Griswold’s Road Trip

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A sunny but chilly day where the wind really brought the temperature down. We walked down to the NYC Ferry midtown terminal to catch the St George ferry which has two stops on the west side of Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn before returning to Manhattan at Wall Street. It is a paid service whereas the Staten Island ferry is free, however less crowded and, goes slightly closer to the Statue of Liberty and gives you a good tour of Manhattan skyline. We got off at Wall Street, trip time was around an hour and twenty five all up.

 

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Lunch at a pub just off Wall Street which was quiet due to the MLK federal holiday before a short subway ride back to the hotel.

We found the subway easy to navigate,, and being able to use your phone for contactless payment made it super simple. You can tap on up to 4 people per device / card so it was no issue with the junior Griswold’s not having cards.

We wouldn’t have gone anywhere near reaching it but fares are capped after 12 rides over a seven day period if you have an Omny account / app, so would be worthwhile if you were going to be doing a lot of trips.

 

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And with that the journey home begins. The weather forecast was for the coldest morning of the year so far at -15 and with a much colder feels like however it was around -10 when we left the hotel at 7:15am.

I had arranged a car service via the hotel and they were waiting outside the main door at around 7 fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. Traffic was light and forty minutes later we were piling out at JFK Terminal 1.

It was $130 USD plus $10 surcharge for using a card over cash plus gratuity. Taking the train would have been around $75 USD for the five of us so the convenience of walking five metres to the car and five metres to the terminal over 10 or so minutes to the train carting luggage with tired little Griswold’s in -10 made it an easy decision.

Terminal 1 at JFK only has twelve gates and it was extremely quiet and quick getting through check in and immigration / TSA.

Korean Air also leaves from Terminal 1 so presumably after Asiana merges with them it will stay the same.

As we were in business we were given access to the Turkish Lounge which had a small and relatively uninspiring selection of staples with a sprinkling of Turkish food. No alcohol in the lounge but it had direct tarmac views and was light and airy with comfortable seating.

There as a section of seated round tables near the buffet and the remainder was 2 seater lounges set up in groups of four around two coffee tables.

A nice enough place to while away the time, we managed to get a spot near the windows so could watch the comings and going.

 

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The flight to Seoul was uneventful but long at a touch over 15 hours. The food and drink on that leg and the next was the same as the way over so won’t bother with photos aside from the effort they put into Audrey Snr and Audrey Jnr entree for the kids meal below.

Flight attendants were excellent again in terms of service and request responses, no hiding in the galley for them. Once again they fawned over Audrey Snr and Jnr and consistently tried to offer them different things to eat.

 

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Asiana moved operations in ICN to terminal 2 in mid January, it’s where Korean Air operate from so no doubt as part of the merger. Terminal 2 is much newer than 1, and we were given access to the Korean Air lounge. It was quite large, with a large selection of food including a noodle bar and pizza bar. There was also a separate bar section that sat about fifteen along it.

They were quite full and regulating entry, we joined the line and ended up being approached by a staff member who said they would put us in a meeting room which seats 8 if we were happy to share with any others that came in. We said yes of course but then no one else came in to share so we had it to ourselves for the layover.

 

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Since the Griswolds Vacation is nearly over ...
Did I miss the Chrissy Brinkley in the Ferrari and swimming pool pics??

Looks like you had fun anyway and a good report.

 

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Since the Griswolds Vacation is nearly over ...
Did I miss the Chrissy Brinkley in the Ferrari and swimming pool pics??

Despite keeping my eyes peeled she didn’t make an appearance on the road. Probably for the best!

 

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The milestone birthday arrived mid flight between Seoul and Sydney, unfortunately I couldn’t make it to midnight however on waking around 3am Seoul time had a glass of champagne to celebrate. When Ellen woke for breakfast an hour later she shared another with me.

For one of the first times not being able to use the egates due to Audrey Jnr (only one more year) didn’t result in a long line and we were first up through immigration.

Short cab ride home, the mega unpacking and washing began punctuated by lunch at our favourite local Italian restaurant to sample some “good” food for a change.

And back to reality of work to pay off what had been an excellent and jam packed trip.

Some random comments to follow in summary.

 

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During lunch I asked everyone what their favourite part of the trip was:

Clark and Ellen - unsurprisingly we both said spending so much time with the kids without the pressures of day to day life. I say unsurprisingly because Rusty made a few comments on the trip how “in sync” we are and would say the same things about different experiences separately to him. If I had to push for an experience I would say Kennedy Space Centre. So much history and so much stuff going on I was unaware of. If pushed I would say Ellen would say the same.
Audrey Snr - getting her nails done in NY with Ellen.
Audrey Jnr - playing in the snow over Christmas and in New York.
Rusty - American girls. Apparently much more variety and better looking than Australian.

Other random things.

Kms driven in the Griswold mobile - a touch over 7600.

Near misses caused by driving on different side of the road - 3 in the first couple of days and to be honest I still didn’t get my head around the give way rules, it seemed to be it was a competition to see who could give way more.

Snowstorms driven in to go get Christmas gifts - 1.

Turns missed due to icy roads in snowstorm and not having the confidence the car would stop in time - 2.

Times front right tire pumped up with air at servo due to slow leak - 11.

Accent we were most commonly mistaken for - New Zealand.

Books accidentally taken from AirBnB noticed by host and posted back - 1.

IHG points earned - approximately 100k.

Asiana status obtained - Gold for Clark, Ellen and Rusty until 31/12/2029, which is Star Alliance silver. Now to work out where to transfer the points.

Percentage lost by battery of EV at home during 5 weeks away - 1%. I was curious to see how much the battery would lose over the period we were away. The answer is basically nothing. I assumed it would lose something as it is always “on” waiting for the remote to come near so it unlocks but apparently that usage is negligible.

Cost of holiday - best not to think about that. Certainly not something we do all the time.

And almost finally - did Rusty change of his opinion of Americans caused by negative social and mainstream media? Yes he did, commenting on it in the US and even to the extent he commented on how much ruder Australians are when someone pushed in front of us at customs at Sydney airport.

And almost almost finally. I had made the decision to stop watching or reading tv and mainstream news after the Bondi shooting. It all just seemed to be revelling in the misery. From what little I saw while in the US there didn’t seem to be the focus on the US president and his comments that we have here. But to be fair I didn’t seek out the news.

And finally, thanks for those that joined us on the ride and provided suggestions and tips!

 

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Final Griswold movie factoid. In all OG movies the spelling of the surname is Griswold including when Chevy spells it out however in the opening credits of European Vacation where it shows their passports it is spelt “Griswald”.