Category: USA & Alaska 2018

Don’t panic – there isn’t trouble in paradise. I didn’t come all the way to New York for a quickie divorce.

We had a quick dinner when we got in last night, crashed at about 9.00pm and slept the sleep of the dead. The alarm woke us at 7.00am for day 1 in New York.

Today we started the day with a 3.5 hour walking and foodie tour of East Village, departing Grand Central Station at 10.40am … all that we had to do was work out how to get there.

Have you ever used Google Maps and been shown a route to get from “A” to “B” and wondered to yourself whether Google Maps is this handy all over the world?

It is!

Thanks to Google, we were able to easily navigate the 2 blocks from home to the Kingston-Throop Metro station, purchased our unlimited trip 7 day Metro cards, and we were off.

I’ve just started re-reading a Jack Reacher novel where he is in NYC on the subway “on the 6 train, the Lexington Avenue local, heading uptown …” He then goes on to describe in detail how the trains rattle along the track and screech to a halt at the station.

All true. Trust me.

So we found our way to Grand Central Station about an hour before the tour was due to start and had a bit of a look around to get our bearings.

It’s interesting the hints that people give you before you embark on a journey. One of the key messages that we got was that public toilets in NYC are hard to find, and most places (like McDonald’s) keep theirs locked.

The next piece of advice was that if you do find an unlocked public toilet in NYC, you won’t want to use it anyway.

The final piece of advice was that “the toilets in Grand Central Station are pretty good.”

You may remember a song that was on the radio a number of years ago called “The Newcastle Song.” The chorus was “Don’t you ever let a chance go by …” Good advice to keep in mind when you are in NYC and you find a good, clean public toilet!

So we got our bearings, looked around Grand Central Station, worked out where the tour departed from, and used the facilities.

Grand Central Station is beautiful (and busy), and explains the saying “as busy as Grand Central Station!”

We did the foodie walking tour around East Village. We tried dumplings, a pice of pie (pizza) that was enormous, cupcakes with frosting, a NY hot dog, and gelato. Good fun and good value .. and we got some good tips on other places around NYC to eat.

The tour finished up at about  2.00pm and TOTIL and I set off on our own.

We found out that increasing street numbers always head uptown, and decreasing street numbers always head downtown. Good to know.

We also found out that the entrance you use when you enter the subway dictates the direction that the train goes. If you want to go uptown and you enter the station from the wrong side of the street, those trains only go downtown. Also good to know.

Armed with this important information and a map (and Google, of course), we started walking.

The East Village was crawling with NYPD today. Someone had told us that this was not uncommon on the Labour Day long weekend (this weekend).

We asked someone in a shop what all of the police activity was for and he said he thought that there was some kind of parade today.

Ha! Parade my eye! Streets were closed because of an animal rights demonstration that included maybe 1000 people shouting “Let animals live”, and “Animals have rights too” … did I mention that we had pork dumplings and a NY hotdog today?

Following that bit of excitement, we went to K-Mart, looked in the Chrysler Building and bought coffee, then found out it wasn’t the Chrysler building after all.

TOTIL looked at shoes in Saks 5th Avenue – the cheap pair were $975 and the more expensive Jimmy Choo’s were $2695 … fortunately she showed some restraint because that was pretty scary!

We then found the Rockefeller Building, confirmed it WAS the Rockefeller Building and took the lift 67 floors to “The Top of the Rock”

Amazing!

The say that you either love NY or you hate it. So far I’m loving it …

So, back to the title of this post … well, after breakfast this morning and before we set off for the day – actually before I had put my shoes on, which is an important point in this story – my right foot made unexpected, sudden and very painful contact with the foot of our bed. I declared that I thought I may have broken my little toe, and TOTIL thought it is probably just bruised.

She was once a nurse, after all.

So the walking tour, followed by us walking around Manhattan (>18,000 steps!) was spent largely by me hobbling along after TOTIL calling out …

TOTIL don’t you walk so fast, ooohhh, TOTIL don’t you walk so fast, Slow down some, ‘cause you’re making me run ….

Dinner tonight was McDonald’s. We were going to do something nicer but we were too tired and grimy to be bothered.

The first thing I did when we got home was to take off my shoes. Fortunately my little toe is still attached, however it is a different size and colour to what I remember.

I think that TOTIL may be wrong about it “only being bruised” … tomorrow should be an interesting day with another walking tour. Sigh.

Advertising sign of the day (seen in the subway train): “Arrested? Call 1-800-INNOCENT”. If only it was that easy 🙁

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

We have arrived.

Got into NYC a bit later than expected, but the delays were at the SFO end with a late departure.

We’ve arrived at our accommodation in Brooklyn after almost 30 hours with virtually no sleep.

Too tired to think. Had a bagel for dinner, heading to the shower then off to bed .. zzz

It’s a terrible photo, but that’s our first glimpse of Manhattan

 

Welcome to San Francisco. Don’t get excited, we are only here for a couple of hours as we transit to NYC.

In my last post, I spoke about the odd reactions we got from people when we told them we were flying United. I’m pleased to report that my expectations were exceeded. The flight crew were lovely, the meals were good, in-flight entertainment was good, ice-cream and Tim Tams were great … pretty much 4 stars all around. They would have got 5 stars if they’d upgraded me to business class, but my expectations on that ever happening were very low.

There are a couple of things that I do need to comment about regarding United, however.

Firstly – and it may seem obvious – but United is an American airline, so the flight crew were all American. Duh!

But as you probably know, Americans talk funny. I don’t mean for that to be a criticism … just an observation. Australians all talk the same. You have no way of knowing whether an Aussie comes from Perth or Melbourne or Townsville by the way that they talk – except for the fact that North Queenslanders do tend you say “youse” (as in “do youse come here often?”), and finish most sentences with “eh” (as in “it’s hot here today, eh?”).

Other than that, we all talk the same. But not Americans.

The American flight crew also spoke quite quickly. I don’t know if that is normal, or they were just pushed for time.

So when the meal service came around, the flight crew were trying to say “we have two options for lunch today – you can have the chicken and rice, or you can have the pasta”.

What it came out as was “chickenandriceorpasta, chickenandriceorpasta?”

Our fellow passengers who are American would respond with “chicken and rice please”, or “pasta please”.

The Australian passengers mostly responded with either “yes please” or “huh?” The flight crew then responded with “no, you can have chicken and rice, OR you can have pasta.” I’m sure it wasn’t just me. 

My second observation relates to the captain of the plane. I can only assume that he has a mean streak.

As we departed Sydney this morning, he announced that our flight time to San Francisco would be 12 hours and 22 minutes. Not “a bit under 12 and a half hours”, but a very, very specific 12 hours and 22 minutes. He said it twice.

He also said that we would be cruising at 35,000 feet.

So here is my issue. If he can be so specific about how long it will take to travel from Sydney to San Francisco, why can’t he actually fly the plane at 35,000 feet? Does he have no idea of the havoc that it plays with my OCD?

Those of you that don’t know me well probably think that I’m kidding. Those of you that do know me well know that I’m not.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), we hit some pretty bad turbulence so he needed to go up to 37,000 feet. Do you think that fixed the problem? Nope!

Then more turbulence, and up again to 40,000 feet. He’s done it again! I’m convinced that he’s doing it on purpose, but I’m trying to be “glass half full” about it.

This travelling west to east is messing with my head. We left Sydney at about 10.30 Friday morning, and thanks to the mystery that is known as the international date line, we arrived in San Francisco 4 hours before we took off from Sydney. I wonder if we kept travelling around the world west to east forever, whether we would start to become younger.

You may have noticed that i have been starting each post with the first line(s) of a song.

Today’s title/song is possibly a bit obscure. Actually it’s probably very obscure, but I challenge you to try and work out the significance. You are most welcome to submit a comment with your thoughts, and the first correct answer gets bragging rights. Not a great prize I admit.

If you can’t see where to comment, you need to click on the title of the post first, then scroll to the bottom.

If you are reading this sentence, then you are almost at the bottom.

Somehow that turned out to be a very long post, which is especially surprising considering that I’ve been sitting on a plane at somewhere between 35,001 feet and 40,001 feet for 12 hours and 22 minutes, have done nothing, and actually have nothing to say.

Now that I’ve gone back and re-read it, it sounds like a bit of a rant. It’s not really – I think it’s just tiredness. I have a working theory that caffeine can be used as a substitute for sleep, but it’s not working well for me 🙁

Anyway, onward and upward. NYC here we come.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA

 

Thanks Frank.

One flight down, two to go until New York. The flight from Brisbane to Sydney was uneventful, but when they say “this is a full flight”, they aren’t kidding!

We arrived into Sydney at about 8.00pm with a pretty hard landing. Actually, I wasn’t sure if we’d crash landed or been shot down … I wanted to ask the captain but TOTIL wouldn’t allow it.

I’m no food critic, but I have to say that the meal served on the Qantas flight coming down was excellent. I had the pasta with Mediterranean meatballs, and TOTIL had the chicken and broccoli salad. So good in fact that we were offered seconds. (Apparently it’s not often that passengers eat the entire meal, and the flight attendants were SO impressed that they offered us another one each!)

The flight attendants were so lovely and friendly, it made for a great start.

No coffee served on the flight, and 8.00pm in Sydney airport is past everyone’s bedtime … but we were able to scrounge a cup at the hotel.

Used Uber for the first time ever, so that’s one more thing to cross off the list. Had a 4.9/5 star driver (Lee) and he was so nice and friendly, carried our bags, told us to relax … I gave him 5 stars because he deserved it 🙂

Spent a relaxing night at the Adina at Mascot. Nice, quiet room, very comfortable, GREAT shower … felt very relaxed. Then we hopped into the shuttle bus to the airport this morning and all that relaxation just slipped away.

If I described our shuttle bus drive as arrogant, aggressive, unfriendly, rude … I’d be describing his most endearing characteristics. Scary ride! Welcome to Sydney …

But here we sit in the AMEX lounge at the Sydney international airport pretending like we do this all the time, and waiting for our flight to depart in about 2 hours … then 13 hours to San Fransisco, transit for a couple of hours, and then about another six hours to NYC.

Woohoo!

The first question that fellow travellers always seem to ask is “who are you travelling with?” We answer “United” and we get a puzzled look, followed by “Oh … I hope it’s OK” Now I don’t really know what to expect, but I’m keeping my expectations low, just to be safe.

There probably won’t be another post for a couple of days as we sit on planes, try and get some sleep, read a book, watch a movie or three, and overcome jet lag … so don’t lose hope peeps, there will be more to come when we are in NYC.

Ciao

#G&KTAKEUSA