Ingrid and Tony's Travels

Hurricane Sandy is just about to hit landfall and everyone is preparing. Even here in Boston it’s pretty murky with wind and rain belting in to our windows.  We can’t see the airport even though we are about two minutes away and we can just see the outline of downtown Boston through the sleeting rain .  We are safe and dry obviously, however the hotel is still anticipating power outages so much so that we were provided with a ‘glow in the dark’ 12-hour glow stick this morning.

Of course it will be fun trying to open and activate the ‘glow stick’ if we are indeed plunged into darkness. However, never fear.  We are at the ready!

…not much, actually. We are sad that we haven’t yet made it to Halifax but we are booked to fly out of Boston where we are holed up, and into Halifax via Toronto on Wednesday our time. All flights today (Monday) out of Boston, are cancelled.

Boston Logan airport from our hotel room. Nothing happening!

It means only a day and a half with Steph and James however it’ll be better than nothing.  We are due back in New York on Friday so hopefully, by then, most of the weather will dissipate. Also hoping that the damage for  locals  won’t be too bad but the next eight hours will tell.

The yanks are soooo excited. Sandy is coming… and they can’t get enough of  it.  All the TV channels are abuzz with  hurricane news and updates.  If it fizzles out when it gets to New York it will be a massive downer – the commentators won’t know what to do.

We are getting blow by blow descriptions of what is happening, shots of big waves coming into Chatham which just south of Boston.

Waves crashing into Chatham.

Guys standing in water where waves are lapping at their knees – you name it, they’re doing it. Dramatic TV. But then again, our yankee friends always love  drama.

Jim, our reporter at the coalface.

Jim, one of the newsmen on the spot!

Great fun today trying to get to Halifax from NY. Started out this morning at 7am to find our Delta flight re-scheduled some months ago, till later in the morning (with no notification by email or sms) and then the new flight was cancelled because of ‘weather’. So we were then put on a Delta Shuttle to Boston where we were due to fly to Halifax with Air Canada. Wrong. Once in Boston, Air Canada said the flight was over-booked. To cut a seriously long story very short —and after the day of trudging airports, trying to rearrange flights and retrieve baggage that nearly went to Halifax without us because the yanks don’t worry about unaccompanied baggage— we are now at the Hilton in Boston (I could think of worse places) about to have a nice dinner and a glass of red or three, and try again tomorrow!  Hurricane Sandy is wreaking her revenge on everything and everyone in her path including little old us!

Arrived safely in New York via LA and we are now waiting for a flight to Halifax, Nova Scotia to visit Steph and James.  The flight over was amazing.  Those A380s are a real experience and premium economy is quite comfy, thank you very much.

A toast (water) to the A380.

Only major issue coming into the country was my tube of vegemite bought in Australia at the last minute and of course, still in my hand luggage.

The offending tube

The security guy didn’t know what it was and threatened to confiscate it. Guess it was my (Ingrid’s) look of devastation  that stopped it from happening. See, some of these security types do have a heart.  Other bit of gossip is that on the flight to NY we sat alongside Cathy Freeman and her hubby, James and her beautiful daughter, 10-month-old Ruby.  Cathy is running the New York marathon next week.  What an amazing athlete after giving birth too.  Hope she does well.

We stayed at an airport hotel overnight (Sheraton La Guardia) because of our flight this morning.  Quite an experience while we were there as we witnessed perhaps one of the first of a deluge of gay weddings happening here now since May this year. Eight states, including New York, have approved gay marriage laws. Two quite beautiful black women were having their wedding celebration in the hotel with  family and friends. All power to them.

So now just waiting for our Halifax connection but thanks Delta for letting us know that our 9am flight was re-scheduled.  What do you do when you are waiting in airports? Get into the digital world of course.  Thank goodness for airport lounges and free internet.

One of the great experiences in out trip will be to join Fabio Viviani in his kitchen.  Ok, so we won’t get to cook – we are doing another cook class later – but we will be watching him cook, and then eating as well as talking to him about cooking in general.  He is a real personality and pretty good looking too (this is Ingrid writing).  Just watched him on Top Chef Masters and he was sensational. Can’t wait.