Well some of you will have already seen the photos from New York and know that we are so far behind in updating our blog. Time just runs away with us and we find ourselves now sitting in Sacramento, California on our road trip through Callie, as it's fondly known by locals.
New York holy god what a crazy city. Everyone has their own experience in New York and ours will be uniquely different. We stayed in Jersey City at another Air B&B this time our host was Etienne and our house mate, Amanda, a science writer from North Carolina. The arrival to our place was not the nicest one, the cab driver who picked us up from the cruise terminal kept saying that the neighbourhood we were staying in was dangerous and had a very large drug community. When we pulled up at the place, there were about 6 youths hanging around on the footpath outside a house and the taxi driver suggested that we stay elsewhere, that these youths had probably killed at least 10 people this month. Ok so at this point I was feeling a little nervous, no thanks to the news, movies and TV painting a picture of violence and murder. However the cab driver was so wrong. We were staying in a quiet multicultural neighbourhood with families everywhere and surprise surprise, no guns, violence or murders. Etienne made our stay so easy and helped us out whenever he could. Once again another awesome experience with Air B&B.
I can barely remember New York, it was such a busy week. Every day we made our way in to Manhattan using the light rail, then the PATH train and usually the subway or bus to get to our destination. We had all these intentions of doing so much but I don't think we realised just how spread out the city was and how much time was needed at each tourist destination. So lets start from day 1...
Day 1: We had pre purchased the New York Pass which gave us access to all of the main tourist attractions as well as loads of tours using all forms of transport for the fraction of the cost of what it would be if we went direct to the attraction. Very very good value for money. We started our day by going to the Empire State Building. The stories we heard about the race for the tallest building in New York are fascinating. There was a period of time where the Chrysler building and Bank of Manhattan building were in a race to build the tallest skyscraper however what the architects constructing these buildings were so caught up in this race they didn't realise that the Empire State Building was quickly catching up to this race. About a year after the Chrysler Building was declared the tallest building, the Empire State over took it by over 200ft. The Empire State Building remained the tallest building in the World from 1931-1972 when the World Trade Centre was completed. We walked around the viewing deck of the building and could see all of Manhattan from a 360 degree view. It is a lot bigger than we thought. We then wandered to Times Square, I kinda feel like Karl Pilkington from an Idiot Abroad, I wasn't blow away by Times Square. There was loads of road works and building going on everywhere that I feel it took away all its glory. We took some photos and found the M&M store to Andy's enjoyment. We went to Discovery Times Square to see the Body Worlds Expo. If any of you have not seen the works of Dr Gunther von Hagens, a German anatomist, you're missing out. Get on it! He's fascinating.
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| Downtown from Empire State Building |
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| Gunthers Horse |
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| Times Square |
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| M&M's Store |
Day 2: We did our usual hour journey in to the city but we decided to get off a stop early and go to the World Trade Centre memorial pools and see the new One World Trade Centre building which is not yet complete. If any of you have been here you will know it is a somber affair. Seeing all the names of the victims of this tragic event etched in to the sides of the pools was heart breaking. The pools are the largest man made pools in North America and stand where the twin towers once stood. Around the outside they have the names of all the victims from all the attacks on September 11 and the WTC bombing in 1993 and represent the largest loss of life from a foreign attack on American soil. You get a real sense of coming together when you see fellow Americans there. We had a conversation about the attacks with an elderly couple on the cruise. They spoke about the true American spirit and the coming together of friends and families to help the victims families and assist in the clean up where the towers were. They said that although there was so much tragedy and sadness there was also courage and hope.
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| WTC Pools |
Day 3: We begun our day by hopping on a water taxi which took us from Battery Park near Wall St, passing Brooklyn bridge, then the Lady of Liberty and Ellis Island finally going to uptown NY and back to Battery Park. The guide was excellent and we learned so much about the city. We walked to the financial district and Andy had a photo with the golden bull which is said to bring you luck especially if you grab him by the balls. We wandered down wall street to catch a glimpse of the Stock exchange building and to enquire about hiring bikes for the afternoon. We were advised to spend a day on the bikes that a couple of hours wouldn’t be enough. We went in search of some lunch and stumble upon a little area that was all constructed from shipping containers. Shops, bars, boutiques and galleries. I could've wandered around for hours. We were chatting to a girl in a vintage clothing shop and asked her where we could grab a good bite, she recommended a pub around the corner. It would've been nice if we had the money but we did find a cheap tickets venue and bought tickets to see a show. We decided to see Once, my brother Jethro recommended it. We would've loved to have seen some big shows but again had we had the money NY would've been so different for us. We got 50% off the tickets which was a bargain. More about the show later. We went and found a whole bunch of food vans close by providing us with some delicious options. We settled on a kebab platter and one is always enough to feed us both. With full bellies we thought we’d catch the subway to Times Square again to look at some shops in particular Toys’R’Us. What a fun store. It had a small ferriswheel in it. The lego section was, excuse my french, fucking amazing! There was everything for big kids and little kids. We could've spent so much money in here. If only we had the space… oh and money hehe :) We grabbed a bite to eat before going to the show. Once was brilliant. It was a love story about a musician with a broken heart and a woman who befriended him who also had a broken heart, was still married and had a child. They developed a lovely friendship based around their passion for song and music. Every character on stage sung and played an instrument. All the characters stayed on stage at all times during the show and the set was minimal. The music was so awesome and the performances by the actors was impeccable. We were glad this was the show we saw. We ventured home very late and very weary.
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| Brooklyn Bridge |
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| Shipping Container District |
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| Statue of Liberty |
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| Lady of Liberty |
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| Wall st Bull |
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| Wall st |
Day 4: Rest day. Well earned I feel. We slept in and went for a walk around the neighbourhood. We booked flights home! Yep we have a date set for our return. It was a bit sad really. As much as we miss home and everyone at home we wish we could continue travelling. We also booked our flights to Mexico City. We will be meeting Bec Bec, a friend from Tassie, and travelling south with her. Very excited.
Day 5: Heading in to Manhattan early we jumped on a north city tour bus which would take us to the American Museum of Natural History. We could have spent hours upon hours wandering around this place... It is Massive!! I particularly enjoyed the dinosaurs and I think Andy's highlight was probably seeing the Easter Island statue that features in the movie A Night at the Museum and is famous for saying "You dumb dumb, Gimme gum gum". The little things in life :) We came out of the Museum right on closing took one look at the sky. The heavens were about to open up a can on our sorry arses. We managed to jump on the subway in the knick of time. It's amazing to see that no matter what happens in NYC someone is always selling something for that moment in time. So one moment it's sunny and a guy on the street will be selling sunnies but in a moment it can start raining and that same guy is now selling umbrellas. Never in my life have I witnessed this.
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| Dumb Dumb, you give me Gum Gum |
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| T-Rex |
Day 6: So we decided to hire bikes and take advantage of the numerous bike paths around the city. I really didn't think it would take as long as it did. Once again NYC deceived us. Setting the pace, I lead us through the chaos over the Brooklyn Bridge, once on the Brooklyn side we grabbed some ice cream and a quick drink. We rode to Williamsburg Bridge and back over to NYC. We were happily riding along the bike path on 1st Av, it's busy Friday arvo traffic, people wanting to escape the city for the weekend. In the corner of my eye I saw a cyclist, with no helmet, crossing an intersection on a red light in to oncoming traffic. My thoughts at this moment.... HOLY FUCK THIS GUY IS TOAST!!! We've not really had to put our nurse hats on to many times on this trip but thought this may be an occasion where we would be needed. This guy was so fortunate. He had a bit of bark off and his bike was scrap metal but thankfully he was in one piece. The driver that hit the cyclist on the other hand was extremely shaken up. An elderly gent minding his own business on his way home. He thought he'd run the guy over. Andy and I turned our attention to the driver once the paramedics turned up. The shittiest thing about this whole scenario is that even though the cyclist was at fault in this instance it is still the fault of the driver. The paramedic was telling us that a person could jump out of a tree on to your car and it would still be the drivers fault. What the? So we hung around to make a statement to the police and keep the poor old chap company. He was very grateful we were there. Finally we went on our way and headed for Central Park (which I kept calling Stanley Park). We rode around for about one and a half hours. taking it in. What an amazing place to have right in the middle of the most chaotic city in the world. A little piece of heaven. To sneak away on a lunch break or go for a run after work, play with the kids or have a snooze. Whatever it may be what a awesome place to be. By this stage we had been on the bike for about 5 hours and were pretty tired and sore. We returned the bikes and decided to check out Grand Central Station (Terminus). Very tired and not paying to much attention we got on the wrong subway train which was bound for Brooklyn, Whoops! We jumped off at the next stop and the info lady was kind enough to let us go out and back on to the right platform. Now its peak hour at this point so we squish on to the train and hold on tight for the next 15 mins. Getting off at Grand Central during rush hour is something that everyone visiting NYC should experience. There is no way to describe it. The station itself is an eye saw! Such beautiful architecture and history. But to see the continuous flow of human traffic is phenomenal. I love people watching and what a place to do it. hours of entertainment.
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| Central Park Boating |
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| Central Park Lake |
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| Central Park |
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| Grand Central Station Clock |
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| Grand Central Station |
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| New York Streets |
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| Sunset in Lower Manhattan |
Well that about does it for NYC. It's in a nutshell and I'm sure I have missed so much out. I'm not very good at writing. but I do hope those who read our blog are enjoying what we write about. We both agree that if we were to do NYC again we would stay closer to Manhattan and we would do it with a few more $$ in the bank
We hope you are all well. We miss everyone
Peace out
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