wasn't as comfortable for the bus driver, Ms DeMornay (yep, the same bus driver we had on our 2nd day in LA - it was either her or her twin sister), who was in a cranky, aggressive mood (again). The bus went via Hartford, and come in to Manhattan from the north via Harlem. Between Boston and NYC, there isn't much road where there is not civilisation on either side - this part of the country really is heavily populated.

Libe had advised me to wait at the Greyhound ticket office of the Port Authority Bus Terminal once I arrived. Unfortunately, there were two such ticket offices, and we just happened to wait at the alternative ones. I suspected that that may have been reason that I hadn't seen Libe once 45 mins of waiting had expired, however didn't want to move as I had my bags with me, thought Libe would be more familiar with the Terminal than me, and was also wary of walking away just when Libe had approached the office where I was. Anyway, after 75 minutes, she came looking and we were finally reunited in NYC.

Walking out of the Terminal was an immediate sensation. Immediately, this place felt different to anything I'd experienced for a long time, if ever. Perhaps the only feeling of being in a huge city I've previously experienced has been in Sydney, which feels so much bigger than Melbourne than it actually is, although Sydney pales in comparison to NY. We walked through Times Square on the way to Libe's apartment - an amazing place, which is best described through the pictures posted for Sunday.

After a couple of welcome drinks with Libe in bars near her apartment, we prepared ourselves for a big first day of exploration around the Big Apple tomorrow.