From Newark to New York

So, having done the comprehensive tour of EWR, we began our demented lurch towards Manhattan. I've been on Turkish buses that were less alarming. The steering wheel and accelerator plainly operated on some quantum principle that forbids a continuum - every turn was a sharp and violent change in direction; every throttle blast that launched the van fifty more feet down the road was immediately countered by an equally unforgiving application of brake. None of these vector changes corresponded visibly to traffic or road conditions.

Matters were not improved by the fact that our driver didn't know Manhattan, and couldn't read a map. This provided more entertainment, as he handed the map book to one of the poor doomed passengers up front, asking if they knew how to use it.

We did eventually make it to our hotel, three hours after landing. Good start.