So journey begins
On Friday it was a holiday but I woke up at 6:30 AM rested and ready to go, while the day before was also a holiday. Finishing last of the packing, ate ham and eggs, smoked a cigarette. Sister took me to the airport at 7:30 AM, we arrived at 8:00 AM. After waiting at check-in line with Turkish ski jumpers, there they checked ESTA, we passed security where they complicated about shampoo. In duty-free, I bought Pelinkovec as a gift (12 €). Still had time for one Union (5 €) and two cigarettes.
After boarding the Turkish airline plane (400€ LJ-IST-NYC & CHI-IST-LJ) I found out that my seat is near the emergency exit, which meant extra legroom! The flight was OK and in 2h we landed at Istanbul’s new airport. While the layover was just an hour, I was a bit worried. They sent me out with those they didn’t have connecting flights so I had to do a security check again. In the end, I was running, arrived just in time to the boarding gate all sweaty. There again a few security checks. The flight was long, standard food, few gin tonics, watched movies (Once upon a time in Hollywood, Lion king), dozed a bit and it was landing time (7:30 PM) in New York. While it was my first time in the USA, I as an ESTA guy had to stand in the migration line with visa people. A whole process with queue, fingerprints and photo took almost 2h, I ate my snack at that time while food shouldn’t be taken into the country.
From JFK I took a train to Jamaica Station (8$). There I changed to the metro and bought a weekly ticket (34$). Arrived in Manhattan (11:00 PM) and had 2h before the bus to DC from Port Authority station started. Walked around, had a Guinness (10$) at Beer Authority. At station bought some food for the homeless guy (8$).
