No, I did not see the line for the cash only tolls...

Well here I am on the East coast, currently in rural Connec-ti-cut writing to you lovely blog land folks. Today I arrived at JFK after a red-eye flight and was greatly pleased to see my luggage waiting to great me at the turnstile.. good job jet blue! Then Tom and I walked to this mysterious Airbus... I should remind you that the following, and most of my blog entries are based on my observations and I understand that they are not generalizations of entire cities, or cultures... but golly do the folks in JFK walk slowly. It is as if they are being pulled by some invisible beam and told to maintain their pace without regard for the people around them as we all travel through a series of constructions sites to the "air train." right. Fairly amusing idea that perhaps this whole thing was a joke and that the air train meant we were going up and down elevators all day.

However, Tom and I were able to finally make it with all our luggage to the car rental place where I rented a car for the first time... but only after tearing my whole wallet apart in mild panic and saying a quick prayer to St. Anthony for the return of my misplaced license. Let me tell you folks, missing your licence is not something that you want to happen when you arrive at a car rental place in New York. But the offending object was willed into existence and Tom and I loaded our belongings had a nice conversation with the Indian guard who seemed really pleased that I had my nose pierced and explained to me how popular it was in India, etc. Very sweet man.

HOWEVER then we started DRIVING in New York, and dang I tell ya, I think think somewhere there was a typo in the driving book for New York where they replaced "do not cut people off" to "cut in front of people." so after being almost hit several times we arrived at a toll bridge with a semi wedged between us and the cash only tolls we illegally pulled up to the fast toll lanes and did not have a prepaid card so sat as a police officer came and explained to me that there were plenty of signs along the way (that by the way is the opposite of true and in fact very very false. if I had cut off a semi and several other people and survived I may have made it to the cash lanes...) and I had to PAY ATTENTION when I was driving and WHY was I in this lane, couldn't' I see that it was wrong.. etc etc So he explained that it is a 150 dollar ticket (welcome to New York) asked for my licence and asked me to pull over.

Thank goodness he then felt sorry for me and realized that I was not a devious traffic delinquent, but a misplaced, misguided tourist in a rental car trying to make it out of the city...

Off we went! Spent the rest of the lovely afternoon driving around rural Connecticut and upstate New York. It is so lovely here. I see Robert Frost poetry in all the scenery.. mending walls and birches everywhere... I will try to take some pictures and post them when I have time. But I was a little overwhelmed by the fact that you can see through the forest, that even the brush loses it's leaves.. deciduous in the winter is a first for me, and I am looking forward to working nestled in the Appalachian mountains for the next few weeks. I see book shops in every little town. I love it. :o) Hopefully I will take myself in my sweet rental car around to the afore mentioned shops and spend my free time here either walking through the woods or cozied up in some book shop with hot chocolate :o)