Posted on September 9, 2009 - by Stephen Murray

New York Trip: Part I

That’s the night time view of downtown Manhattan from our Hoboken apartment. We’re here at last – it took us what seemed like an age but the view is definitely worth it! We left Cape Town at lunchtime on Sunday – flew to Jozi – spent 5 hours in the airport there (I like what they’ve done with OR Tambo, looks good) – flew to Zurich – spent 4 hours in the airport (without Swiss Francs or the budget to afford R70 coffees) – flew to JFK airport, New York – caught the metro to Manhattan (very interesting with two 20kg+ bags) – connected to the New Jersey underground, the PATH (still interesting with two 20kg+ bags and a serious lack of elevators at some stations) – and finally walked 3 blocks to our apartment (I have callouses on my hands from those bags). But our apartment was worth it (and we saved $80 in taxi fare).

Well the apartment was almost worth it. We were so overcome with the view that we failed to notice that instead of having 3 beds and 1 crib for 6 adults and 1 baby we had 2 beds and 3 cribs (I tried to fit in the crib but to no avail). This situation is only going to get sorted out on Thursday so Robin and I are on the sleeper couch in the lounge till then – at least we still have the best view.

Like I said there are 6 of us in the apartment. Tobie and Marianna (who many of you will know) are with us along with their little daughter Amelie. They’re church planters north of the real boerewors curtain in Pretoria. We also have Endre and Eneh staying with us. They’re a couple church planting in Budapest, Hungary. Tomorrow we’ll meet the rest of the group.

It’s up early tomorrow morning to head to the Global Cities Initiative which is a conference running for the next 3 days hosted by Redeemer. We’ll fill you in on the details as things happen. Later…