If you’re going to travel to the United States, you might as well take your first bite out of the Big Apple. It’s a global hub with two major international airports, both of which are super easy (and, thanks to budget airlines like Norse Atlantic, dirt cheap) to get to from the United Kingdom. With no less than 143 direct flights connecting London to New York on a daily basis, there’s absolutely no reason to overcomplicate things by, say, booking a British Airways connecting flight on an American Airlines ticket through Finnair. Right?

For someone who’s flown extensively throughout Europe, it surprised me how frightened I was of taking my first voyage across the pond. It is, realistically, a surprisingly short flight: 6 hours to cross the entire Atlantic ocean only actually works out an hour longer than the 4 hour 40 flight I took to Corfu in 2017, and at least they feed you well on a transatlantic. The language barrier that often puts friends on edge in new places hasn’t ever really bothered me, and certainly wouldn’t apply in New York despite the strongest of Brooklyn accents. It wasn’t logical, and to my frustration, I couldn’t question and answer my way into making it be so.

Logically, I had every means of getting home in an emergency, and would probably have an amazing time in the Big Apple.
Spiritually, upon reflection, it felt like I would be a long way from home.
Thankfully, my Danish friend agreed to come with me, allowing me to import just a little bit of home in the next seat.

The Flightmare TM
The Finnair debacle came about after I had agreed to fly from Copenhagen to Heathrow rather than meeting her there, allowing me to see my best friend and her cats before the Flightmare TM began.

The Flightmare TM began quite nicely, actually. We profited threefold: a generous lift to the airport, followed by eating pork pâté at 6AM (welcome to Denmark), was bookended by our plane getting into Heathrow early. Ideal! Until Heathrow forgot to deploy the gate.

We’d tried to account for the fairly tight 1-hour-40 timeframe by attempting to change our flight with American Airlines who, as it had a British Airways ticket, wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. Okay, that clears things up. We rang British Airways, who, as it was a Finnair booking, wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. …Right. Third time lucky, Finnair-
We were stuck with our flight. And now we were two terminals away from our plane with two rounds of US customs to clear. A near-fight on the bus and running a good 600 metres at full speed later, we made it on to our plane, lungs gone and friendship more-or-less intact.

The Flight Over
Although the flight itself was blessedly unremarkable, it was remarkable to be on such a large jet, and astonishing to have in-flight entertainment. I spent six hours flickering between The Batman (2022), the flight map, and the Arctic – you can actually see Greenland beneath you if you end up on the quicker route between London and New York – and devouring the Kosher meals which are always far better than regular airline food.

We landed in JFK slightly early, and cleared customs quickly, making our way to the Aliz Hotel Times Square on a series of Air Trains and subways – I think. By this point, we had been up since 3AM CEST, or 10PM EST the day prior, making the discovery of the Weather Channel and its documentaries linking tornadoes to British failures in the American Revolution a remarkable quasi-hallucinatory experience. We got to bed early with the aid of melatonin, and woke on the other side of an ocean, ready to explore New York.

Museums
During our time in New York, like the good jetlagged tourists we were, we visited every museum and theatre spot we could afford. The CityPass really helped us out on this front, allowing us to bundle a bunch of visits to museums and cultural centers for a lower price.

9/11 Memorial and Museum
I won’t post photographs of the artefacts we saw during our visit to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. It’s a profound and solemn monument to one of the nation’s greatest tragedies, and needs to be experienced in person to really understand the individual lives impacted by such a horrific event. I will, however, include a photo taken of “Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning”, an art installation by Jin Lee which greets you upon arrival. I left the museum really understanding a piece of the city’s history which I personally was too young to remember.

Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
After leaving the 9/11 Museum, we went even further back in time to Ellis Island, exploring the arrival halls through which entire swathes of the US’ population once entered. Certain details of how citizens of different nations were categorized were fascinating, as were the national stereotypes enshrined in the popular “race records” of the time. I also bought a tremendously awful foam crown and posed with it next to the Statue of Liberty. Like a tourist.

The American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History was incredible, but also introduced me to a very obvious realization. Vultures are real. Until I stared at a stuffed one in front of their beautiful dioramas, they’d seemed as much of a creation from a Western film as the humble tumbleweed – which, having lived in the South for a year and a half now, I can confirm are also real. Being from the UK, which is similar enough to the United States we’re culturally “sisters not twins”, it’s strange that the only culture shocks I had came when confronted with vultures and the yellow school busses I’ve only ever seen on TV. The dioramas and mosaics are gorgeous, and I’ve enclosed an article which discusses them in more depth here.

Theatre

Beetlejuice
My first ever Broadway show was not

Drunk Shakespeare

Galleries
MoMA
After picking up the beloved American friend I’d spoken to daily for four years then hopped the pond to see, we headed out to the MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). The collection put the unexpected in “unexpectedly large,” surprising us with a Bacon, a Singer Sargent, and a Rothko, which my friend bawled in front of.

Highlights