Friday 11th July - New York New York

Checking out at 11, we headed to the airport. The flight was thankfully not too long but turbulent for a large part. Sat in front of us were a couple of ladies chatting away, in an accent that I was previously convinced only existed in the Sopranos. They were, however, neither Italian, nor gangsters and apparently this was an east coast accent.

In an attempt to alleviate any boredom we watched 21. Hoping to find a solution to our poor performance in Vegas, the film was far from enlightening and based on a dangerously flimsy storyline with no explanation for how people could put to good use card counting. Nonetheless it saved us from the tirade of the family behind us, who had been sat at the other end of the plane from their father - sadly we still had to endure the phone call to him once the plane had landed.

Having landed at JFK we followed signs for the sky train and hotel transfers. It wasn’t until we had travelled 10 minutes out of our terminal that the sign read 'Airport Hotels Transfer'. Forgetting our resolve to use public transport we turned on our heels and jumped in a taxi for Manhattan. The Friday evening journey was long enough and by the time we reached the Empire Hotel we were both ravenous. Pausing just long enough to check in we were happy to find our bikes had arrived in one piece, and our postage stamp sized room was beautifully formed.

With a need for food overruling any desire to hunt out culinary delights we entered the nearest restaurant – an Italian 50ft from the hotel - where I had a pizza big enough to feed Biafra. I had assumed the portion sizes in New York would be more modest – apparently not.