Tuesday 30 June

Hangover alert!!! My head hurts a lot and the combination of too much wine and the heat made sleep very tossy-turny.

We leave stinky Chinatown at 6am on the wrong train. We don't actually know this until we reach Jamaica, Queens and not Jamaica Centre, Airport. After getting some directions and a warning that the cab drivers here will rob us we agree it is just easier to get a cab and spend the $25 it will cost. We stand at the kerbside waiting for one to come along but we aren't in the city anymore Toto, and there are no cabs driving by. Someone asks us if we need help as clearly we do and he tells us the cabs are right here! They are unmarked cars so we would never have known ourselves. Off we go and it was good to see a bit of Queens and the different houses.

We get to check in with 10 minutes to spare and they don't weigh our luggage, luckily, as we were definitely over the domestic limit. I am desperately hungry so grab some breakfast and soon enough we are on board. I am so tired I fall asleep straight away. We are due to take off at 8.40am and when I wake up at 8.55, then again at 9.10 I wonder why we haven't left yet. With people moving through the cabin I realise that we are in the sky and I have slept through take off. I can't believe I didn't wake up with the noise or the feeling. Unheard of!!!! I don't remember anything else about the flight and there isn't anything in my journal to remind me.

It doesn't take long before we are checking in to the Stay Hotel, a hybrid hostel. We share bathroom facilities but we have a telephone, television and get our beds made if we wish. Next door is the Cecil Hotel which they are affiliated with and we share the lobby, cafe and reception issues if need be. I discover my luggage has been searched as the lock is missing. It's a weird feeling but nothing is out of place and they leave a notice to say they have done the search.

We organise beds and have showers, deciding to go for a wander around the streets. We go to the information centre and leave there loaded with brochures, bus routes and maps. Our first attraction is the Grammy Museum and wow, what a place this is. Fantastic value at $11.95 with a student card, ahhem, we are there for nearly 2 hours and could easily stay another 2. Packed with tons of interactive touch screens and headsets giving trivia, showing memorabilia, backstage footage from 1800's to the present day. Anyone with a slight interest in music would enjoy this, in fact if you don't, then you don't really like music. Every genre is covered. Nerida you would be in heaven here, as far as museums go!!!

We pick up some alco-pops and go back to the hotel to chill out. I pick up some chinese food for $4.69 and it could have done me 2 meals. Apart from the sirens going off all night, or rather on and on and on, we have a quiet night. It is pretty stuffy though.