Peter Bolton is in the USA for the start of Manchester United’s tour.
Thursday 20th July
It was a good night’s sleep after the long drive to Edinburgh and back yesterday.
Today, Tour23 starts in earnest.
We arrived at Manchester Airport for the short first leg – Aer Lingus to Dublin with a short stopover and straight out to New York’s JFK (slightly worried that the connection won’t go a smoothly as I hope!)
As I feared… it was time to0 depart and our plane had not even landed yet.
That meant we were delayed an hour and now had less than 30 minutes to get the flight to New York. The cabin crew kindly moved me to the front (an empty seat) to ensure I could be first off the plane.
I had no other choice but to run to transfers and passport control – then through security and eventually border control.
They shut the aircraft door as soon as I stepped on board, so I made it from plane to plane in less than 20 minutes.
Many thanks to the Aer Lingus staff & Dublin Airport staff. Otherwise it would have been one extra day in Dublin and one less day in New York!
The seven hour flight to New York gave me a chance to get my breath back. On top of that, they offered a decent meal on board, and then I had a few hours sleep.
When we arrived in New York, we got the metro to Times Square and took a short walk to our hotel, where there’s a beautiful view from the roof top bar.
Friday 21st July
We have a free day in New York but it’s pouring down.
Once the rain stopped, I spent the morning walking around Times Square and ventured as far as Central Park. In the afternoon, it was warm and sunny – so some friends and I went across to Staten Island on the ferry.
A great day was had by all and we bumped into a few Reds we know throughout the day.
We had some MUFC-themed entertainment late on in a pub where the New York / USA Reds were meeting up.
This involved a Q&A with Wed Brown and Andy Mitten. It was a great, but very late, evening.
Tomorrow: Match day at the MetLife Stadium (over the river in New Jersey), and the US Reds are holding a Tailgate Party from noon to kick-off in one of the stadium parking lots, which should be great fun… Beers and BBQ!
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