From Berlin to Vancouver, or, One of the Most Stressful Days of my Life

Leaving Berlin was perhaps more stressful than arriving there. For a couple of weeks prior to our leaving date, I’d noticed a faint moldy smell in the flat and a few small spots of mold on the walls. I’d emailed our landlord about it and he told us not to worry, but just to ensure that we kept airing the flat out for five minutes a day, which we did.

Friday, the day before our flights, was designated to finish cleaning the flat & packing our bags. Unfortunately Walter has a little episode every time we try to pack, and demands constant attention, so we weren’t really able to settle him until late afternoon. David began packing his bags and that was when he made the awful discovery – the whole wardrobe, and the wall behind it, was covered with a gross green mold. The more stuff we moved the more we found. It in our clothing, on our suitcases... it was awful. I spent the evening at the laundromat, washing most of David’s clothing as he was heading back to England & staying with friends, so didn’t want to bring a bunch of moldy clothes with him. We contacted our landlord right away who said not to worry... 

It had come through the wall and into the wardrobe, and then into our clothes... YUCK

It was 3am before I was able to say that the cleaning & packing was finished. I went to bed and was up by 8am the next morning to finish the organising and pack last minute things, like Walter’s diapers. At 8:45 our landlord arrived, but he had another man with him. At this point in time David & I were both feeling strongly suspicious. The other man was allegedly an “insurance inspector” and, as I’m sure you can guess, the mold problem was blamed on us and, after realising that we needed to resolve the issue or miss our flights, we ended up having to lose our damage deposit (I’d had an inkling this might happen when I booked the flat) and hand over a substantial, but not completely prohibitive, sum of additional euros.

I was, as you can probably understand, quite upset. In October I had found out that my job was at risk of redundancy, which meant that our ever-dwindling savings were possibly the only thing we would have to support us. David was heading back to England and although we knew that we’d see him at Christmas, we had no idea what would be happening after that. We’d hoped to spend our last day in Berlin enjoying time together as a family, and instead it was just full of mounting stress. By the time we got to the airport on Saturday morning I was struggling to keep it together. We had hoped to have a few hours together at the airport, but after I checked in with Walter we learned that David’s flight was cancelled. So we ran to the British Airways flight desk and got him on the first available flight, which happened to be leaving in fourty minutes. So much for family time.

I don’t remember being particularly stressed at the airport. I think I had reached my limit and ‘switched off’. And, thanks to the wonderful people at Air Berlin, we had a really enjoyable flight to New York. They’d given us a bassinet seat for the journey, so I didn’t have to keep Walter on my lap, and they even had a bag of baby essentials (diaper, toys, bottle etc) that kept Walter occupied. In fact he enjoyed the nine-hour flight so much that he spent most of it befriending the stewardesses and surrounding passengers instead of sleeping!

In New York things started falling apart. I’d requested assistance at the airport, since I had to transfer between airlines and check my bags again, and American Airlines had assured me that I would have all the help I’d need. Imagine my delight when I exited my flight and was told there there would be no help. I blessed the good angel that had put it into my head to buy Walter a baby hawk carrier, because we wouldn’t have made it through the airport without it. The staff at JFK were appallingly rude. I mean, I know that New Yorkers are stereotyped on being proud of their rudeness, but in most places that I’ve traveled people at least take pity on a mum struggling with a young baby. Not so there! It was a member of the Air Berlin staff who saw me struggling to wheel a loaded suitcase trolly and Walter’s stroller to the baggage drop and offered to help. I was grateful for the assistance but at the same time really pissed off that it took a fellow foreigner to step in and help me because none of the Americans working at the airport could be bothered. At every turn throughout the airport, whether checking in for our AA flight or going through security, we were harassed and scolded. It got so bad that I almost lost it at security, when they were berating me for not being fast enough (and meanwhile Walter was half-slipping out of the carrier because no one would hold him and there was no where to put him down safely while I struggled back into my shoes). I think it was the look on my face that got them to back off. 

I’d hoped to relax on our flight, but AA kept to their usual standards and we ended up crammed into a corner seat. Walter screamed his head off for a good ten minutes, because no one was doing much to answer my service call for a glass of water with which to mix his formula. If we hadn’t had both fallen asleep it would’ve been an unbearable six hours to Seattle, since we couldn’t even get out of our corner to stretch our legs or use the toilet. And even tho’ it was a six hour flight, we were only served a small beverage partway through (I know this is fairly standard now for domestic flights, but keep in mind that I was on the second leg of an international flight and hadn't had any chance to get food at the airport due to my connection).

My brave little trooper. Unless he was unbearably uncomfortable he didn't cry.

I knew better than to expect assistance from AA when I arrived in Seattle, so Walter and I struggled on the whole length of the airport. I’d not eaten in over 12 hours, my bags were heavy, and I was just in auto pilot. Fortunately I have an awesome brother who can always be counted on to keep a look-out, and just when I was ready to collapse he came racing towards us and the next things I knew I was surrounded by my family and the hell of the last 48 hours was at an end. Soon all my bags were collected, loaded into the car, and we were racing off towards Denny’s for an 11pm dinner before driving back to Canada. 

Walter remembered his Baba!

Meeting Uncle Johnny & Opa for the first time. Denny's -- it's where the magic happens.

As an aside, I must point out how happy I was to see that Denny's had taking their marketing one step too far. I'm pretty sure I heard Tolkien rolling over in his grave:

 

Is this like a Titus Andronicus pie?

Because Hobbits love heart attacks! We all ordered off the special Hobbit menu. I had Gandalf's Gobbler (ie a turkey sandwich). A part of me died.

DC & New York: VIII

All too soon our last day in America arrived. Fortunately we’d booked a late night flight, which meant that we could still do some sightseeing that day. We spent the morning packing up our things and then went to Veselka for breakfast as our farewell to New York treat. Any place where I can get french toast (made with challah bread) with a side of kielbassa for breakfast is alright by me! As an anniversary present David bought me the Veselka cookbook. And in typical David form he decided to make a witty comment about how it was really a gift for himself, since I’d be the one doing the cooking. This led to the man behind the counter laughing, exclaiming “DUDE, I can’t BELIEVE you said that” and then informing every passing waiter of my husband’s wit. I refrained from hitting David with the book ;)

After breakfast we went back to Midtown East to do our last bit of sightseeing/shopping. This led to a very long time spent in Argosy Books, where David finally hit his motherload and ended up with a bag full of books (we snuck it onto the plane as ‘reading material for the flight’). Then it was off to Dylan’s Candy Bar, where we managed to cross most of our souvenir-gift-list off in one stop, including a gourmet dog treat for my dad's dog. It’s a multi-story shop with each floor devoted to candy. In fact the floors themselves are clear and full of candy.

We walked by Bloomingdales every day.

From there we ambled over to FAO Schwartz, but after Dinosaur Hill and Dylan’s Candy Bar it failed to impress us so we bought a giant cupcake to share and then wandered around Central Park, enjoying the scenery and the chance to rest our legs. I wish that we’d been able to spend more time there, but it’s a giant park and time was flying at an alarming rate.

We were back at the flat by 5pm to pick up our luggage, say our farewells, and head off to JFK. I like being ridiculously early for flights, because I hate the stress that comes with rushing, but we made really good time which meant that we were able to enjoy Tim Horton’s coffee at a little cafe by the airport shuttle train. It wasn’t as good as in Canada, of course, but we can’t get it at all in England so it was a most worthwhile stop. Then it was a short ride to the airport and the regular hassle of checking in and waiting and more checking and more waiting...

Neat building on our way back to the flat

I let David have the aisle seat and my generosity was rewarded as the seat next to me remained vacant for the flight. Sitting for 7hrs on an airplane is less fun than usual while pregnant, so I was glad of the extra legroom. The best surprise of all for our return journey was how easy it was to get through Immigration at Heathrow. Because I have a visa which allows me to work, I normally have some level of questioning at the Immigration desk, and in my experience the border guards at Heathrow are the most terrifying when it comes to random questions on policy which you a) should know the answer to or b) know the new answer to while the person questioning you only knows the old answer. But this time they took one look at my visa, asked me where my husband was (next booth over, ma’am), and then waved me through. I suspect they’ve been given sensitivity training for the Olympics. Either that or 10 days in America is less suspicious than 21 days in Canada.

After an absurdly long bus ride we ended up back at home. It was so nice to be back in our flat. But we had less than 24 hours to settle in before the first of David's family arrived for their visits.

DC & New York: VII

Our last full day in New York began with a trip out to Liberty Island, which meant we had to stick to a sort of schedule as I had been clever enough to book tickets in advance and thus jump the queue. Getting onto the boat was horrible—a combination of US fears of terrorism in the extreme perhaps coupled with a desire to make the immigrant experience feel authentic... My shirt set off the metal detectors (it clearly had metal on it) and the next thing I knew a very rude security guard had confiscated my glasses while another one started barking orders at me. This in itself wouldn’t have been a problem, but I am at best functionally ‘blind’ without my glasses, and it means that if they’re off I can’t hear well in a noisy area as none of the noise distinguishes itself as words directed at me. So I ended up shouting at the security personnel and I must’ve been a little louder and more panicked sounding than they were because they restored my vision. It wasn’t the most promising start to the day, as being left vulnerable like that is never pleasant.

Fortunately things perked up as soon as we got on the boat. A nice harbour cruise with a little bit of sun was just the thing to put me in good spirits, and we managed to get seats which was particularly lucky. The ride to Liberty Island was lovely, and then we had a nice walk around the statue and some fun gazing back at the Manhattan skyline. Once we’d seen all that we could see, we decided to skip on the Ellis Island part of the boat journey as it was beginning to rain and instead headed back to the city for further exploration.

Approaching Lady Liberty

View of Manhattan from Liberty Island

At the foot of the Statue

More of the skyline

A boat similar to the one we were on.

One last look.

We spent most of the afternoon wandering around Chinatown and Little Italy. David wanted to see the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, so we took that in, as well as heading down Wall Street and window shopping at Tiffany’s. The Tiffany’s experience was great, because we were both wearing our old gortex jackets due to the rain and the staff clearly suspected that we were just touristing in their shop but couldn’t tell 100%. To be fair, we were pseudo-serious buyers, only I didn’t find anything I loved enough to purchase within the limits of what I could afford. I was inevitably captured by some beautiful diamond studded animal pendants, but at over $1000 each I couldn’t justify it, and nothing else that I could afford seemed worth it after that. Alas! 

New York Stock Exchange

Statue on Wall Street

At the Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art. This is an illicit photo, as you're not allowed to take pictures inside. But look, it's Batman! Also, I am certainly not a comic book reader and my appalling ignorance meant that I was banned from speaking...

For lunch that day we went to Lombardi’s, hailed as American’s first pizzeria. It was about as fine-dining as pizza goes, and with David’s love of the stuff I had to let him call the shots for ordering. So we split a delicious caesar salad to start, and then ordered a large pie, and washed it all down with Italian sodas. It was expensive and cash only, thus using up most of our remaining Yankee gold, but totally worth it. We were sitting next to a baseball signed by Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, and the photographs of all sorts of old Hollywood stars decked the walls. Because it took up most of our remaining cash and because it was so good, it ended up being our last NYC pizza experience. We didn’t want to lose sight of the magnificence of a good pie with the the good but questionable cheaper slicers available on every corner. In fact it pretty much ensured that we swore off delivery pizza when we got to the UK and now mostly only have it if we make it ourselves. See, it was just that good. 

Photo evidence, should his love of pizza ever be called into question.

It was a happy meal.

A vanilla Italian soda. So good! There was a cherry on top but it got eaten...

In the evening, several hours of window shopping and espresso later, we met up with our kind hostess for dinner. We had a really enjoyable meal, particularly as she’s one of the most interesting people that I’ve ever spoken with. Not only could she tell us fun stories about David’s mum, but she also has a really interesting career with the UN and so the conversation was never dull. Her generosity towards us was evident all through our trip, and I admit that I felt quite touched that someone who didn’t even know me would be so kind.

DC & New York: VI

Day two in New York began much like day one – I convinced David to make me breakfast while I looked over our itinerary for the day. Breakfast this day included some of our delicious leftover peppered cheese. It was great.

After our relaxing start to the morning, we took off for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As we’d already ‘done’ European art in DC, and can see it any time we wish, we decided to focus our time on their American art exhibits. I felt a bit like over-privileged euro-trash being able to pass up on the opportunity to see the Met’s ancient/medieval art collection, but it seemed pretty stupid to come all the way to America and not see the best of what they had. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take any photos inside the galleries, but I found the scores of period rooms to be the highlight of my visit there. It’s so much more interesting to see beautiful pieces of furniture and plate in context. The Tiffany collection was also fantastic.

One of the few things we could take pictures of -- a beautiful display by Tiffany

We devoted our afternoon to more sightseeing/shopping. We headed back to the East Village (we actually spent most of our time out this way, which was totally unplanned) to look in a few more book/comic stores (like Forbidden Planet). We also went to a quaint little toyshop called Dinosaur Hill, which was part of my quest to buy the baby its first toy while we were on vacation. On our way back to the subway, David spied a Ukrainian diner so we decided to pop in for our afternoon tea. After a mere five minutes in Veselka, we discovered it was going to be the place that ensured the East Village was where we’d spend the most time. I think I could have eaten there every day if possible. Not wanting to overdo it, however, we decided to stick to coffee/hot chocolate and split a dessert. We tried kutya, a sort of sticky Ukranian pudding made with wheatberries, nuts, and various other delicious things. 

En route to the subway

curves!

We had tickets to see the opera L’elisir d’amore at the Met, and decided that since we were so full from lunch and our afternoon tea it would make the most sense to pick up food to make at the flat once the opera was finished. So we journeyed to midtown West and the kosher deli Zabars. En route David spotted a bookstore across the street, which led to me finding a Southern cookbook from a place called Lynchburg... yup. After I hauled David out of the store we went to experience the treats of Zabars, which for a kosher deli had a surprising amount of shellfish, pork products, and meat stuffed with dairy. We bought some sweet potato knishes to snack on at the opera, and then raced down to Lincoln Square so that we could get there in good time.

This was our second epic opera adventure for the year, which makes up for last year’s complete lack of opera. Our household is divided on which was better, a debate which combines both individual musical tastes and artistic sensibilities. I preferred our experience at the Royal Opera, David thus preferred the Met! I must agree with him that the set was beautiful—a wonderful dreamscape of pastels that made one happy to look at. And this opera was a comedy, so we were kept well-entertained. I was glad to have seen it, as it is a lesser known one. My main quibble with the Met is that the surtitles appear in the back of the chair in front, making them damned hard to read if you’re also trying to watch the stage. But the music, the performance, and the set were all spot on. Having now seen operas at two of the world’s big opera houses this year makes it a very good one for us, and we are both feeling quite spoiled.

After the opera, disaster! Due to engineering works (as they say in London), we couldn’t take the subway back to our neighbourhood. It seemed as if every train we found was going to bypass our station. A journey of 15 minutes soon spread into 60, and eventually we got as near as we could and just walked the rest of the way. I was really thankful that we had picked up a bunch of reheatable food at Zabar’s, since I was starving by the time we got in and wasn’t handling the whole not knowing how to get home thing that well. It felt so good to just relax with hot food, Seinfeld playing in the background, and start the great debate about which opera experience was better.

DC & New York: V

The first thing I noticed in New York was the noise. All the negative reviews about our DC hotel on Trip Adviser had complained that it was so noisy, being near a railway and a highway. But we’d gone from the outskirts of DC to mid-town Manhattan, and the noise was definitely more noticeable. Fortunately we are used to living in cities, and the night-long sounds of traffic and garbage collectors were not much worse than the constant bin-collecting rumble of the Cambridge garbage men who tend to favour 7am as their time for making excessive amounts of noise on their tri-weekly collections. So, I slept like a baby and didn’t wake up until the sun was streaming into the bright apartment.

We got up later than we had been, but still at a fairly decent time for vacationers. David kindly obliged to make breakfast for me while I did some stretches to try to loosen up my pulled muscles. Then I got to feast on fried eggs and American bacon. My North American friends perhaps have no idea just how significant this is. English bacon, whether regular (ie back bacon) or streaky (ie ‘american’) tastes nothing like the bacon we get back home. This isn’t to say that it’s bad, but it’s cured differently, cut differently, and uses more salt. To be able to breakfast on thin and crispy, melt-in-your-mouth pieces of bacon (David is an expert bacon fryer), with some toasted rye bread and an egg fried just the way I like it was perfection. It was also great to have real cooked food again, after four days of hotel “everything white flour” breakfasts.

Eventually we packed up and went out. The plan for the day was to do some sightseeing, followed by meeting up with a friend of ours from the University of Toronto. I learned quickly that my time navigating the DC metro put me in an excellent position to figure out how to buy tickets for the New York subway. But the NYC Subway is a completely different beast to any mass transit system I have ever been on. I naively assumed that it would be no worse than trying to get around London via the tube, which really isn’t that bad once you identify the colour of your line. However, in New York I had to contend with colours, numbers, and letters. So it took us about an hour longer than it should have to get to Coney Island.

Near the end of our journey.

Apparently the amusement park is right behind me, but the glare from the sun was too much to get it in the photo.

The wind was working itself into a temper, so our trip to the island was a little disorienting. Our first stop was Nathan’s Famous, because it seemed like a shame to come all the way to New York without trying a hotdog, and where better to get one of those odious things from than the place that first made them. It was too windy to eat outside, so we huddled in the overcrowded food joint, eating our hotdogs and finding them palatable. I really hate hotdogs, and Nathan’s certainly didn’t win me back to the dark side (then again, if Costco’s kosher dog can’t win me back then nothing can) but they weren’t bad. If you like that sort of thing. Although I think the Orange Julius bacon & cheese dog which my parents used to buy me on Sundays is a superior dog.

We took our chips down to the beach, wandering by the ‘abandoned’ amusement park on the way and watching the wind whip up little tornadoes of dust and garbage. David kept calling for the Warriors, but none of them came. Then we just sat and enjoyed the sand, wind, and water for a bit. We don’t live that far from the coast in England, but it’s far enough away that we never get there. So it was really nice to be back at the ocean.

 

 

We strolled along the beach, looking at shells and dodging the sand storms, until the wind got too much and we had to retreat to the boardwalk. There is a large Russian community in Brighton Beach, along the boardwalk, so we went down there to see if we could score any delicious treats. David noticed that there seemed to be a lot of Russian pensioners sitting out on doorstops, watching the world go by, so we marked it down as a possible activity to keep my parents occupied in their golden years. Then we came to the crowded streets of the Brighton markets, which were a jumble of everything—groceries, Russian food, cash for gold, nail salons... We ducked into a Russian toy shop and looked at strange Russian speaking toys (I was tempted to buy one for the baby but David was a bit worried about the soviet-era materials) and then went into an Eastern European deli, where we scored some gingery honey cookies (from Israel, not Russia, alas!) for the long trip back to Manhattan.

Our afternoon was spent wandering around Greenwich Village and the East Village. Some stops were planned, and others were impromptu. The one place I was set on going to was Murray’s Cheese, where we wandered around the aisles and indulged our foodie senses. It wouldn’t have done to be overly greedy, and pregnancy has somewhat limited my gastronomic delights, so we restrained ourselves to a sizable chunk of peppered sheep’s milk cheese (so good!) and pretzel buns.

By this time it was getting quite late in the day, so if my memory serves correctly (and it may not as we kept having to make last minute changes) we began our walk to The Strand. The Strand is this amazing used and antiquarian bookstore which takes up at least four stories and is a good place to drop David off at for an afternoon. Being seasoned book collectors, we went straight to the top floor to scope out their antiquarian and rare books. By this time my body was ready for a rest and so I spent an hour or so sitting in a cozy leather chair while David slowly made his way around the shelves. David has an uncanny knack for book collecting, and as long as he knows which authors I’m interested in he always manages to find something special for me if there is something special to be found. This time it was a signed copy of one of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s novel The Firebrand (she may be more familiar to some as the author of the Mists of Avalon). This was a huge find, as the author is no longer living and her more main-stream popularity never really took off until Mists of Avalon, meaning that affordable signed copies are few and far between. Once David had finished browsing the top floor we had just enough time to run through the fiction/sci-fi/fantasy sections downstairs. For the first time in my life I found myself actually facing an abundance of books by the authors I’m collecting. Difficult decisions were made, but in the end I emerged victorious with some more Zimmer Bradley and also a novel by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (I can almost never find her books in the stores). The trip to The Strand is of note for one other reason—David’s fairly certain that this is the first time that I’ve purchased more books than he has!

When we left the bookstore it was time to meet up with our Will, a good friend and fellow PIMS committee member from our U of T days. Will took us out to Astoria, where he lives, and we got to meet his roommate and hung out at his place chatting for an hour or so. It was just like old times, except there was no wine involved! I love friendships where you can meet up after three years and it’s like nothing’s changed. Then he took us to this Indian place where we had a delicious, and very spicy, curry meal. I ordered the vindaloo, which various waiters kept trying to convince me out of having. But I stuck with it. And damn, was it ever hot. I ended up just fishing the meat out of the sauce. Still, I’m glad I stuck with it—yes, about as hot as I could handle, but so worth the pain because it had a good depth of flavour behind the heat and it’s just so rare to get good spicy food in England. For starters we all had a curried butternut squash soup, and I also indulged with a mango lassi. Love curry!

All too soon, it was time to say goodnight. After many assurances that we wouldn’t likely get mugged on the subway, Will dropped us off and I navigated us back to Manhattan where we spent the last hour of the day watching Seinfeld episodes on the TV and making comments about watching shows set in New York while in New York. Not geeky at all.

DC & New York: IV

David and I had grand plans for our last day in DC, but ended up having to scale them back. Dave needed to catch up on some rest, and I suffering from a sort of traveling muscle pain that was making walking a bit uncomfortable. As we had all our luggage to cart around that day it seemed prudent to just take it slow.

We decided to go to Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is located at the Catholic University of America in the far North-East of the city (so far east that my guidebook assured us that even the criminals don’t get out that far!). So eventually we got up, ate our last hotel breakfast, settled our bill, and then sprinted across four lanes of traffic (that I managed this with a pulled muscle, my suit case, and my big ol' pregnant belly should impress everyone...that and David helped me) to the side of the road with an actual sidewalk. I was a little anxious about making it through dodgy neighbourhood that was en route to the metro stop with all our luggage. Obviously we wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t safe, but it’s certainly not an area that I would want to linger in and it made me glad that we had stayed at the place we did, safely on the side of the highway.

We got to the basilica quite early, because we did not want to have to worry about organising our bags right before Mass started. This meant we had ample time to sit in the downstairs cafeteria and get caffeinated, and I was able to go browse in the basilica shop. I was hoping to buy an icon, but they only seemed to have proper icons on sale, meaning that the prices were upwards of one hundred dollars. So I bought myself a pretty gilt picture of the Virgin, with the memorare prayer at the bottom, and ended up being quite glad I had since the picture was closer to the decoration in the basilica than an icon would have been.

Mass was what I have come to expect from large formal churches—difficult to hear with a choir that was too elaborate to follow. After Mass we wandered around the basilica looking at all the different side chapels. It is a very beautiful church and the side chapels were all very individual in their styles of decoration. Nothing seemed too out of place or modern, which was impressive as it is often difficult to find churches with good modern decoration. I suppose it depends on the grandeur of the building, as Ely Cathedral is another place that I can think of where the modern pieces work alongside the older ones.

Instead of walking from Foggy Bottom to the Capitol, as had been our original plan, we got off the metro in central DC and went for lunch at the Tram Spot (or something like) where we feasted on pulled pork and bbq burgers. Then it was off to Barnes & Noble for a comfort break and David’s run-in with security. Apparently they are so unaccustomed to people buying books in their stores that they assume browsers are there to blow up the place. Fortunately I emerged from the ladies just in time to rescue my Unidentified Male and our Abandoned Luggage from the overzealous security guard. We bought some locally made pies from the cafe before making our escape to the street and heading towards our train to New York.

David tried to befriend a squirrel, but it did not much fancy the coated peanut we fed it.

I actually managed to stay awake for our journey this time. It was neat watching the countryside fly past, and I found it quite exciting to cross a few states in three hours. We made it to New York just as the daylight faded but the area around Penn Station is quite used to traveler traffic so it was easy to find our way to a taxi, and thence to mid-town East.

David’s mum has a very kind friend who lives in New York and who let us use her downtown apartment for four days. She was even thoughtful enough to stock up the fridge with some breakfast foods and give us a couple of subway cards to get us started. After a brief visit with her, Dave and I went out to locate some cheap and quick pizza. Fortunately there was a place just around the corner, and I finally managed to cure my chicken wing cravings with a slice of buffalo wing pizza (it even had ranch dressing drizzle). Then it was back to the flat for some brief unpacking and a chance to put our feet up.