Hurricane Irene

So today was to have started with a trip to Doughnut Plant for an artery clogging breakfast. I had then planned to spend the rest of the day exploring different areas of the city before going out to CitiField to watch some baseball.

That plan was well and truly ransacked by Hurricane Irene.

The subway and other mass transit closed down at midday. The knock on affect of this was that very few shops and restaurants were open.

Because of the wonders of the internet I knew that the Whole Foods Markets in Manhattan were going to be open through the night. So I got up crazily early a did a very random shop a the Whole Foods Market in Chelsea. I will not be going hungry!

The rest of my day was spent aimlessly wandering around parts of the city. I had lunch at Shake Shack and got a takeout pastrami sandwich from Katz's Deli for dinner.

I had some solace at The Ginger Man bar which was open in the early evening. It gradually filled up when I was there mainly because it was the only bar open in the neighbouring blocks.

To JFK

OK flight to New York on Virgin Atlantic.

It has to be said that Virgin seems to a attract a 'chavier' clientele than, say, BA or Singapore Airlines. There was certainly plenty of 'estuary English' accents and fake tan in the queue to check-in.

The Virgin CLubhouse lounge was pretty busy as a consequence of delayed flights to the US. The service was slow, but I did manage a 'Red Head' cocktail followed by a glass of champagne.

The flight itself was very mundane. On arrival to JFK we'd been beaten to the immigration queue by a flight from Iberia and KLM -- therefore a frustrating wait.

I eventually got to my hotel at about 10pm.