Sad Goodbyes

We got up earlier as today was our last day in New York and we wanted to make the most of it, which for this trip meant shopping!! The decorations on and in the shops were fabulous. The big department stores had moving displays of Christmas stories in their windows. We had a good walk around Macys, Bloomingdales, FAO Schwartz and had a look around Tiffanys and some other nice shops. In the middle of the day we went up to the top of the Rockefeller Centre and enjoyed the fantastic views of Central Park and the Empire State Building. We would really recommend this. You can even make out the Statue of Liberty.

We had afternoon tea and then had to say our goodbyes to Becky and John. It was really strange to say goodbye in Times Square and head off in different directions. We headed back to the hotel and picked up our bags headed to the airport dreading the thought of a journey like the one we’d had getting here. This time our flight was on time and was direct flight to Ottawa. We were quite pleased when we landed as we thought we would be back home relatively early. Not so. We have to go through a special immigration section (due to our work visas) and joined the back of the queue. There were only four other people in the queue, but this doesn’t mean a queue is going to be quick. Two British teenagers were yelling and swearing at the immigration officer and threatening to sue the whole of Canada. We sat down to watch and try to figure out what had happened. The immigration officer made it clear that if the kids didn’t calm down he would refuse them entry to Canada and have them arrested. No self respecting, hysterical British teen is going to listen to authority and so the police were duly called and were trying to calm down the dramatics. After half an hour of this, we started to get annoyed because all the immigration officers were dealing with this stupid girl who didn’t know when to shut-up when they could have been seeing to the queue.

From what the girls yelling we gathered that she and her brother had been searched. Closely. No doubt this would have been traumatic, but the girl was screaming that she shouldn’t have been searched when it was her brother who had been caught with drugs previously. Oh dear, the high intellect of the British youth. When we were finally seen by immigration, I made it clear that not all Brits were like this banshee, that we had nothing to do with her and despite what it says in our passports, we were not actually British anyway.