No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn

So. I am in Jamaica - the one in Queens, NY, rather than the Caribbean island. It's 05.18 here, but my frustratingly consistent body clock had me up at 4am. After forty minutes or so of rolling around and huffing, I figured I'd do something constructive with myself and create a massive sleep debt with a little Bowlpost.

It seems a long time since the Fancy Nancy discoveries - since then I have packed, re-packed, taken out some definitely essential knitwear, denim and shoes, packed again and underwent varying tedious airport things. The flight consisted of me catching up on some heavy cheekbone-action from Tom Hughes' bad boy performance in the Gervais-Merchant hillaire that is Cemetery Junction, eating some not unpleasant airline food and sending myself off to sleep with a G&T. Once I'd got through the rigmarole of security, in which I repeated that yes, I was staying just in Brooklyn for 90 days, about eight times to three increasingly terrifying men in uniform, my bag had kindly fallen off the baggage carousel for me to establish that one of its straps had decided to retire to make the most of its 'vacation' in NY. I gather it was just very keen to be searched by blue-gloved hands unsuccessfully for something that wasn't clothes or Marmite.

A little wander down the dark streets of Jamaica, past a couple of Gentlemen's Clubs and even a Liverpool St and I arrived as a sweaty wonder in the hotel. Four hours of sleep later, and here I am.

NY fulfilled-cliches and discoveries so far:
- I am old enough to be called 'ma'am'
- A 'Bodega' is a corner shop.
- American people do say 'lift' instead of 'elevator', but they might just have been humouring me when I questioned its whereabouts.
- The aforementioned lifts are so far the same size as most of the bedrooms I've rented.

OK, fairly underwhelming list but if you check back: I've been in this country eight hours and asleep for half that time. I've not even switched on HBO yet on my insanely huge TV, which is directly opposite my insanely huge bed and in front of the insanely huge shower.

Just one hour until I can run downstairs and gorge myself on (hopefully insanely huge) pancakes. Excellent.