Wow. New York, New York!! (Well, Manhatten, Manhatten really!)
My first day was a bombardment for my senses and I finished the day with a crick in my neck from looking mostly upwards, but also left and right and up and down trying to drink everything in.
The hostel is not as crappy as I initially thought, the bed is clean and comfortable, the bathroom is also pretty clean, the room is sparse, but seeing as I left the hostel at 9.30 yesterday and didnt get in till past midnight, with a repeat expected for tonight (bar leaving the hostel a little later after sleeping off the exhaustion of last night), it will certainly do for my stay here.
I picked up a transport map from the hostel, and - lucky for me, the streets in New York are extremely easy to navigate. There arent really any street names for the streets (ok, there are for some of them) but they mostly go by numbers. You go in one direction and the numbers go up and you go in the other and the numbers go down. Simple! No more of this getting lost business to me. Look at the map, find out which street you are on, and away you go.
So, I found the subway stop which is just two blocks (see, I used the word blocks) away from my hostel and went to buy a 'fun pass' to travel on the subway as much as I like all day. All I had though from the bank in Cyprus were 50s and 100s. The machine wouldnt take a 50 and the lady in the booth wouldnt change one for me either. I stepped outside the station and saw a McDonalds. Perfect! I walked in and asked the lady for 'a bottel ov wahtah please' in my oh so british accent. "it's a what now ma'am?" 'a bottel ov wahtah perlease'... I said, a bit louder this time. "Oh, a battle af warter?" 'yes perlease, thenk yew'. I got my bottle of water and change, then asked the lady in the subway to change one of my newly acquired 20s and hey presto, I bought my ticket from the machine.
There are only one set of gates in New York subway stations, people going in use the same turnstiles and the people going out and the turnstile can turn both ways. Cool eh?
So, I went through and caught the train to Times Square (I thought this would be a good place to start). The train got there in no time at all. I later found out that it was an express train, so missed out quite a few of the stops.
Times square was madness!!! Sooooo many people!!! I suppose I wasnt so amazed by all the sky scrapers because I have had my experience in Hong Kong, but certainly being there was exciting. I found a tourist information office and picked up another map and a bus ticket for the tour busses of New York.
Then it was time for breakfast, a bagel I thought would be in order, so I found a little place and joined the queue of shouting new yorkers for a bagel. I chose a table in the middle of the restaurant and tried out my new mantra for eating alone. I like eating alone! I dont care about being on my own in the middle of a crowded cafe!! This is fun! Well, it seems like I might have been giving off an air of confidence, because a French family sat down at the same table and started asking me all sorts of questions about how to get tourist information! I advised as much as I could, finished my bagel and headed out again.
It was time to catch the bus. The first stop was the Empire state building. Incredible building. Did you know that they built it in FOURTEEN months???? FOURTEEN months!! That, is quite unimaginable! It took me probably about an hour from when I first joined the queue to getting to the top. I picked up an audio tour along the way, which was very helpful once I got to the top, and quite entertaining. The whole queuing process was extremely organised, there really wasnt any chance that anyone was going to go the wrong way or make up their own route.... Except for one particular bunch of tourists... They decided they didnt want to go the same way as everyone else, look at all of that spare space over there... we'll just unhook these silly red ropes that are getting in our way and go off over there. They got roundly told off by the crowd control people and almost threatened with removal if they didnt behave themselves. I tried to tune into what language they were speaking to identify these naughty tourists. And how I laughed when I heard that they were Greeks!!
Finally one of the crowd controllers opened up a small door which lead from floor 80 to 86 - the observation deck. Those of us who couldnt be bothered to wait for the queue for the lift and who didnt mind walking up 6 flights of stairs could save about 30 minutes of waiting. My dislike of waiting in a queue overtook my dislike of walking up stairs and so I took that option.
I finally got to the top and took in the view of New York, New Jersey and all the rest of it. Quite stunning and quite overwhelming! I listened to my tape and fairly quickly made my way down again. The crowd was just immense and it was difficult to shove your way to the front to get a better view. I didnt take any photos, my photos arent that great and we all know what New York looks like. We can google it!
Back downstairs and a trip to Macy's. After a look around the shop, slightly diminished in excitement factor as I dont want to buy anything and fill up my luggage, I went to the basement for a recomended salad. There was quite a choice to choose from and I eventually made my salad, picked up a bud and went to pay. Fumbled in my back for a few minutes to find my passport to prove my age for the bud, then sat down for food.
Refreshed I got back on the bus and got off at City Hall, which was the stop where I had seen an advertisement for an electronics store. I was desperate to pick up a hairdryer, having left mine in England as the voltage wasnt right for the US. All of my other appliances have converters on the chargers, so I also picked up an adaptor so I could charge those up.
This was also the area for ground zero so I went to have a look at that. It is impossible to imagine what it must have been like on that terrible day. The buildings around the area are huge, but they were nothing in comparison to the twin towers. And they came falling down. The tourist guide on our bus told us he lost 8 friends on that day. 3 of them made it to the hopsital but died soon afterwards.
It was getting late and I was feeling quite tired. It has been truly hot, and I didnt have any sun lotion with me. I was feeling quite frazzled and due to be meeting a friend of mine in about 3 hours. The next stop was for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, and although I wasnt sure about doing two such big tourist things in one day, I was so hot and the thought of a ride on the ferry was quite tempting. So, I jumped on the ferry (after going through airport type security - I even had to throw away the rest of my icecream that i had just bought!)
It was so hot, that even the breeze that the moving ferry generated wasnt that great, and before long we were at liberty island. It was very, very exciting to think that I was there, underneath this great icon that I had seen so many pictures and movies of. I had time for a quick walk around the island, a few photos and then caught the next bus to Ellis island. I really didnt have enough time to do the whole thing justice, but at least I was there, and soaked up some of the information and the history.
I caught one of the last ferries back to New York and quickly jumped on the subway to ride slighly back uptown. I was due to meet my friend Ivan at Rockerfeller Park for a free Reggae concert. I havent seen Ivan for about 5 years, and 5 or 6 years before that we met for the first time at the Pennisula Hotel in Hong Kong (thanks to my mad sister making friends with his band). Our phones werent communicating with each other, so I didnt find him straight away, but eventually I saw him standing on a wall and we went and sat in the park together. It was a great way to wind down after a frantic day of tourist activities, and the music was fabulous.
The sun went down, it got cooler, which everyone was thankful for and we went for a long walk along the Hudson river which was really very lovely, again a much more pleasant side of Manhattan than all of the chaos on the mad streets of the city. Ivan played tour guide and showed me exactly what I was looking at (New Jersey, a huge illuminated clock etc etc) and we went for a quick chinese meal and then for a drink in the Red Lion on Bleeker street in the village. There was a band playing and it was a really great night, but sadly my exhastion from the heat of the day, coupled with a touch of jet lag and senses overload from everything that I had heard and seen during the day, meant that I was fading fast and Ivan walked me to the nearest subway station where I took the local train back the hostel, this one stopping at every stop along the way.
It was certainly a very good start to my trip to the US and I collapsed into bed, very happy, with the airconditioning on, not evening noticing that it sounds very similar to having a moped revving in your room!!
My first day was a bombardment for my senses and I finished the day with a crick in my neck from looking mostly upwards, but also left and right and up and down trying to drink everything in.
The hostel is not as crappy as I initially thought, the bed is clean and comfortable, the bathroom is also pretty clean, the room is sparse, but seeing as I left the hostel at 9.30 yesterday and didnt get in till past midnight, with a repeat expected for tonight (bar leaving the hostel a little later after sleeping off the exhaustion of last night), it will certainly do for my stay here.
I picked up a transport map from the hostel, and - lucky for me, the streets in New York are extremely easy to navigate. There arent really any street names for the streets (ok, there are for some of them) but they mostly go by numbers. You go in one direction and the numbers go up and you go in the other and the numbers go down. Simple! No more of this getting lost business to me. Look at the map, find out which street you are on, and away you go.
So, I found the subway stop which is just two blocks (see, I used the word blocks) away from my hostel and went to buy a 'fun pass' to travel on the subway as much as I like all day. All I had though from the bank in Cyprus were 50s and 100s. The machine wouldnt take a 50 and the lady in the booth wouldnt change one for me either. I stepped outside the station and saw a McDonalds. Perfect! I walked in and asked the lady for 'a bottel ov wahtah please' in my oh so british accent. "it's a what now ma'am?" 'a bottel ov wahtah perlease'... I said, a bit louder this time. "Oh, a battle af warter?" 'yes perlease, thenk yew'. I got my bottle of water and change, then asked the lady in the subway to change one of my newly acquired 20s and hey presto, I bought my ticket from the machine.
There are only one set of gates in New York subway stations, people going in use the same turnstiles and the people going out and the turnstile can turn both ways. Cool eh?
So, I went through and caught the train to Times Square (I thought this would be a good place to start). The train got there in no time at all. I later found out that it was an express train, so missed out quite a few of the stops.
Times square was madness!!! Sooooo many people!!! I suppose I wasnt so amazed by all the sky scrapers because I have had my experience in Hong Kong, but certainly being there was exciting. I found a tourist information office and picked up another map and a bus ticket for the tour busses of New York.
Then it was time for breakfast, a bagel I thought would be in order, so I found a little place and joined the queue of shouting new yorkers for a bagel. I chose a table in the middle of the restaurant and tried out my new mantra for eating alone. I like eating alone! I dont care about being on my own in the middle of a crowded cafe!! This is fun! Well, it seems like I might have been giving off an air of confidence, because a French family sat down at the same table and started asking me all sorts of questions about how to get tourist information! I advised as much as I could, finished my bagel and headed out again.
It was time to catch the bus. The first stop was the Empire state building. Incredible building. Did you know that they built it in FOURTEEN months???? FOURTEEN months!! That, is quite unimaginable! It took me probably about an hour from when I first joined the queue to getting to the top. I picked up an audio tour along the way, which was very helpful once I got to the top, and quite entertaining. The whole queuing process was extremely organised, there really wasnt any chance that anyone was going to go the wrong way or make up their own route.... Except for one particular bunch of tourists... They decided they didnt want to go the same way as everyone else, look at all of that spare space over there... we'll just unhook these silly red ropes that are getting in our way and go off over there. They got roundly told off by the crowd control people and almost threatened with removal if they didnt behave themselves. I tried to tune into what language they were speaking to identify these naughty tourists. And how I laughed when I heard that they were Greeks!!
Finally one of the crowd controllers opened up a small door which lead from floor 80 to 86 - the observation deck. Those of us who couldnt be bothered to wait for the queue for the lift and who didnt mind walking up 6 flights of stairs could save about 30 minutes of waiting. My dislike of waiting in a queue overtook my dislike of walking up stairs and so I took that option.
I finally got to the top and took in the view of New York, New Jersey and all the rest of it. Quite stunning and quite overwhelming! I listened to my tape and fairly quickly made my way down again. The crowd was just immense and it was difficult to shove your way to the front to get a better view. I didnt take any photos, my photos arent that great and we all know what New York looks like. We can google it!
Back downstairs and a trip to Macy's. After a look around the shop, slightly diminished in excitement factor as I dont want to buy anything and fill up my luggage, I went to the basement for a recomended salad. There was quite a choice to choose from and I eventually made my salad, picked up a bud and went to pay. Fumbled in my back for a few minutes to find my passport to prove my age for the bud, then sat down for food.
Refreshed I got back on the bus and got off at City Hall, which was the stop where I had seen an advertisement for an electronics store. I was desperate to pick up a hairdryer, having left mine in England as the voltage wasnt right for the US. All of my other appliances have converters on the chargers, so I also picked up an adaptor so I could charge those up.
This was also the area for ground zero so I went to have a look at that. It is impossible to imagine what it must have been like on that terrible day. The buildings around the area are huge, but they were nothing in comparison to the twin towers. And they came falling down. The tourist guide on our bus told us he lost 8 friends on that day. 3 of them made it to the hopsital but died soon afterwards.
It was getting late and I was feeling quite tired. It has been truly hot, and I didnt have any sun lotion with me. I was feeling quite frazzled and due to be meeting a friend of mine in about 3 hours. The next stop was for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty, and although I wasnt sure about doing two such big tourist things in one day, I was so hot and the thought of a ride on the ferry was quite tempting. So, I jumped on the ferry (after going through airport type security - I even had to throw away the rest of my icecream that i had just bought!)
It was so hot, that even the breeze that the moving ferry generated wasnt that great, and before long we were at liberty island. It was very, very exciting to think that I was there, underneath this great icon that I had seen so many pictures and movies of. I had time for a quick walk around the island, a few photos and then caught the next bus to Ellis island. I really didnt have enough time to do the whole thing justice, but at least I was there, and soaked up some of the information and the history.
I caught one of the last ferries back to New York and quickly jumped on the subway to ride slighly back uptown. I was due to meet my friend Ivan at Rockerfeller Park for a free Reggae concert. I havent seen Ivan for about 5 years, and 5 or 6 years before that we met for the first time at the Pennisula Hotel in Hong Kong (thanks to my mad sister making friends with his band). Our phones werent communicating with each other, so I didnt find him straight away, but eventually I saw him standing on a wall and we went and sat in the park together. It was a great way to wind down after a frantic day of tourist activities, and the music was fabulous.
The sun went down, it got cooler, which everyone was thankful for and we went for a long walk along the Hudson river which was really very lovely, again a much more pleasant side of Manhattan than all of the chaos on the mad streets of the city. Ivan played tour guide and showed me exactly what I was looking at (New Jersey, a huge illuminated clock etc etc) and we went for a quick chinese meal and then for a drink in the Red Lion on Bleeker street in the village. There was a band playing and it was a really great night, but sadly my exhastion from the heat of the day, coupled with a touch of jet lag and senses overload from everything that I had heard and seen during the day, meant that I was fading fast and Ivan walked me to the nearest subway station where I took the local train back the hostel, this one stopping at every stop along the way.
It was certainly a very good start to my trip to the US and I collapsed into bed, very happy, with the airconditioning on, not evening noticing that it sounds very similar to having a moped revving in your room!!
Sounds like your having lots of fun and it's great to be able to share it with you. Love this blog! You think New York is hot? Wait till you get to Georgia. We are gonna HAVE to get you some sunscreen. Can't wait to see you! Keep Safe!
ReplyDeleteLove, Crystal