So we come to our final destination - 'the big apple', 'the city that never sleeps'... All these are descriptions for the famous city that is New York. Many friends and family have raved about NY and gave us many 'top tips', so part of me was just keen to see what the fuss was about! And now I've experienced New York for myself and I can confirm that it lived up to expectations I will fuss about it to all you readers.
We arrived on 3rd July at 6am following a 7 hour overnight bus from Montreal. Being awoken at 1.15 to clear border control and once more interrogated in a complete sleepy daze was most unpleasant, and needless to say neither of us slept well. Having said that, pretty much as soon as we stepped off the coach we mustered the energy from a city that even in the early hours has a buzz about it! As we arrived at such an unearthly hour we couldn't check into our hostel, so got the subway to our neighbourhood and sat in Starbucks (very American). We were staying in the Harlem area of Manhattan (cue 'angels of Harlem'). It was a very safe part ot town and only a 20min subway ride from Times Square. For those of you who haven't been to New York before- it's made up of 5 boroughs pronounced 'burrows' and built on a grid system. Avenues and streets in chronological order make it incredibly easy to navigate. The subway system took us a few days to get the hang of- but numbered and lettered lines run 'uptown' (cue 'uptown girl') or downtown (cue Petula Clark's 'downtown'). We sat in Starbucks with all your recommendations and marking places of interest, food suggestions, shops and museums on our map. I enjoyed this very much- it was like GCSE Maths challenge plotting co-ordinates on a grid.
Rather than staying in a big hostel we were based in an apartment, which we shared with an Australian couple. We had a fully equipped kitchen to make our packed lunches and even a coffee perculator to start the day off well! And thank goodness each room had air conditioning - although maybe not for Marie who had to endure me up and down all night fiddling with it to get perfect sleep conditions! Temperatures have ranged from 33 to 37 degrees this week so we have taken any available opportunity to de-sweat and cool off in the subway and any random shops! We were so excited to be in New York and with so much to see/do we crammed it all in! Of course we visited the major tourist spots - the free ferry to Staten Island taking you by the Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Broadway, the Empire State Building, Grand Central station, Ground zero and Wall Street. We took the standard tourist photos shots and continually had to remind ourselves we weren't just on a giant movie set! Talking of sets, Marie was keen to visit the Flight of the Conchords filming locations. So armed with our map (which we now refer to as a second bible) we wandered the length of China Town at least 3 times. It was a bit lost on me, but it made Marie's day to see Dave's shop, the New Zealand consulate and Brett and Jemaine's flat (prior to proof reading this read Jerome - Marie had to correct me!). Sadly Marie couldn't take a photo sat on the steps to the apartment as planned as some rather bemused elderly Chinese men were having a cigarette. Clearly this 'tour' is not a regular on most visitors' New York agenda.
A particular favourite that we enjoyed was the highline park. This is an old railway track which runs between the high rise buildings and has been converted to a beautiful walk way - complete with flowers, easy chairs, sculpture and local art. We followed this up beautifully with a browse around the Chelsea Market which is an old cookie factory that now houses lots of individual cafes, bakeries and crafty shops.
Most recommendations for New York involved eating and drinking. Of course, we embraced this to get the full experience. Milkshakes in Shake Shack, compost cookies (not literally made from compost - just a random selection of ingredients including cornflakes and coffee) at Milk Bar and cocktails on a rooftop bar overlooking the Empire State Building. July 4th was American Indpendence Day - sadly there were no parades, but there were fireworks so we joined thousands of others at the pier on the Hudson river for 30 minutes of red, white and blue fireworks. If we're honest, even with the love hearts and planet shapes, it wasn't the show of Sydney NYE but was still fun to enjoy the atmosphere.
We decided as a pre birthday treat for Marie, to go for an evening on Broadway. Marie had never seen a show before, so we got discounted tickets for Chicago and thoroughly enjoyed it! After the show we went to 'Ellen Stardust's'. What a place! It's an American diner where all waiters and waitresses are budding broadway artists! So you are more than entertained with continous singing of show tunes! It was very full on, as were the puddings we ordered (New York Cheesecake and Red Velvet Cake) - needless to say we took them home and were still finishing them off 2 days later!
What else is New York famous for? Shopping. We attempted this in a few stores - concluding the whole NY shopping experience to be too big, busy, overwhelming (both visually and in volume - adverts everywhere and many Americans with no volume control!). We ended up both coming away with the same item from H&M sale!
On another recommendation we went to the Museum of Modert Art (MOMA), which is free on Fridays from 4pm. If we'd known it would be as stressful as it was - we'd probably have paid to go on a day where we didnt have to queue for everything and actually got to see the artwork! We decided this museum experience highlighted our Britishness, and also our highly cultured expectations! Being British, we thought we knew how to queue - apparently we do not. Firstly we had to queue outside the building to be given a free ticket. We then had to queue for a queue to be directed to a cloakroom (we weren't allowed to take a rucksack in, but then it turns out neither were we allowed to leave valuables in the cloackroom - so essentially we had to queue to check in an empty rucksack and carry valuables in a plastic bag - LOGIC?! none.). Once we had queued for another queue and were able to check our non valuable rucksacks in, we were told to queue in another line to enter the museum itself. It was absurd, talk about overcomplicating things! And to make it worse we were continually being told how and where to stand in line by people who must be employed for the sole purpose of 'queue management'!
Once we got into the gallery we lasted barely an hour. Thousands of people (like us) had taken advantage of the free entry, but most of them (unlike us) were only interested in taking photos of the artwork rather than looking at the masterpieces of Picasso, Monet and Van Gogh. Why do people insist on standing with their back to the work to have their photo taken, obstructing the painting from everyone else's view? Surely art is painted and hung to be looked at, not stood infront of!? Ok, rant over.
On our final night we decided we wanted to go out for pizza and on the recommendation of a girl who was sat outside Starbucks (when we were cheekily trying to connect to the free wifi), headed to Brooklyn. The home of the New York Italian cuisine! Brooklyn is the eastern borough so we got the subway and enjoyed the wander through the neughbourhood to the famous Guiseppinas where we had a lovely and reflective meal, recounting people we'd met, places we'd been and funny stories. We finished the night off with a walk back to Manhatten over Brooklyn Bridge taking in the lit up skyline - again in a strange mood with mixed emotions.
Our flight left in the evening of the 7th so after finishing the mammoth final pack (final bag weigh in - Marie 17.2kgs - that's gaining 4kgs in 9 months, and mine at 19kgs - 2kgs more than I left). We braved the ridiculous heat of 37 to hire bikes and cycle around the famous Central Park. It is beautiful, but more hilly and bigger than we had thought! We were grateful to stop at and enjoy our picnic in the shade whilst watching a kids' soft ball game.
In summary - we loved New York. It has a unique and lively feel to it. Even with the annoying and patronising voiceover at every subway announcing continuously how to exit the escalator 'keep walking away from the escalator...', the subway system and its refreshing air con, made travelling around very pleasant. We saw everything we wanted to and covered most things marked on our map. I'm sure it's the kind of place I will visit again, even just as a city break. As we were sat in JFK airport surrounded by a group of older travellers from Darlington who, in their broad northern accents, were moaning about everything from the heat, to the random american who burst into song in the airport, we chuckled to ourselves - why are we going home again??
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