Year: 2006

Yes, the PhD student turned up. But his luggage didn’t. Oops. His plane got delayed at LAX so he missed our planned flight. He only got back to Swansea about an hour later than me though. Still no sign of his stuff.

I’ve landed back in the UK, but without Gareth. He was supposed to meet me at JFK, but didn’t make the flight. British Airways won’t tell me if he’s on another flight, so I’m waiting at Heathrow terminal 4 arrivals & using the web to trace possible airline problems. My coach leaves in an hour.

It’s my last day in the US and in NYC, so what am I doing? Yep, shopping. There are some cracking electronics bargains to be had, and it’s good to see that J & R are even bigger than they were before the destruction of the twin towers. J & R is a huge, multi-shop…

Yeah, yeah, dinosaurs. But where are the jawless fish? Where are the tetrapods? In fact, the American Museum of Natural History has a fantastic looping display on the top floor, taking you through 250 million years of vertebrate evolutionary history. As an anatomist there was plenty of detail available to keep me happy, and likewise…

Crikey – look at the number of wireless networks visible from a typical Manhattan location! A few more than you see in Swansea!

I’m on a 5 hour flight across the diagonal of the USA, on the first part of my journey home. I love how flying home is shorter than flying away. The winds blow to carry me home. I left Gareth, the PhD student that works with me & who I went to the conference with…