I took a cab from my Brooklyn home to JFK at 5:30am on Sunday

My friend Jane, who has moved from Sydney into my room while she does her LLM at NYU, waved from the window while my flatmate, Prue, half asleep, put me in the taxi. I'd had no sleep despite getting home at 3am after drinking and dancing almost all of Friday night, packing all day Saturday, and going out until 3am Sunday. I guess I was too excited to sleep.

The last few days in New York were great fun, though. Everyone very kindly showed up at my farewell at Luca Lounge, and there was a little cake party at the office, and Jane, thank heavens, helped me pack my room (although the house is still full of my stuff - sorry, girls). I felt pretty strange most of the time - like my mind had already shifted out of there while the rest of me had to keep drinking while I waited until it was time to get on the plane. I was sad, too, of course.

JFK was hideous at 6 am Sunday. The queue for my airline snaked all the way around the back of the check-in counter and people had to check in, then take their bags themselves to be x-rayed rather than just leaving them at the desk - some kind of new security regime.

That feeling of exhilaration I always look forward to on a plane was a little elusive this time. I had a very cute but ill-behaved infant next to me, who did a lot of smiling but also a fair bit of punching, of both his mother and myself. I had a headache, of course, and would have liked him not to punch me, but every time his mother tried to stop him, he screamed his head off. I tried to let her know I'd suffer his blows rather than hear him yell like that, but I couldn't say it in Spanish and in my weakened state I hadn't the energy or brain power to redirect his course, so I surrendered. It was very unpleasant.