Category: USA & Alaska 2018

It was a little bit somber here in the USA today. 17 years since the 9/11 attacks that brought down the World Trade Centers in NYC.

There wasn’t a huge deal made if it, but there were flags flying at half-mast around San Fransisco today to remember those who lost their lives.

I know that the date of today’s post is 12/09, but it is still 11/09 here in the States.

Yesterday I talked about a number of “firsts”, but I missed one. The extra one occurred when we arrived in Monterey and I had to do a reverse parallel park on the wrong side of the road.

Our Chevy Impala has park assist installed … although I don’t know how to use it. I worked out how to turn on the seat warmers, and I worked out how to get Gina talking in metric, but the mysteries of park assist still elude me.

It just seemed easier to do a reverse park the old-fashioned way, before park assist … and the result was a perfect park first time. TOTIL was impressed.

And she is not easily impressed.

It’s funny that driving a left-hand-drive car is suddenly starting to feel normal. So far, the only time that I have missed something is getting back into the car after gassing it up … twice. Both times I’ve tried to climb back into the passenger side and wondered why TOTIL is sitting in my seat.

Sigh 🙁

We had another first today.

We caught the subway into the city, on our way to see Alcatraz. I continue to be impressed by the friendliness of Californians.

The process for paying for our parking and adding credit to our Clipper cards was not intuitively obvious to us, so we asked someone for help.

Once again, this young lady went out of her way to show us the process and then watched and assisted as we added credit to our cards.

Even asking for directions in the city, the locals are friendly and helpful – a real change from our experience in NYC.

So today we went to see Alcatraz Island, which was a federal penitentiary until about 1963.

Alcrataz Island is also known as “The Rock”, hence the title of tonight’s post.

Alcatraz was the highest security prison for the worst criminals, and it was considered to be escape-proof. Even though Alcatraz Island is only about 1.25 miles from the SF mainland, the combination of water temperature and rips meant that prisoners could not get safely to the other side.

It’s most famous inmate was Al Capone.

It’s probably fortunate that Trip Advisor wasn’t around between 1934 to 1963 because it wouldn’t have got good reviews. Accommodation at Alcatraz was cramped, cold, and there was no privacy.

Solitary confinement was worse, often totally dark.

Inmates got to shower twice each week in communal showers … and they were normally only referred to by their number, not their name.

Here are some more pictures of Alcatraz … as you can see many of the buildings are damaged or being renovated.

We spent a few hours on Alcrataz Island. They have a free audio guided tour which gives you a great insight into life inside the prison.

Very well worth doing!

After Alcrataz, we had a bit of a look around Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39.

TOTIL was able to tick another item off her bucket list – she had clam chowder for lunch.

We also went and had a look at the sea lions.

Actually they weren’t hard to find … initially we followed the smell, then we followed the smell and the honking sound that they make … and then we found them.

Lucky we had finished our lunch first, because I wasn’t in the mood for eating after that 🙁

The weather here on SF is a bit hard to plan for. The forecast was fine and a high of 19 degrees C, so we dressed accordingly.

That’s twice that we have made that mistake now.

The temperature must have got up to about 25 degrees when we went for a walk to see Lombard Street.

SF is a very clean and pretty city, and very laid back. Unlike NYC, there are not as many tourist attractions around SF, and they are not as close together.

Whereas in NYC you can hop on the subway, pop up at a new station and there is always something to see, SF is more of a driving city.

Public transport is a bit less effective, and you find yourself walking through suburbs to get to see other things of interest.

So we had a bus ride and a 20 minute walk to Lombard Street, and it left us feeling a bit worn out and overheated.

While we did get a number of tips about things to see and do in SF, it seems that nobody thought to tell us that the road to get to Lombard Street was rather steep 🙁

But the climb was worth it.

After Lombard we went for a walk through Chinatown …

… saw our first cable car …

… and decided that we needed coffee. It was 3.30pm after all. There was this coffee shop that got great reviews on Yelp, and it was on the way back to the train station.

You know how in Brisbane, coffee shops around the city close at about 3.15 to 3.30 each afternoon?

So I said to TOTIL, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we got there and it was closed?”

It wasn’t (funny), because it was (closed). Famous last words 🙁

We caught the train back to our local station – Pleasantville – and collected the car.

Here’s a fun fact: trains in Brisbane are either 3-car units or 6-car units.

Subway trains in NYC are typically 8-car units, while in SF, they are 10-car units.

This blog might be a lot of things, but it is informative. Stuff that you probably couldn’t find on Google 🙂

Speaking of Pleasantville, here are some more pictures of houses in our street, as promised yesterday.

So that pretty much brings us to the end of the day.

I’me feeling more confident driving now, so we don’t rely on Gina as much.

We decided to go for a bit of a spin to the beach before dinner … and ended up hurtling towards San Jose at 70mph … took a wrong turn, switched freeways/interstates without realising it, got stuck in the flow …

So we woke Gina up, asked for some help, and made it to the beach eventually.

We don’t normally get to walk on the beach and watch the sunset, so we took the opportunity.

Weather had turned a little chilly, as you can see. TOTIL still had a wonderful time, as you can also see.

She is smiling, and there is no risk of skin cancer.

It was a beautiful afternoon on the beach despite the temperature.

I made the mistake of taking off my shoes and going for a walk in the water. I’ve never had frostbite before, but I think I came close today.

All toes still attached I’m pleased to report.

We have ended the day with another first. We have turned on the TV for the first time in the USA – in almost 2 weeks.

TOTIL switched on the box and started scrolling through the channels.

You know how in Brisbane, we can switch through the channels and not find anything to watch? No difference here in SF.

TOTIL started scrolling at channel 715 and got to channel 1130 and found nothing of value.

Then she stumbled across old episodes of “Little House on the Prairie.”

Sigh 🙁

Now I wish we’d never bothered switching the TV on. You’d think with all those channels they’d have some quality material, like Fawlty Towers, or Get Smart?

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

Today was a day of firsts.

We had decided to take a trip down to Monterey, Carmel, and towards the Big Sur. Altogether this was about 2.5 hours drive south of San Francisco.

When you are driving on the “wrong” side of the car, and the “wrong” side of the road, you know that everything that you are doing is opposite from how you would normally do it, so you find yourself actually processing every action before you do it to confirm that you are doing it correctly – backwards – to normal.

And then your mind starts playing tricks on you. You hear Gina issue an instruction like “In 1000 feet, bear left” … and your mind processes that to “In 1000 feet, bear right”, because you know that everything that you do is opposite to what you expect.

Then in a moment of panic, you realise that left means left and you don’t have to convert that to the opposite, so you try to create in your mind a list of instructions that don’t need converting.

Some things are done opposite. Some are done the way that they sound.

And Gina only gives me one chance of hearing that instruction.

And when you are trying to process these instructions at 70mph while you are hurtling down the highway, with your fellow road-users flying by, it’s pretty daunting.

At the same time, TOTIL is screaming instructions like “look out for that car!”, and it gets a bit exciting.

Sigh 🙁 No wonder I’m feeling a bit stressed.

I just mentioned Gina. If you don’t know who Gina is, you will have to go back and read yesterday’s post.

So I started today by saying that today was a day of firsts.

The first first was that I had to fill the car with gas for the road trip.

I’ve said before that Californians are very friendly and easy-going … but they don’t trust you as far as they can throw you when it comes to filling your car with gas (fuel). You have to pay first, then fill.

Which brings me to my second first for today … I met my first Californian that I didn’t like. He was the gas station attendant. Actually I suspect that with the name Mohammad, he possibly isn’t a native Californian. I actually thought that he looked and sounded more Mexican than anything else, so perhaps he was having an identity crisis.

I’m not really sure.

Regardless, I couldn’t get a sensible answer out of him.

I figured that I needed to pay before filling, so I went into the shop an asked him how to proceed, and he shrugged his shoulders like he didn’t understand plain, simple Australian, and he waved me outside to fill up.

So out I went. Took the nozzle off the bowser, put it into the car, pressed buttons feverishly and nothing happened.

And then Mohammad comes out, shrugging his shoulders with a “what’s the matter … are you stupid?” look on his face.

I finally got him to understand that I wanted to pay cash – that paper stuff in my wallet – and he took $50 from me and went back into his little booth and turned the bowser on.

Honestly, if Siri was that difficult to get through to, where would the world be?

So the car is all gassed up and Gina took us on a merry ride down towards Monterey.

Which brings me to my third first for the day. Gina and Google Maps have obviously got a thing going on, because about an hour into the 90 minute trip to Monterey, she suddenly announced that “the traffic conditions ahead have changed … I’m calculating a new route.”

Really? That’s pretty progressive.

So today, life really was a highway for us.

We sat on various highways all the way from home to Monterey, effortlessly sweeping from one highway to the next freeway to the next motorway.

It’s even better if you are going in the opposite direction to everyone else, so you watch 6 lanes of car park coming towards you while cruising along towards your destination.

On-ramps, off-ramps, highways, interstates, freeways, on and on.

California is an enormous configuration of criss-crossing highway infrastructure that all interconnects, and you can slip from one to the next so easily … and all without dropping below 70mph.

If you have aspirations to be a test pilot, you can go even faster.

If you think that you are Tom Cruise in Top Gun, you can probably break the sound barrier.

The car’s instrumentation told us that it was a balmy 52 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Or maybe that’s a chilly 52 degrees … I’ll have to do the calculations and work it out.

About an hour south of San Francisco, there’s this funny smell in the car, and I’m thinking … “did she …? Would she …? That’s disgusting!”

TOTIL was obviously thinking the same thing about me, because she says “can you smell that?”

We were passing through a place called Gilroy CA – where garlic is grown … and the smell of garlic in the air is incredibly strong.

We got to Monterey mid-morning and went for a stroll down onto the wharf.

Here’s another fun fact about California. In NYC, tax is charged in different ways, on different purchases, and according to the value of your purchase – if it is charged at all – in what can only be described as an arbitrary process.

In California, tax appears to be charged at a consistent 9.00% on every single thing you purchase.

We stopped in at a coffee shop on the wharf and bought 2 coffees at $4.50 each.

So here is a spot quiz. How much did we pay? If you said $9.00 you’d be wrong! We paid $9.81 including tax.

From there, we drove down to Lover’s Point, just a short drive south of Monterey.

It was here that the wind picked up, it got very cold, the clouds rolled in, and I was concerned that maybe it does rain in Southern California … but it didn’t.

We then drove down along the 17 Mile Road and stopped at Pebble Beach …

… and on to a beautiful little seaside community of Carmel.

The Big Sur is a very pretty and scenic drive along the coastline. We’d come this far, so we decided to go a little further and drive some of the road along the Big Sur.

So glad that we did – we saw some spectacular and rugged ocean views from various points along the road.

I understand from a number of people that approximately 12 months ago there was a landslide on the Big Sur and the road has been closed – only re-opening a few months ago.

After seeing some of the Big Sur and taking photos, we decided to head home. I had my fourth first for the day.

We stopped in Castroville CA – the artichoke center of the world. Evidence is displayed below. I’ve never been to the artichoke center of the world before.

I didn’t even know such a place existed.

We stopped at a little Mexican cafe for a very late lunch, and we had another first – our fifth for the day – artichoke enchiladas.

Tasty – yes.

Unusual – definately.

Would I have one again – hmmm, probably not.

So we headed home via a different route, just for the variety. Another beautiful and scenic route through redwood country.

And so we arrived home, to Fleetwood Drive, Pleasantville. (It’s not really Pleasantville – it just reminds us of the movie.) I’ll try and post some more neighbourhood photos tomorrow to prove my point.

What a great day!

Other than a bit of chilly weather for an hour or so in the middle of the day, the weather was sunny, clear, and gorgeous.

We got to walk on a beautiful sandy beach at Carmel and feel the sand between our toes, and the sun on our faces.

We spoke with one of our boys for a while thanks to the magic of internet, 4G, and Messenger.

We had a great drive through a beautiful part of the world.

We didn’t get to visit the Googleplex, but I can live with that disappointment.

We did get to visit the artichoke centre of the world, and eat artichoke enchiladas.

Which brings me to the final – sixth – first for the day. For the first time since we arrived in the USA, I didn’t walk more than 5000 steps for the day, because we spent the day in the car.

We will address that tomorrow, undoubtedly. We are taking the train into town.

Having a blast. Roll on Tuesday 🙂

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

There will be a quiz in the blog tonight, so please pay attention.

Today was our first full day in San Francisco.

As per yesterday’s post, it seems it never rains in Southern California. The day started bright, clear and sunny.

And quite cold, compared to the 32 degrees that we were having in NY. Today’s maximum was forecast to be about 19 degrees, so we dressed accordingly.

Our planning wasn’t as good as it could have been … mainly because we were pretty tired after a 27 hour day yesterday, so we left the planning until today.

There are a number of things that we are quite keen to do in San Francisco, and some are pre-booked. We hadn’t yet got our Clipper Cards (that allow us to travel on the SF public transport system), so we thought that we’d take a drive instead.

We were quite keen to find an outlet mall and do some shopping. We knew that there was a large mall (like DFO for our Brisbane readers) somewhere down near San Jose.

A bit of Googling and we determined that it is the Great Mall Outlet Center at Milpitas .. about a 30 minute drive south.

So we asked Gina for directions to the Mall.

You may not know Gina. Gina is the name of our GPS. She is very polite and very precise but she has a few … character flaws.

Probably her greatest flaw is that she thinks that her job is to just give me some support, because she assumes that I have a basic knowledge of what I am doing and where I am going.

Gina is very wrong about that.

Not only do I not know what I am doing or where I am going, but I am also driving on the wrong side of the road and it is freaking me out.

Only yesterday, I needed to do a U-turn at the end of our street, which ends at a T-intersection. I stopped the car, thought through what I needed to do, and where I needed to end up, and completed the manoeuvre successfully. Whew!

So today we are on the US 101 South, doing close to 70 mph (that’s “miles per hour” for you young ’uns) in a 65 mph zone, and cars are flying by me like I am standing still.

I can only assume that posted speed limits here in California are a recommended speed, rather than what is actually expected.

Fortunately there are often at least 6 lanes, so I can happily plod along in the far right-hand lane, while these other maniacs try and break the sound barrier 5 lanes away from me.

Another of Gina’s character flaws is that she is unfamiliar with the metric system, used almost everywhere in the world except the USA.

So we finally got off the highway and are on surface roads, and Gina gives these ridiculous instructions like “bear right onto the C348 in 1000 feet.”

How far is 1000 feet?

Actually it’s not that hard to work out when you think about it. There are 30cm in a foot, so that is 30,000cm.

There are 1000cm in a metre … no, that’s not right, 100cm in a metre, so divide 30,000 by 100 to get metres …

And Gina breaks into my thought process with “please make a U-turn” …

Sigh 🙁

Anyway, we finally got to the mall nice and early to beat the crowds, and beat the crowds we did!

We arrived an hour before the mall opened.

Sigh 🙁

So we went for coffee. Now at home we actively avoid Starbucks because … well, because we have certain coffee standards, and Starbucks do not meet the standard.

We were a little limited for coffee options at the not-yet-open mall. Actually we only had one option – Starbucks.

And sometimes bad coffee is better than no coffee. TOTIL will be horrified when she reads this, but that’s the way it is.

And here is the funny thing .. it wasn’t too bad.

After coffee, we found that the mall was actually open, but most of the shops were shut. So we had a nice wander around, getting our bearings and planning our attack on the shops.

Now, I did say that there would be a quiz tonight, and here it is.

Look at the pictures below, and tell me …

… who do you think is having the most fun?

Along with my Universal Law of Shaving, there is another piece of wisdom that I would like to impart to our young male readers.

There are three little words that make our significant others go all weak at the knees. Those three little words are “seventy percent off”.

So TOTIL was happy, and I carried the bags.

Actually, we got some good bargains and picked up a few things that we both really needed, so it wasn’t all bad. It was a nice day out.

On the way back home, we stopped for a little cultural enlightenment.

First we found …

… the Facebook offices, and then we found …

… a building with Google written on the wall. We had hoped to find the Googleplex but think that Gina gave us bad directions.

Or it is entirely possible that I asked the wrong question.

After that little bit of culture we headed back to SF to see the Painted Ladies .. a number of painted and restored old houses near the city.

So that’s about it for tonight. We got home at about 6.30pm and met our AirBNB host John.

Parking near where we are staying (Daly City) is challenging because – like NYC – one side of every street is closed for 2 hours every week for street cleaning. So we had to find a parking space on the “correct” side of the street … just like everyone else in the neighbourhood.

Tomorrow we are off on another drive down a bit further south, to Monterey and maybe Big Sur … it all depends on what time we get going in the morning.

Today was supposed to hit a maximum of 19 degrees. Down at the mall it must have been closer to 30 degrees.

When we got back to town and looked at the Painted Ladies, it can’t have been more than about 12 degrees.

Tomorrow I’ll take a mini-wardrobe to ensure that I have suitable attire for all possible weather conditions.

At least I won’t need an umbrella though, because it … “seems it never rains in Southern California …”

That’s all for tonight.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

… actually, it was a 777-300, but it was westbound, and we did end up in Southern California. Well, certainly California.

And it’s not raining.

Today we checked out of 177 Seasame Street, Brooklyn.

It was very sad, because we have both fallen in love with NYC. It is such an energetic, vibrant city, and feels like the whole world is living within the one city.

It is a cacophony of noise, smell, taste, and energy. One exciting place where you feel both energised and worn out at the same time.

By the time we finished packing last night, had some dinner, and put out our last minute things for our flight out to San Francisco this morning, it was late … maybe a bit after 11.00pm.

And then it was early. The alarm was set for 5.00am but my internal clock woke me at 4.50am.

Do the math … 11.00pm to 5.00am = not enough sleep.

Today we solved one of those great problems that has plagued mankind for years – how can I get more hours in my day?

Well, today we had a 27 hour day. Yay for us.

We left NYC (Newark) at 9.10am, took a 6 hour flight and landed at San Francisco airport at 12.10pm.

It was an uneventful, although very full United flight. No chance of sleep though, because a baby about 2 rows behind screamed all the way from EWR to SFO, like an undercover police car pushing its way through NYC traffic.

So here it is – 8.15pm at night – and it feels like 11.15pm … and I know why 🙁

We picked up our hire car at the airport .. and it’s a (almost) new black … Chevy … Impala.

Today we had some unpleasant realisations. Actually, I suspect that most most unexpected realisations are unpleasant, but I’ve never really thought about it.

The first unpleasant realisation was that after driving a right-hand drive vehicle for such a long time, habits are deeply ingrained.

So getting into a left-hand drive vehicle means that you have to force yourself to do things that every fibre of your being is sreaming at you that you are doing something wrong.

Like turning across an intersection.

And you keep doing things habitually that you are so used to doing naturally.

Like looking to your left to look in the rear view mirror (… it’s on the right)

Like reaching out with your left hand to pull the gear select into Drive (… also on the right)

Add into that the road rules that are not familiar …

Like stopping at an intersection where all 4 directions have a stop sign … and having to keep track of up to 3 other cars to work out the order that they arrived at their stop sign, because that’s the order everyone gets to go. (Thanks Jill for warning me about that).

Like being allowed to turn right on a red light after stopping and looking.

And then add into that the fact that nothing is in metric. What temperature in Fahrenheit is good for the climate control? How far is 1 and 3/4 of a mile?

So the first unpleasant realisation is that everything that normally comes so naturally and easily and almost sub-consciously, is now sending your brain into cognitive overload.

Sigh 🙁

You tell yourself it’s just the same, but in reverse … but it’s not.

The second unpleasant realisation is that we are now living in an earthquake zone. I hadn’t really considered that until I was reading about how the authorities had to strengthen the bridges to make them more earthquake proof.

Nice.

In NYC, every time we went through a subway tunnel under the river, I had visions of the movie Daylight.

The movie synopsis describes the plot: “Disaster in a New York tunnel as explosions collapse both ends of it. One hero tries to help the people inside find their way to safety.”

A great movie to watch with your young kids.

That is something to worry about every time you go through a tunnel. What happens if a petrol tanker crashes and explodes into flames and the tunnel collapses and I’m stuck in here under the river?

Have you ever wondered why I actively avoid the Clem 7?

But no tunnels here in California (that I have found). No, now I have to worry about bridges collapsing in an earthquake 🙁

But there is one other, very unpleasant realisation that I’ll tell you about soon.

There were also some pleasant realisations.

First observations of California is that it is very friendly, laid back, and casual.

NYC is everyone honking their horn because they are in such a hurry. SF is people stopping and waving at you to go first. I’ve not heard anyone honking their horn yet.

NYC is police cars, and police officers, parked or standing on every corner. SF is just relaxed. We’ve only seen one police car so far and it was getting fuel.

NYC is people too busy to talk to you or be polite. SF is people going out of their way to be helpful. We were shopping in Safeway (like Woolies or Coles) and were told that we could get a roast chicken on special if we scan our club card.

Us: “We don’t have a club card”

Lady behind us in the queue: “Come with me to the checkout and you can scan my club card to get the discount”

NYC is people ignoring you or pushing you out of the way. SF is people stopping, looking you in the eye, smiling, and saying “have a great day”.

Chalk and cheese.

So after getting some groceries, we went for a drive down along the beachfront.

Where NYC is rushed and busy and dirty, SF is relaxed, and clean(er) and friendly.

Hey, even the GPS in the car says “Please turn right at the next street.”

We drove a little further, and guess what we found … ?

Which brings me to the final unpleasant realisation.

As we stood on the lookout, admiring the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge, we (both TOTIL and I) were looking down at the beach far below and thinking what a great picture of the bridge that we could get from down there.

But what’s this? There are people swimming down there. And they don’t appear to be wearing any swimmers.

Hmmm. A nude beach.

OK. Let’s just enjoy looking at the bridge from up here.

So on that happy thought, it’s time for bed. It feels like it’s been a loooong day.

Tomorrow we start exploring California.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

 

I made a mistake in yesterday’s post. A huge one. A great big clanger.

I said that my new favourite car is a Ford Escalade … but I was wrong.

It takes a big man to admit that he is wrong. It’s not a Ford Escalade, it’s a Cadillac Escalade.

There are actually 2 clues that tell me that it isn’t a Ford. Firstly, the badge on the front isn’t a Ford badge. I should have realised that when I inserted the picture into the post. The second, and perhaps more obvious clue, is that it’s not broken down at the side of the road.

So, my apologies.

Here is another fun fact: yesterday I commented on the fact that cars were not allowed to park on one side of the road because of garbage pick-up. Well, today it was garbage pick-up on the other side of Seasame Street … and guess what happened?

I learned something new from my friend Jack Reacher last night … yes, I know that “he’s not a real person”, but it doesn’t mean that he can’t teach me stuff.

I learned that odd numbered streets run east to west, and even numbered streets run west to east. So combine that with a few other important facts, and I think that I’ve got NYC figured out:

• Street numbers increase the further north (uptown) that you go, and decrease the further south (downtown) that you go;
• Avenues (which run north to south) are smaller in the west and get bigger the further east that you go;
• Streets to the west of 5th Avenue – sorry 5th Ave-en-oo – are West 43rd Street, and streets to the east of 5th Ave-en-oo are East 43rd Street;
• Combine all of that with that bright light in the sky that rises in the east and sets in the west, and it all becomes very simple.

Today was much cooler, and heavily overcast … so no bright light in the sky to give me directional guidance.

Sigh 🙁

Back when some of our boys were in school, one or two of them thought that they were really cool to wear their trousers down low on their hips.

Well, some of the African American men here in NYC have taken this dress code down to a whole new level. While you don’t see it all of the time, we have seen guys getting around with their trousers so low that they were at the bottom of their butt cheeks.

You could see most of the boxer shorts that they wore underneath!

How they even managed to walk around without losing their trousers is an absolute mystery.

Today was our last day here in NYC, and I must say that I am feeling a little sad. We purchased a NY Sightseeing Pass before we left Australia, which gave us access to 10 attractions. We certainly got our value out of that.

In fact, today was a pretty relaxed day because we have already done almost everything on our list. There were just a few things remaining.

We started the day in the usual way – as subway ninjas.

We hopped on at our local station – Kingston-Throop Av – and rode the subway to East 23rd Street to go and see the Flatiron Building. It’s a really unusually shaped building, in that it is triangular.

The photo doesn’t really show just how triangular it is.

On the way there, though, we passed by a pharmacy. You will recall from a previous post that one of us forgot to pack a razor. So we stopped at the pharmacy and a purchase was made.

Then we saw a Home Depot, and stopped in there too. It’s just like Bunnings, but much more my style of shopping that Saks 5th Avenue.

More in my price range, too.

From there, we hopped back onto the subway and went to see the final thing on our list – the Chrysler Building. Another beautiful old building that was completed in the 1930’s.

Here’s another fun fact: the Chrysler Building has it’s own zip code, because of the quantity of mail that is sent and received from the building each day.

After that, we really had nothing left that we really wanted to do, except for a bus trip around the city that was scheduled for 4.30pm this afternoon.

So from the Chrysler Building, we had a bit of an aimless wander around the city, back to Grand Central Station.

There are a couple of things about NYC that make navigation extremely challenging – you keep seeing the same things over and over, and the city just goes on and on and on.

There are Starbucks and McDonald’s on nearly every corner. There are T-Mobile stores that all look the same, and Walgreen Pharmacies everywhere too.

After a while, your mind just starts to play tricks on you.

You also see these little parks/seating areas that seem to pop up in different places, and they all look the same too.

We stopped at a coffee shop and paid too much for a disappointing lunch and 2 disappointing cappuccinos, then went in search of a Target to pick up a few items that we needed. By this time we were starting to wander aimlessly, so headed to Macy’s for a bathroom break.

We were told that the best pretzels were at Auntie Anne’s (pronounced Ant-ie Anne’s). Finding one was a challenge because Google Maps kept taking us back to Macy’s, which had us quite confused.

Macy’s is a huge department store – much like Myer or David Jones – but on steroids. It takes up the whole block between 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue, and West 34th Street and West 35th Street … with 10 levels of shopping!

The reason that we couldn’t find Auntie Anne’s is because it is INSIDE Macy’s on the 7th floor.

Along with a McDonald’s, also inside Macy’s.

And then we had our own little miracle on 34th Street – we had an Auntie Anne’s cinnamon pretzel.

One of the things that you see around the city is lots of homeless people, sitting on the sidewalk begging. It’s not uncommon for them to be holding a little hand-made cardboard sign saying “Homeless”, or “Ashamed and embarrassed”, or “Returned veteran”.

While I don’t want to make fun of the homeless or disadvantaged, there are also some pretty weird ones out there. Like the guy with the sign that said “Family killed by aliens. Need $$$ to buy a ray gun”.

OK …

Or a really fat guy with a sign that said “Hungry”. He can’t have been hungry for long.

After our pretzel, we had about 90 minutes to kill before our pre-booked bus tour of the city.

It was still really heavily overcast, and I was keen to head back down to Times Square, seek out the Wonder Women, and pray for more rain …. but TOTIL didn’t think that was a good idea.

So we just meandered our way around the streets.

Another really interesting thing about NYC is that many things are underground. Obviously the subway is underground, but many of the shops have a whole floor level underground.

Something that I found really fascinating was when we went to Broadway to see Beautiful. You walk into the theatre at ground level, and then go down about 3 flights of stairs to the mezzanine level and the stage. You certainly don’t have a sense that you are that far underground until you go back up and look down into this enormous hole in the ground.

Another quirky thing about NYC is that the locals have a love affair with electric scooters, electric skateboards, and electric bikes.

In the last post, I outlined my Universal Law of Shaving. I’m sure that this is something that will be taught to young men in schools one day.

There is a minor flaw to the ULoS though … once you haven’t shaved for a week or so, you really need to shave. The  ULoS says that you can only shave when you don’t need to … so you find yourself in a situation where you need to shave, even though you don’t need to shave. It’s pretty complex.

Regardless, I’ll be shaving tonight otherwise I’ll need to find somewhere else to sleep 🙁

Back to the topic of tonight’s post (… yes, you thought I’d forgotten :))

We haven’t walked 500 miles, and 500 more. But by my calculations and thanks to modern phone/watch technology, I figure that we have walked something over 80km in the 7 full days that we have been here, plus a 10km bike ride.

To wrap up tonight’s blog, here are my top tips for a trip to NYC (in no particular order):

1. Leave the RM Williams belt at home

Yes it might look great and you are really proud to have one, but everywhere you go – every attraction – you go through a scanner. The RMW belt sets the alarms off and you get a pat down.

2. Use plenty of wet wipes

Nothing is particularly clean here – even tables in cafes. You regularly find yourself needing to wipe things down.

3. Use plenty of hand sanitiser

I shouldn’t have to explain this, but once you’ve touched the handrail at a subway station, you’ll want to wash your hands.

4. Install a compass app on your phone

Everything works on direction. “Enter via the SE corner”. “Go west along East 43rd Street”. Even if you’ve got a good sense of direction, you’ll struggle above ground, and you’ll be totally lost below ground

5. Become a subway ninja

There is no better way to get around. Buy an unlimited pass.

6. Finding restrooms and bathrooms is not too hard

Despite what they say, there are plenty of clean bathrooms around. Just go to Macy’s.

7. Keep to the right

I shouldn’t have to explain that either. NYers get quite upset if you walk on the wrong side of the sidewalk.

7. Don’t stop in the middle of the sidewalk to take pictures

As above. It makes me cranky too.

8. DO go to Times Square

Some travel guide sites say to stay away. It’s worth it just for the people watching and all the flashing lights. It’s really worth it if you spot the Wonder Women and it starts to rain 🙂

9. Look left-right-left

Yes, I know that years of conditioning has taught you to “look to the right, look to the left, and look to the right again”. That is what your instinct tells you to do.

I made that mistake once, and was nearly run over by a black Chevy Suburban (… I’m telling you, they are everywhere!)

10. Set up a OneDrive account and set your phone to automatically upload pictures

If you do this, then as soon as you hit WiFi again, all of your pictures will be automatically uploaded to the cloud. If you lose your phone, you don’t lose all of your photos.

11. 5 second rule

We have an established rule at home called the 5 second rule where you figure if it has been on the ground for less that 5 seconds it is still safe to eat.

It doesn’t work here. If you drop something on the ground, particularly in the subway, walk away from it. Don’t even think about it. The rats will eat it pretty quickly anyway.

12. Tipping is easy

Yep, easy. Just add 15-20% if you have received good service, or you want to ensure good service. I’m told that they pay tax on projected tips anyway, so by not tipping, you are making them pay tax on money they didn’t earn.

Besides, it’s not real money anyway 🙂

13. Plan your day carefully

Work out what things are near what other things, and plan your day carefully. Despite that, expect everything to take longer than you plan.

14. Avoid street vendors

Different people have different experiences, but the locals don’t eat from street vendors for a variety of reasons. We did once, and regretted it.

15. If you enter the subway on the wrong side of the street, you’ll be going the wrong way

Make sure that you are catching an uptown train if you are going uptown, otherwise you will be disappointed.

 

That’s about it for NYC. We’ve had a blast and we hope you have enjoyed following along.

Tomorrow we fly to San Francisco. While I’ll be sad to leave NYC, I’ll be glad to get to SF, get into a hire car, and give my legs and feet a well-deserved rest.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

 

 

 

 

I’m starting tonight’s blog with a puzzle.

Are birds afraid of heights? I am going to argue that they are afraid of heights, and I’ll provide evidence to support that argument later in the post.

One of us needs a shave. I mean, seriously needs a shave. I won’t say who that is to protect their privacy, but I’m sure as you look at the photos that I post tonight, you’ll be able to figure it out for yourself. More on that later, too.

For those of you who have been following the blog since the beginning, you would have noticed that each post starts with the first line/s of a song.

If you started following part-way through our trip, it might pay to go back to the very beginning and start from there, and hopefully it will all make more sense.

Or maybe not.

The intention is that the  song bears some relevance, albeit sometimes a very obscure relevance, to the topic of the post.

I tried to find a song for tonight’s post that says something like “I’m eating myself into an early grave”, or “I’ve eaten too much bagel and cream cheese and now I think I’m going to throw up”. Unfortunately, no songs that express those sentiments appear to have ever been written .. well not that I can find anyway. It’s surprising really, because I’ve watched locals here stuffing their faces with bagel and cream cheese and I honestly thought that it would have come up before this.

If you know of such a song, please leave a comment and let me know. I will be grateful. I might even dedicate another post to you.

But I digress.

For those of you with children, you might recognise the song from tonight’s post as the theme song from Thomas the Tank Engine. Tonight’s post is about the subway here in NY.

Before I get to the subway though, I just wanted to talk about something else briefly. Don’t panic – I’ll get there eventually.

There are street signs here on Seasame Street that prohibit parking on one side of the street on Thursdays from 9.00am to 10.30am – I assume for garbage collection. I wondered briefly the other day what happened to the cars that were normally parked there when that blackout period occurred.

Well today is Thursday (here), and I can now report to you that I know the answer, which is …

… they double-park on the other side of the street.

How that works is anybody’s guess. Not only are they parked in so that they have no room to manoeuvre back to front, but now they can’t even get out because there is a car parked beside them too.

The mysteries of life on Seasame Street 🙂

But back to the topic of tonight’s post – the NY subway.

There are a few quirky things about the subway. Firstly, as you would expect, it is underground. Actually a lot of things here in NYC are underground, but I’ll talk about that in another post.

Because they are underground, you have no sense of direction, except that if you are on an uptown train, you are basically heading north. Likewise, a downtown train basically heads south.

As well as that, they are very noisy. They run through tunnels and don’t face the same issues that above-ground Queensland Rail trains face – specifically level crossings and cars. As a result of that, they seem to go very fast – flat out it seems – and they go clattering across the track and points making a great deal of noise.

At some stations, they have 4 tracks – 1 for each platform (uptown and downtown) and then 2 central tracks for trains that skip the station. Those trains go zooming through the station making a great deal of noise.

Another thing that is unusual is that as the train comes through the tunnel and into the station, it pushes a lot of air in front of it, so you get this rush of wind as an early warning of an incoming train.

We were on the train the other day and there was this lady with a small bag at her feet. Suddenly a small dog pushed it’s head up through the bag and looked around.

We asked someone about this and we were told that the NY subway system only allows dogs on the train if they can fit in a bag … so people go creative …

Now that’s a Google image, and not my picture, but it seems to show that it is true. People really DO get creative.

Another thing about the subway is that it is not uncommon to have someone get into the carriage and start a spiel…”My name is John and I served in Afghanistan. I’m now homeless and I need your help …”

Sometimes they sing. But they always walk up and down the carriage with a paper cup taking donations before moving to the next carriage. We have seen it happen a few times now.

The conductors on the train are in serious need of elocution lessons. Many of them are African American and have a bit of a southern drawn, mixed with a NY way of saying everything quite fast. There have been many trains that we have been on where the conductor makes an announcement at every station – sometimes 3 of 4 sentences long – and I haven’t got a clue what he said for the entire journey.

One more thing that I can say about the subway is that while the subway is a lot of things, it IS air conditioned. So if you are heading up/downtown, a short ride on the subway gives you some cool relief.

My final observation about the subway is that if you hesitate getting onto a seat, you miss out. Basically the trick is to fix a stare on a seat as you get on, and go for it. Even if a space on the seat is nowhere wide enough for a normal person, as soon as you start backing in, everyone squishes up and space appears. It’s quite funny to watch.

So what did we do today?

We started the day by walking the High Line. It is an old abandoned railway line that is set up above the road, and rather than being demolished it was made into a beautiful walkway, approximately 2.3 Km long.

In one place (see photo above) there is a section where water flows across a section of the path, and you can take your shoes off and allow it to wash over your feet. I can think of worse things to do on a steaming hot day 🙂

From there we went to The Brooklyn Bagel and Coffee shop and had a really early lunch. The bagels were amazing and offset the disaster that was yesterday’s faulty salad lunch.

It was here that I earned my stripes as a NYer, because I got my very own “Big Gulp” cup to walk around with.

If you look at that photo closely, you will also get a hint about who is overdue for a shave.

I know that you are probably getting bored with NYC weather reports, but today was indeed another hot one. We were in Hell’s Kitchen, so that could explain it?

After lunch, we went to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. That was an interesting experience looking at the Intrepid aircraft carrier, a submarine, and the Enterprise Space Shuttle. I looked for Captain Kirk and Mr Spock, but I suspect that they may have been on a different Enterprise.

After the Intrepid, we extended our ninja powers and caught a bus back across town to Radio City Music Hall, did the Stage Door Tour, and I got to meet one of the Rockettes.

The Radio City venue is an amazing venue that can hold almost 6,000 people and runs 6 shows per day for 8 weeks every Christmas. It is an astonishing venue. Very old world.

Some of you who are following the blog might know that I have a bit of an obsession with black Chevy Suburbans. Well, I need to report that black Chevy Suburbans are so yesterday … I’ve now fallen in love with a black Ford Escalade, and I want one.

It’s about as long as a city block, and would be perfect for towing the van. It would have to sit out on the driveway though, because I’ll only be able to get half of it in the garage.

Then it was off to M&M Times Square to have a look around. Chocolate in all shapes, forms, colours, sizes, and flavours. It’s like a dream come true.

In the interests of equality, we also visited Hershey’s Times Square, and bought some souvineers (that may not make it home).

The other day I made mention of a couple of Wonder Women in Times Square that appeared to only be wearing paint. Well, funny thing, but they were there again today and I can confirm that, above the waist, they are indeed only wearing paint.

The weatherman finally got it right today. At about 6.00pm the heavens opened and it came bucketting down. Everybody scrambled for cover. Probably the most enthusiastic scramblers were Wonder Women #1 and #2, who were obviously wearing water based paint … which started to wash off in the torrential downpour.

They must have some standards in Times Square. Paint applied sparinging to a couple of key places on your upper body is considered tasteful, but when it washes off …

The Wonder Women got dressed very quickly 🙂

From there it was home to dinner.

Given that I have now confessed that it is me that needs a shave, I just wanted to share briefly with you my philosophy on shaving. It’s very simple really – don’t shave when you need to, shave when you don’t need to.

That might seem a bit odd, but experience has taught me that when I shave before going out somewhere important, invariably I will nick myself and lose a litre of blood. And it spoils that special something that we we about to go to.

So my theory is to shave when I don’t need to. If I slice myself open, there is no big deal about how much blood is lost, what shirt it gets onto, how long it takes to get better, or how long I am cranky.

The other night before going out to Broadway to see Beautiful, I got the first hint that I might want to consider shaving. Because I needed to shave, I didn’t.

Pretty clever, hey?

The next night I didn’t need to shave, so I decided to go for it. After all, the last time I shaved was in Brisbane before we left to come to NY … and that’s probably where I left my razor 🙁

It wasn’t in my toiletry bag where it should have been.

No razor means no shaving. The little shop around the corner where we buy our 1 gallon tanks of spoiled milk doesn’t sell razors, so it might be San Francisco before I can find a supermarket and right the wrong.

Probably also explains why TOTIL no longer kisses me goodnight.

Sigh 🙁 The best laid plans.

Back to my original puzzle about birds being afraid of heights. When we were up at the top of the Empire State Building, I took this picture. What do you see?

If you look closely, you can see bird droppings on the metal framework.

I’m pretty sure that if I was sitting out there, on the outside of the Empire State Building, 365m above the ground, I’d be cr*pping myself too.

So that proves it. Birds are afraid of heights.

If you disagree or have an alternative theory, leave a comment because I’d love to hear it.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

Another fabulous day in NYC! The weatherman was wrong yet again and it was another hot, stunningly blue sky day.

I’m thinking that if Queensland Rail have an office in NYC, I’m applying for a transfer.

I’m sorry to say that I won’t be referencing Jack Reacher in the blog any more. I’ve been advised that “he’s not a real person”.

Unbelievable!

I know that he’s real because he’s been riding the 6 train, the Lexington Avenue local, heading uptown towards Grand Central Station. I’m pretty sure that I’ve been on the very same train.

I think that I made a serious error in judgement by reporting on yesterday’s vital statistics. I didn’t think that TOTIL read the blog, but it appears that she does … and so I’ve pointed out that we consumed more donuts yesterday than we should have.

I was advised this morning that we need to be a bit healthier today … and that didn’t end well because the salad we had was contaminated. I’ll tell you more about that sad story later.

Last night we went to town and saw a show on Broadway. Fabulous! We saw The Carol King Story, and it was just amazing.

It was a really late night last night. We were on the 10.30ish train out of the city and got off at our local station just before 11.00pm … along with maybe 50 or 60 other people. It was as busy as … well, you know.

By the time I’d finished off the blog, showered, read a little more of the latest Jack Reacher biography that I’m reading, it was almost 1.00am … probably about the time that those living on the eastern side of Australia were thinking about having their afternoon coffee.

So I was a little weary this morning. We didn’t get going until a bit after 9.30am.

We played subway ninjas again today, and rode the train uptown to 34th Street Penn. Station and did the Madison Square Garden “All Access Tour”. Fabulous!

We got to see all aspects of the venue, including the corporate suites, the bridge, and the player’s dressing rooms. They have just laid down the ice for the season’s ice hockey.

I was a little puzzled by the fact that the NY Rangers and the NY Knicks have their dressing rooms right next to each other – I would have thought that opposing teams’ dressing rooms would have been at opposite ends of the venue.

I’m glad that I didn’t ask that question out loud though, because apparently one is an ice hockey team and the other a basketball team, so they are unlikely to ever be playing each other, or at the same time.

Oh well, I can’t be expected to know everything!

After the tour, we went up a few blocks to the Empire State Building and booked our passes for later in the day.

It appears that I was wrong yesterday when I said we had been to Macys … I’ve become confused. Sorry 🙁

We went to Macys today. There were two key reasons for going to Macys … one because we could, and secondly because we needed a bathroom break.

Once again, gender inequality exists in NYC because ladies rest rooms can be found on levels 2,4 and 7, while men’s rest rooms are only located on level 9. And you need a map to find them.

So back to my story of the contaminated salad. TOTIL decided that we needed to be healthy today and that she felt like a salad for lunch, so we bought a salad at the cafeteria at Macys. We figured it was the least that we could do considering that we had used their rest rooms.

While I was off at the men’s, TOTIL bought the salad and a coffee. It had been hours since my last coffee and I was getting a caffeine withdrawal headache. Sad, I know.

We’ve had a bit of a bad trot with food lately. We had been buying 1/2 gallon cartons of milk from the local store, and recently I bought a full gallon – almost 4 litres of milk in one huge container.

And it was off.

Hardly surprising because it had a use by date of 09/12 – December last year!

So we tipped it all out and went back to 1/2 gallon containers.

And now we had a contaminated salad! There was cucumber in it!

Clearly a serious lack of quality control in the Macy’s food preparation department. When I get to Heaven, I’m going to be asking for an explaination for cucumber.

After lunch, we headed further uptown that we’ve ever been before – all the way up to 81st Street for a bike tour of Central Park. Fabulous!

It was diabolically hot in the park. We rode 10.00km … plus the 19450 steps that I walked today (a new record, I should add) so we got lots of exercise to burn off that salad that we had for lunch 🙁

After the bike ride, we caught the subway back downtown to have a look at Trump Tower. Pretty impressive building but some serious security going on … NYPD with semi-automatic assault weapons at the door, more NYPD lingering around outside, and then even more with scanners inside the building.

After that it was off to the Empire State Building and we got another eyeful of NYC from on top of the world. Fabulous!.

NYC is just an amazing place! My words will never do it justice because I can’t describe it, and the pictures will never do it justice either.

By this time we were both pretty wrecked, but we had planned to walk the Brooklyn Bridge this afternoon. We didn’t want to put it off because the weatherman is forecasting storms tomorrow, and by the law of averages he has to get it right eventually.

So we hopped the subway again to Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall and walked over the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Fabulous!

How do you end  day like that? By having world famous Grimaldis Pizza and sitting under the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk. Fabulous.

Pizza was absolutely amazing and I’ll never be able to eat Domino’s again.

Another subway ride home, coffee, shower and I’ll be ready for bed very soon.

Oh … the title of today’s post … i suppose I should explain it.

If you recognised the words, you’ll know that it is the opening line to the Seasame Street song.

Below is a picture of the Brownstone that we are living at in downtown Brooklyn. Someone suggested recently that it looks like the place where Bert and Ernie live. I’m pretty sure that it’s not, because Jon and his wife live upstairs and we have met them.

Maybe B&E live next door though …?

All for now.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

We ran the air conditioner all night last night. I’m not sure if it disturbed TOTIL, but I used earplugs and didn’t hear a thing. I often use earplugs at night for reasons that I won’t go into here … but let’s just say that I am a relatively light sleeper and easily disturbed.

It’s been hot, hot, hot again all day.

You know that you’re in trouble when your phone gives you a notification first thing in the morning (7.00am) that it is “25 degrees, 1 degree hotter than yesterday”. At 7.00am!

I mentioned yesterday that it had been hot. This weekend just gone was the Labor Day holiday weekend and everything was just crazy. I don’t know if it is the heat, or the holiday, but there was a bit of the vida loca going on, and for some unknown reason it seemed that a significant number of NY women were getting around town dressed in a style that can only be described as “unfettered”.

It was difficult not to notice.

We had a small subway incident yesterday where one of us swiped our metro card and went through the turnstile successfully, and the other one swiped their card and did not get through the turnstile.

The great thing about the metro card is that you only swipe it to enter the subway, and you don’t need to swipe to get out. The problem with the metro card is that once you have swiped your card, you cannot swipe it again for another 18 minutes.

So when one of us swiped their card and didn’t get through the turnstile, neither of us was going anywhere for at least another 18 minutes. (Well, technically one of us could have gone somewhere …)

Given the heat (I did mention the heat, right?), we went off to McDonald’s for an “any size drink for $1” special and cooled off for about 18 minutes. That fact alone possibly goes some way to explaining the number of fat Americans. Maybe that’s why they always walk around with Big Gulp cups?

On the way back to the train, it was hard not to notice a young African American lady who was small in stature, but big in other ways, running for the train. Yes, wearing less that she should have been in case you were wondering.

I can only assume that she was standing in the wrong line when God was giving out brains.

It’s a miracle that she didn’t take someone’s eye out!

But I digress.

Today was our first “normal” day in NY, with everyone back to work. We were subway ninjas today, getting on at our local station (Kingston-Throop Avenue) at about 8.30 and heading into Manhattan.

Because it was a work day, the trains were packed and everyone just seemed a bit more subdued. Maybe because they were going back to work, but I should note that most of the women also seemed much better supported.

We got off at Penn Street Station and hit the shops. A couple of days ago, TOTIL thought that she was an Uptown Girl and went shopping at Saks 5th Avenue. She looked at one pair of shoes for $975, then another pair of Jimmy Choo shoes for $2,695! Those of you who are Facebook friends would know that already. Even though she didn’t buy anything, I let her think that she was an Uptown Girl for the day.

Today we decided to shop according to our socio-economic status and we hit KMart and Target.

We then browsed around H&M, Macys, and JC Penny. I’m not sure if you are familiar with JC Penny, but a number of years ago they produced a really clever and funny advertisement called “The Dog House”.

There was only a few things that I wanted to do, but we “didn’t have time”. I would have been happy to spend a couple of hours browsing the multi-level Victoria’s Secret store, but I wasn’t allowed to because of time.

I also wanted to pick up a couple of small souvenirs but 2 x 1.3kg party packs of M&Ms were deemed too heavy to carry.

After lunch, we did a walking tour of some of the fascinating areas of NY – Soho, Little Italy and Chinatown.

So here’s a fun fact: Many suburb names in NY are actually acronyms (or acro-names according to our tour guide).

Soho stands for “SOuth of HOuston Street.

Remember the other day I was poking fun at a suburb named Dumbo? Another acronym: Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.

Soho is now a really chic suburb, probably a bit like West End. 20 years ago you wouldn’t consider living there, and now you couldn’t afford to anyway.

TOTIL got to go into her new favourite shop and buy some pastries.

She also got some of her Uptown Girl thing back again after the walk, with a look around in Bloomingdales Soho.

It’s a funny thing – we entered Bloomingdale’s at the ground level, circled the store, went up to Level 1 and circled, up to Level 2 and circled, and didn’t see one thing for men. Only ladies wear. Who says that there is no such thing as gender discrimination?

The next suburb on the tour was Little Italy, followed by Chinatown. Really interesting, quirky suburbs with some great, cheap places to eat. Fun to explore.

This street (below) used to have more deaths per annum that the rest of NY put together.

Our tour guide – Gabby – was great, but like most 20-somethings she had trouble speaking a sentence without, like, stopping to you know, like, say like.

More likes than I ever get on Facebook, and almost as many as the number of black Chevy Suburbans that I’ve seen in the city.

I started the day feeling like a camel, because the hump on my back contained a lot of water. By the end of the day I was starting to feel like a pack-animal because the water had been replaced with souvenirs.

But we had fun, saw lots of stuff, got to eat really cheap and delicious dumplings (5 for $1.50) and we come home with sore feet. That’s the sign of a great day walking around NY!

Tonight we are off to Broadway to see a show, so I’ll have to tell you all about that tomorrow.

Today’s vital statistics:

• Number of steps taken: 17169 & 20142
• Number of subway journeys: 5
• Number of donuts consumed: 3 (although 1 was a cronut so maybe that doesn’t count)
• Number of pizza slices consumed: 2
• Number of dumplings consumed: 5
• Temperature when going to bed: 29 deg C

We love to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a comment and tell us if want want to hear more (or less) about anything in particular.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

 

Hi peeps, and welcome to the end of our third full day in NYC.

Don’t expect anything too philosophical this time … I’m too tired – but it’s a GOOD tired 🙂

Actually today was a comparatively lazy day as I have only hit about 16,000 steps today – well short of the almost 20,000 of the last couple of days. What have we been doing?

To quote Ricky Martin, we’ve been “Livin’ the Vida Loca“. NYC is one crazy place with a number of what seems to be national pastimes … but I’l talk more about that later.

Today started with a real sleep-in – 7.30 for me and I think TOTIL slept a bit after that. It was really hot last night – maybe 25 degrees minimum so we were feeling a little broiled (poached?) by this morning. There is an air conditioner in the room but it is almost noisier than a NY Subway train hurtling into the station, so our options were to sweat it out or use earplugs.

We had an open calendar today, so headed into town just after 9.30am. Keep in mind that it is the Labor Day holiday here today, so it was a bit insane. People everywhere, NYPD everywhere, and the temperature climbed to a sticky 32 degrees or so, and everyone just went a bit crazy.

We figured that nobody else would have considered getting onto the Staten Island ferry today to go sailing past the Statue of Liberty, so that was our first place to visit … along with most of the population of NYC it seems …

But it was all good. While there were hoardes of people there, the ferries are huge and we all got on with room to spare.

From there we had our very first (and hopefully very last) pretzel from a street vendor, and then we went deeper into the Financial district to see the Charging Bull statue.

Now, you may be wondering who those people are in the photo. By the time we got here it must have been about 32 degrees and there was a very long queue for photos. We were both too hot to be that concerned, so I had two options: get a photo from the tail end of the bull with it’s rather significant boy parts on display, or take a picture of the front end of the bull with whoever was standing near it at the time.

From there we walked over to the 9/11 memorial site. The place was swarming with police as you’d expect and it was a very sobering feeling to be in the place where such a hideous attack took place. The location is now a couple of large pools on the site of the buildings, with the names of all who died inscribed around the outside.

We then went up to the One World Observatory, which is higher than the Twin Towers ever were – it stands at about 102 floors high.

The views from the top are absolutely stunning!

By this time it was about 2.30 and we were getting hungry, so decided to go up to Midtown Eastside – I sound like a native NYer when I say that 🙂 – to Katz’s Deli for a pastrami sandwich on rye.

What is the significance of Katz’s Deli? It is the scene from “When Harry met Sally” and the famous line “I’ll have what she’s having”. You’ll have to watch it to understand … there may be children reading this.

We then headed up to Times Square , located between W 46th Steet, W 47th Street and Broadway.

If we thought that the day had been crazy until then, they are really living the Vida Loca up in Times Square. All manner of weird and wonderful things, thousands and thousands of people, police with assault weapons, superheros, a couple of Wonder Women who appeared to be wearing little more than a coat of paint in certain places … I wanted to go up and confirm the costumes, but TOTIL wouldn’t allow it 🙁

We made arrangements for tomorrow night at the Theatre, and then home for dinner.

So I mentioned national pastimes earlier. There are a number of things that I’ve seen that appear to me to be the national pastime of New Yorkers.

Firstly, they seem to have a predisposition for walking around with one of those “Big Gulp” cups everywhere they go. Sometimes it’s a juice, or iced coffee .. but many of them do it. On the train, walking down the street …

Next they seem to have a genetic malfunction where they honk their horn at everything that moves, and everything that doesn’t move. And they don’t have those prissy, beepy little  horns that we have – they all seem to have these loud multi-note things that scare the life out of you when you cross against the lights in front of them …

I can’t wait to get to San Francisco when we have a hire car and do it to blend in.

They also have a love affair with Chevy Suburbans. Black ones. And I don’t know if there is a collective noun for black Chevy Suburbans, but they seem to travel together. A suburb of Suburbans? Maybe a neighbourhood of Suburbans?

Maybe a city?

Maybe they all think they are Secret Service agents. Maybe they really are?

My final observation is about the way that they park their cars. Somehow they manage to jam so many cars together on the side of the street that you can barely walk between them.

You may be able to find a parking space, get your car into the parking space and think you’re pretty clever, but I challenge you to get it back out again!

All for now.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

 

“If you can’t think of something nice to say, don’t say anything at all”. Thus spoke my mother when I was a child. I think she was speaking to my sisters. Maybe me too.

She also said “keep to the left” and “if you get lost, ask a policeman.” More on that later.

Everything here is back to front, round about and upside down.

Light switches are switched up for on, and down for off. Cars have a steering wheel on the wrong side, and they drive on the wrong side of the street.

I’ve looked at a carton of milk and seen a “use by” date of 09/02/2018 and wondered why they are still selling it 7 months past it’s due date.

It’s all very confusing.

Today, the plan was a mini sleep-in and start the day at the Brooklyn Tabernacle for the 9.00am service. So we got up early, showered, had breakfast, cleaned up, made ourselves beautiful and at 8.40 checked with our BFF (Google Maps) for the best way to get to the BT. Unfortunately we found that we should have left home by about 8.15 to be on time for the 9.00 service 🙁 So our revised plan was to attend the 11.00am service

So instead we headed in to Dumbo (yes peeps, they have a suburb called Dumbo) to check out the park, look at the Brooklyn Bridge, and do the flea market.

We had a very pleasant and relaxing morning looking around, being tourists, taking photographs … and then found that we’d left it too late to get to the BT for the 11.00am service, so plan #3 was to take the final option of the 1.00pm service.

So that gave us some more spare time, and we decided to hop onto the subway and head back to Manhattan and check out the Chelsea Markets. I mentioned yesterday that you need to ensure you use the right subway entrance in order to get the right train going in the right direction.

So we were standing outside the York Street Subway station trying to figure out what direction we were heading, and a kindly and elderly New York gentleman asked us if we needed help. Our experience so far with NYers is that they are not particularly friendly, and often border on obnoxious. 

Unfortunately we didn’t really know what station we were looking for, but as he was basically heading in the same direction as us, he offered for us to tag along with him.

We spent a lovely 20 minutes or so discussing Donald Trump (nobody likes him apparently), the interesting things happening in Australian politics (BTW, who is the Prime Minister this week?), Australian weather conditions, and more.

While we finally found our way to the markets, we walked probably three times further than we needed to. Some of the blocks are very long, and you know that you are at East 16th Street and need to get to East 23rd Street, but inevitably you walk a long block only to discover that you are at East 15th Street and going the wrong way.

“Keep to the left,” my mother used to say.

Here in the USA, they keep to the right. One of us seems to be having trouble grasping that concept, so we get a few angry looks from the obnoxious NYers because we are on the wrong side of the footpath.

I figure that if TOTIL can’t get it right walking on the footpath, there is no way I’m going to let her drive when we get to San Francisco!

Sadly, despite tracking all over the West Side, we were underwhelmed with the Chelsea Markets … and then we realised that we were on the verge of missing the 1.00pm service at the BT.

Good news though, we made it to the Tabernacle in plenty of time.

Sadly, the choir was in Florida for the weekend along with the Senior Pastor, but it was still well worth the visit. Third service for the day and it was packed with >1000 people in the service.

We only had time to stay for the first hour of singing before we needed to leave and get to our next walking tour in the other side of Brooklyn.

I mentioned yesterday that I am reading a Jack Reacher book, where he was travelling on the NY subway.

In the same chapter, Reacher is also thinking about how on the NY subway the automated messaging system gives instructions in a male voice, and information in a female voice.

Well, here is fun fact: The NY automated messaging system on the NY subway does indeed use a female voice for information and a male voice for instructions.

So you get this molten chocolate female NY voice saying “This is the L line, the next stop will be Bedford Av-en-oo. Please change trains for the C and R lines at Bedford Av-en-oo”. Then you get this male voice barking “Stand clear of the closing doors, please”. Unfortunately, the male voice sound a bit like Bulwinkle to me, so it lacks the authority that it probably deserves.

Google Maps directions are pretty specific: “Travel 6 stops and get off at Bedford Ave. Head towards the N 7th Street and Bedford Ave exit at the NE corner of the station.”

My sense of direction isn’t great here in NY when I’m above ground. Put me in the subway and I’m totally lost.

“If you get lost,” my mother used to say, “ask a policeman.” And there, inside the station was one of NYPD’s finest.

Me: “Excuse me. Could you please tell me which is the NE corner of the station?”

NYPD: “How the hell would I know? I have no sense of direction down here.”

Sigh 🙁

We had a lovely afternoon wandering around the Williamsburg District of Brooklyn, looking at all sorts of eclectic, chilled and hip people doing … eclectic, chilled and hip stuff, and taking lots of photos.

Got home early tonight – about 6.00pm – and had a nice dinner at Zaca Cafe just around the corner. We just blended in with the hip crowd and watched the world go by.

That’s it for tonight peeps – I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we have so far.

I’m finishing up with a community service weather report. I’m glad to report that while the forecast was for heavy rain and storms, NY weather people are as equally unreliable as Australian ones. Weather was partly cloudy, mid- to high-20s and medium humidity. Absolutely beautiful, and certainly better than being at work 🙂

I’m sure that many of you have been worried sick about my little toe. Goodness knows I’m not getting any sympathy from anyone in this hemisphere. Still sore, not as red as yesterday, and still attached. I think it will survive.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA