Eventually after being screwed around by Delta in Buffalo Airport for the better part of a day I finally made it to New York. I was supposed to arrive the night before but ended up arriving the next morning and it was extremely miserable. I had to walk on the Tarmac at JFK airport because my plane was so small that it didn’t get it’s own gate. As soon as I stepped out it was rainy and windy and cold and foggy but it was nice to finally be in New York.

I ended up getting a shuttle to my hotel because a Taxi would be super expensive and after 2 and a half hours in the shuttle we finally arrived at my hotel. Because I arrived so early in the morning we hit the regular peak hour traffic of everyone going to work on top of the usual New York traffic. As much as I just wanted to get to my hotel it was nice to just sit back and get driven around the city and see everything again.

I went to New York for the first time on my last trip. I just remember it being exhausting. So much walking and so many people and so much traffic and so much to look at. Nothing has changed in that aspect.

The Hotel I was staying with Charlotte at was terrible haha. I knew that to begin with so it didn’t suprise me but if I wasn’t so tired I would have cried at how bad it was. It was actually a hostel and we just got given rooms with two beds in it and that was it. I actually warmed up to it quite quickly. Just like having a shit phone that could only call people and had no only purpose, this room was nice because it was just a bedroom, a room with a bed and that was it. It was just nice to have the bare minimal. Just everything has gotten so complicated and to have nothing was nice in a city that is completely overwhelming.

I ended up staying in New York with Charlotte for five days and they really flew by. I was so excited to finally be able to kind of relax and get comfortable in a place for more than a few days but it ended up passing by so quickly that I never got around to doing that. 

The days were exactly the same as I arrived. You couldn’t see any of the buildings because it was so foggy, it was constantly just drizzling rain and it was windy. New York isn’t the easiest city to walk around on a good day but when it is miserable it is even worse. Nothing is undercover and there are tourists standing outside of building to try and get out of the rain, there are puddles absolutely everywhere and it’s just sad but it was nice. Charlotte and I mostly spent our time in Starbucks which was a lot better than trying to navigate around the city. We walked up and down Broadway going into all of the amazing stores and I ended up spending a lot of money.

It was just nice to relax and just watch people pass by. Everyone in New York is amazing. I fell in love with basically everyone who walked past because they were all so beautiful and well dressed and just incredible. 

I really do love New York and once again I barely saw any of it but it is very overwhelming. I physically and mentally felt exhausted everyday and found it hard to get out of bed just because I was so tired. But it’s incredible to see. To watch people go about their day like normal but it be completely foreign and crazy to me was entertaining.

I’ll post a few photos I took on the last day after this.

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When I was at Niagara Falls I walked down this really cool staircase into this kind of Jungle. It was so cool. I spent so long there just walking around looking at everything and there was this little creek that was so pretty and I felt the need to try and take a nice photo with a slow shutter speed. It proved difficult because I didn’t have a tri-pod and had never tried to take a photo of running water but i’m proud with how it turned out.

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When I was at Buffalo Airport it had just been announced that my flight after already having been delayed three hours would be delayed even more so I decided I would go get food to try and ease my bad mood. I got some Burger King which was my first Burger King meal in America, walked back to the gate feeling that little bit better and then I saw this.

Talk about false sense of hope. Got all excited thinking that maybe my plane would arrive and everything would be perfect but no, it got delayed and then cancelled last minute so this plane is shit and so is this photo.

So after my annoying last night at Niagara it managed to get worse. I left my hotel to venture off to the Canadian side of the falls which was quite pleasant. If you want to go to Niagara Falls MAKE SURE you go to the Canadian side because it is just a better view and a more accommodating area. There are more hotels to stay at and most of them overlook the falls so you can see them at all times, there are also more attractions like water parks and big restaurants so it is more kid friendly and because the falls fall off the American side you can only look at them side on when you are in America but when you are on the Canadian side you can see them front on.

When I was there there were a lot of police which I was a bit startled by. They were directing traffic and pedestrians and I just thought it was the usual process. But then when I walked up to the end of the walkway I noticed a lot of fire engines as well, and some ambulances. I thought there must have been a fire in one of the hotels or something but I later found out that an hour before I got to the falls, somebody had jumped into the water upstream with intentions of killing himself, got swept over the falls, fell over the Niagara Falls and somehow managed to land at the bottom where all of the rocks are and survived. So all of the emergency crews that were there were actually trying to get this man out of the water. I had no idea about any of this until I was in the shuttle on the way to the airport talking to my driver.

I then arrived at Buffalo airport and was planning to be in New York an hour later but my flight was delayed. I was okay with this. I sat down and read a magazine and ate a bit but then it just kept getting delayed. Apparently the cloud cover in New York was so bad that planes could neither fly in nor fly out which was completely out of our control. 3 hours later my plane arrived from New York and was going back to New York so I felt a bit better. All of the passengers were also relieved and we were told that as soon as the plane was empty we would be boarding 30 seconds later. A minute later the frail young man in charge of the gate desk then told us that the crew on board the plane had  clocked off for the day so the flight was cancelled. I’d tracked the flight earlier and it had nothing about it going back to New York and I thought it was just a fault but it was true, the flight was not going to New York that day.

By this stage I was just over it. I had had no sleep, had a huge day and then had waited for 3 hours not knowing anything about the flight only to find out that I wouldn’t be getting to New York. There was no support for passengers and there was very little control by the Delta Staff which made it even more of a mess. At that moment everyone just started running from gate to gate trying to find a flight but because they had all been delayed most of them were already full. I got pretty annoyed. Everyone was just being so selfish and putting their lives before others just because they NEED to be in New York. 

I ended up just sitting down and waiting for it all to pass. There were people using my flight as a connecting flight to go to Europe and Asia and I had decided that they needed a flight more than me so I just waited for it all to sort itself out. Two hours later I go to the front desk only to find timid and frightened staff completely overwhelmed by what had happened and that annoyed me because yes it is a bad thing that happened, but there has to be a bad guy in that situation saying, yes, your flight got cancelled, there is nothing more you can do, find a new flight and deal with it. Instead they were trying to make a joke and lighten the situation and it was making the passengers more annoyed and angry.

My flight was then changed from 3pm that day to 6am the next day so I would miss out on a night in New York but it didn’t bother me.  I got put up in a hotel and by this stage it was 10 a’clock and I needed to leave at 4am to make the flight. I went to this little bar to have something to eat as I hadn’t planned to eat until I arrived in New York and ended up sitting next to a man and talking to him about my trip whilst we watched the Ice Hockey.

It was such a shit day. Everything that went wrong had gone wrong but I was proud because it just didn’t bother me. I’m not sure if it’s just because I am so tired from this trip or because I have learnt to not stress out but I handled it so well, better than most of the people on my plane who were middle aged and more experienced than me, I even spent most of my time trying to calm them down.

I managed to rearrange my New York Shuttle, contact my New York Accomodation, Find a new flight, find a place to stay, find transfers from this hotel to the Airport and find all of my luggage without crying or doubting myself in the slightest.

Even though it was a shit day it taught me a lot about how much this trip has changed me.

Holliday Inn Niagara Falls is the biggest joke I have experienced on this trip. First of all they manage to let us check in yesterday only to have us lug all of our luggage up to find that the entire level was dirty and had not been cleaned yet. We then go downstairs to sort out the matter only to have them send us to a room that they could have sent us to in the first place. A few hours pass and it isn’t as shitty as we first thought but then at 1am in the morning the entire seven floors of the hotel had to be evacuated due to a fire alarm. This was understandable, fire alarms are something I don’t mind abiding by even if it is 1am in the morning. We then sit outside watching the fire department rock up and not do anything for an hour and at this stage I’m pretty pissed off by the lack of communication and authority within the actual hotel staff. The alarm finally stopped ringing and we were all allowed to go back into our rooms to finally sleep. 20 minutes passes and what happens? Another fucking fire alarm. At this stage I was completely over it. I wanted to sleep and had no idea what was going on and really couldn’t care less. It went on for another ten minutes and a few people started evacuating only to be told that they could go back in for a second time. Ten minutes later another alarm, and another, and another. There was no one telling us what was going on and no one on the floors TO tell us what was happening. I eventually put my ear plugs in and tried to sleep even though I was furious at what was happening and how little was being done about it.

This morning I then wake up to say goodbye to Mark and Kathy only to feel like shit because I missed out on so much sleep and had a restless sleep afterwards so I decided to sleep from 8-10 so I can make it to New York without being asleep or grumpy. I then have people knocking on my door telling me that I have to be out of my room by 11 because that’s when they need to clean it. Every single hotel I have been to so far has been 12 alcock check out but this one. I then rush around trying to back and shower and sort out stuff for my flights and I’m just so annoyed that for 3 hours this morning we were inconvenienced yet we weren’t allowed to take a few extra minutes after check out to sort everything out after hopefully getting some sort of steep.

I just went to go check out to finally get out of the place to see a 15 person line up at the desk to either check in or out. By this stage I am well and truly over it, but whilst I’m listening to the cheery and annoying woman who sent me to wrong rooms yesterday I hear that they are all getting 10,000 points to their Holiday Inn card or a free breakfast due to the mornings disruptions. I think to myself well that’s kind of nice, you admitted that what happened was an inconvenience and found a way to compensate people which I just thought was good. I then walk up, tell them I’m checking out and they say ‘you’re all good now’ and that was it. Because I am a young teenager who doesn’t complain and be a pain, I don’t get compensation. I was so fucked off that I told them that I also got disrupted last night and that I should deserve a breakfast if every other person who is older than me is getting one and of course they put on their cheery voices and apologise and I just want to punch them.

I have stayed at so many hotels over the years, and i’ve stayed at about 11 just on this trip but I have never encountered such terrible consistent service from a hotel company that is quite large. I’ve stayed at a few holiday inns on this trip and they have had their cons about them but they’ve managed to make me happy once I have left. This place however was an absolute joke. I am still so annoyed at how they treated myself and everyone staying there and I am honestly dreading coming back here to pick up my luggage to go to New York this afternoon.

I never, ever, complain. I take everything and just shut up and get over it. I hate it when people yell and demand compensation and are just assholes but for the first time in my life I was that annoyed and fucked off that I would gladly have joined in with those people.

Hopefully going to Canada right now will put me in a better mood. I don’t think I can get in a worse mood though.

I don’t get American Buffets. It’s a great service but I can’t help but feel grossed out there. I like them because it means I can eat as many vegetables as I possibly can but watching people tower up their plates with that some colored carb filled food makes me sick. And watching people go plate after plate after plate of food and they are so overweight and are eating the worst or foods and ugh. They just don’t sit well with me. Like I said its a great service that you pay ten dollars to eat as much as you can but some people just take it way too far and obviously way too often as well. I don’t feel comfortable surrounded by it all and watching the habits being passed down to their children. I guess this is the first time that I have really noticed large people in this country and at a buffet you really are overwhelmed by it.

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I was asked to repost these two photos so here they are!

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The woman who runs the car show i’m at took me to her house to look at all of her birds. I expected a room full of budgies only to find out that she had Parrots that I desperately wanted when I was a little girl. The most amazing bird I saw was a Macaw and I have always wanted one for so long and it was just sitting there in a cage in front of me! Amazing.