Date: August 5- 15 2001
"Typical" East Coast tour: NYC, Washingyon DC and Niagara Falls.

PART I. day 1

My wife and I depart from Madrid-Barajas, clear skies and 80F. Took AirEuropa flight. I had never gone over the ocean, this was my longest flight.
I found the flight more bearable than I thought it would be. Time flies when you are entretained...well, I LOVE flying.
A meal, a decent movie (Taylor of Panama), filling the inmigration forms (that's some entretainment!) and before I realized, I was trying to have a glimpse of Manhattan from the window. Mission impossible, due to the strong haze.

USA: First Impressions.
It was 6PM at NYC. Kennedy International looked grim and gritty to me. It was nearly an hour waiting inside the plane before it could park in the terminal. Then we caught up with a flight from Tel-Aviv, so the customs row was endless!
What a first impression! then we get out of the terminal and... OUCH!!!! HOT!!!! the hottest place I have ever been to! And I DO know Seville in summer. The air was almost unbreathable, we landed in the middle of one of the worst heat waves, it still was over 100F at 8PM!
So, we take our Colombian guide's van and we start another hour night ride trough Queens. Talk about bad impressions!

Arrival at... THE CITY
BUT...then we have a glimpse of an Illuminated Empire State Building. Let the magic begin! as we get closer to Manhattan, we see the thousands of city lights. We cross the river and land in the middle of an avenue traffic jam. That was expected! The streets look darker than I expected. Then we run into Times Square. WHAT A PLACE! That got me excited again. Exhausted (it's early AM in Madrid) we arrive at our hotel (Milford Plaza, 8th ave - 45th st). It's a good old fashioned hotel, old but comfortable (AC! thank God), with great views. I could picture some classic movie taking place here.