New York!

Incredible 24 hours! This will be fairly brief because it's 10.20pm and I haven't really had a proper sleep in almost 48 hours.

Last night on the plane to NY we had a King's Kids experience: when the trolley came around with beverages, we thought let's have a wine and sleep. The attendant gave us the 2 bottles and said that'll be credit card, thank you! Embarrassed, we changed the order and gave her back the wine, not wanting to throw away a lot of cash just for a bedtime drink; she gave them back and said, "don't worry, these are for you!" Then she took them back and said "Wait, I'll get you some wine from First Class." She was soon back with two tumblers full of very nice red - Nice!!

Today had a huge, busy, full day with our hosts, Carl and Ann. Took a train, then the subway to 42nd St, then headed down to St Peter's, the church at the centre of the Ground Zero rescue effort. Spend a quiet age walking through, looking at all the remembrances and momentos to lost family members, lost rescue people, heroes of all sorts. It was a very deeply moving, emotional, sacred time. Then we walked down to Ground Zero, all surrounded by non vision fencing, with construction work going on everywhere. There was one spot where there was a big gap in the fence, away from the main area; I was rooted to the spot for a very long time and once again the tears and the prayers came; a privilege to remember all those people, especially the Australians who were lost.

We walked for ages around Manhatten, down along the river front, onto the Brooklyn bridge, then around to the Stanten Island ferry, across to the Island, back again. Back to the subway and then the train broke down! Then all the trains became stacked up, including the one we switched to. A trip that should have taken 10 mins max ended up taking almost an hour - just like home!!!

Gotta go to bed now or I'll fall asleep before I make it!