We came, we saw, we had bagels

We did something new this month.

We had a holiday abroad.

Yes, wife number one and myself actually left the sunny shores of England to go to climes foreign, even going so far as to be in a different continent …

The towering heights of Manhatten Island followed by the cherry-blossom capital of Washington D.C.

Okay, it was only the US but that’s still 3,000+ miles away.

That’s about 8 hours flying time.

Or about 3 films worth …

Virgin Atlantic now have a flat-screen for each seat, even in economy and on the flight over there was a large choice of films

As we were headed to the eastern seaboard, we decided on films that would allow us to see where we were headed to.

So we started with I Am Legend (mostly in Manhatten), moved on to National Treasure 2 (which has DC in it for a bit). Then for some light relief we watched Aliens vs Predator 2 (definitely not NYC or DC).

A quick warning to any supporters of NO2ID travelling stateside – US Customs require a digital photo and index fingerprinting before they let you in – it was nice to not be told that until in the line to enter the country …

We flew into JFK which is out in Queens. To get onto Manhatten Island, you have to drive past La Guardia. How often you you drive past an airport going from an airport to your destination?

Before that though, we drove past the flying saucers at Queens. Okay, actually they are the observation towers left over from the World Fair 1964 but I first saw them in Men In Black so …

Anyway, we ordered a car from Dial 7 (guess the phone number!) which drove us through Queens, over the Triborough Bridge then down to 96th St (might be worth getting a map of Manhatten up about now) across the whole of the island to the Hudson Parkway then down to our home for the next week – the Milburn Hotel on West 76th St.

It seemed a little round about to me but then I don’t know road conditions at 9pm in the area …

A quick note on streets in NYC – I’m cutting a section from NY.com. All copyrights remain with their respective owners (find the whole page here: http://www.ny.com/histfacts/geography.html#manhattan)

The island of Manhattan is largely a protrusion of granite, rising a few hundred feet from sea-level. The southern tip and center of the island are virtually solid granite, while areas in Greenwich Village and Chelsea are composed of softer soil. As a result of this geologic arrangement, Manhattan’s tallest buildings are located in these two large “rocky” areas.

Manhattan is flanked on its west side by the Hudson River, and on the east side by the Harlem River (on the north) and the East River (on the south).

Manhattan’s street layout consists primarily of avenues and streets. The space between avenues is typically much larger than the space between streets (roughly 3x).

* Avenues run North-South, starting with 1st Avenue on the East Side, and going westward to 12th Avenue.
* Streets run East-West, starting with 1st Street in Greenwich Village, and increase in value up to 220th Street at the north tip of Manhattan.

General areas in Manhattan

* Below 1st Street is considered to be the Downtown area of Manhattan
* 1st to 14th Street contains the general “Village” area. The area west of Broadway is Greenwich Village, and to the east is East Village.
* 14th to 34th Street west of Broadway is Chelsea, known for its large loft apartments and studios.
* 34th to 59th Street is generally regarded as “Midtown”
* 59th to 110th Street contains the Upper West Side and Upper East Side, respectively. Between the two lies the green oasis of Central Park.
* 110th to 145th Street lies the village of Harlem
* 145th to 220th Street has no special designation, but does contain the neighborhood of Washington Heights and the Cloisters.

Houston (pronounced HOW-ston) Street marks the top of Downtown which has a grid system of sorts but is named streets rather than numbered. Areas downtown include Soho (SOuth of Houston), Tribeca (TRIangle BElow CAnal street), the Lower East Side, Little Italy, Chinatown, Lower Manhattan (where the Twin Towers used to stand and the Freedom Tower is under construction), and Battery Park)

Anyway.

We arrived at our hotel, the Milburn on 76th street, just off Broadway. This is a little hotel that is pretty much just somewhere to stay while going out to do stuff. Still, our room had a kitchenette with full sized fridge, microwave and sink, en suite bathroom (with dodgy plumbing), free internet access (including PC’s in the lobby for those of us who still don’t have laptops or smart phones), and even free rentals of DVDs, VHS (with players in the room), and playstations!

Rather than getting a decent nights sleep, we instead had arranged to do a tour bus to next day, for which we had to arrive while there were still single digits in the times. Bleurgh. Our first challenge was not finding a subway stop (only 4 blocks from the hotel) but working out how to use the subway.

As regular users of London’s Underground, we have been spoiled.

True, the New York Subway is 24 hours which the Underground does fail at but the Underground is better lit, isn’t so shabby around the edges and has proper signage. You don’t appreciate how good the signage is until you don’t have it. The subway has white on black signs in the roof that mention whether a train is going uptown or downtown – there’s no route maps, no next train due signs (or announcements) and the trains only have a start/end sign – which is the same whichever way you are travelling. It may save on the maintenance but it’s not friendly to first-time visitors. Sometimes the only indication is a single sign that says ‘uptown’ or ‘downtown’ at the entrance – New Yorks subway system expects you to know it.

Still, we arrived early with a loaded Metro Card and arrived at the tour centre.

Say hello to Sergei.

And his red umbrella. The three dozen or so of us on todays tour are going to spend the day looking out for the red umbrella, a handy eye-catcher for any tour guide. Plus it keeps him dry in rain and shady in sun

We went with Grey Line on one of the Manhatten Comprehensive tours – what we didn’t realise was that this is from a coach and not an open-topped double decker – any photos would be through tinted windows so we didn’t bother with the photos.

The coach left from 48th and 9th and headed southwards, mainly on Broadway while Sergei pointed out all the sights.

And in Manhattan, that’s like: “This is Times Square, on your right is Port Authority and your left is Grand Central, now we pass the Public Library on your left and on your right is Macy’s and then Madison Gardens and on your left was the Empire State Building and we’ve now missed St John the Baptist Church and you’ll have a couple of seconds to view the Flat-Iron building but in doing so we’ve passed Gramercy Park, oops and Union Square and that building is Forbes, nope the other side, oh too late, well next is …”

But with a Chechnian accent.

After we had missed looking at Wall Street (twice), we arrived at Pier 17 for a water taxi. 15 mins to stretch our legs (and check out Victoria’s Secret … as you do) then the water taxi arrived.

Actually, it was 15 minutes to stretch your legs and about 30 mins waiting for the water taxi to arrive – still it gives a chance to show off Sergei’s umbrella

This isn’t an amphibious vehicle but a regular two deck boat. It was yellow, though.

The water taxi heads around Lower Manhatten from the East to the Hudson Rivers then swings past Ellis Island to Liberty Island, pauses for the inevitable photos (I wonder why) then heads back up the East River to Manhatten Bridge then back under the Brooklyn Bridge and to the dock.

Chart our progress here.

The coach picks us up and missing Wall Street again, we headed to an eatery called Chevy’s. Lunch was free – which considering it was a choice of burger, burger with cheese, veg wrap or chicken burger was good – and was over quickly.

With a little time to kill, we paused at the Famine Memorial. Right next to the World Financial Center, I’ve never heard anything about this before – but I think this page tells about it quite well.

We moved back into the Winter Gardens – what else would you call 16 full height Palm trees in a glass hall? – and had our close-ist look at the site of the World Trade Center. It’s looks like a giant building site.

They are putting the foundations down for the Freedom Tower, a 1776ft skyscaper to replace the twin towers (more information here). Sergei mentioned that the tour used to go up to the observation deck in the WTC – had the planes flown in five hours later, it’s wouldn’t be his jaunty red umbrella guiding us past tourist NYC.

The coach returned and we headed back up north of Central Park to St John the Divine Cathedral on 112th and Amsterdam. It’s currently being refurbished so isn’t looking all that divine at the minute – the main body of the church is sealed off, the North Transept was destroyed in a fire last year and the southern tower is being build by hand – very worthy but very slow. The north tower is yet to be started.

More details can be found here – they don’t seem to have updated their web site recently though.

Back along 125th St to get a glimpse of Harlem then down the Musuem Mile to the Rockefeller building to finish.

We say goodbye to the red umbrella and ascent to the observation levels.

– Northwards from Rockefeller over Central Park

– Southwards from Rockefeller over Lower Manhattan

After leaving there, we pause in Tiffany’s for high-brow shopping then head to a pizzeria recommended by one of the assistants for some low brow eating.

From there we walk back to 59th and 8th and catch the subway back to 72nd for the quick walk back to the hotel. Stopping at Loehman’s for a quick bargain search – fail. It wasn’t quick.

Day two of the adventure had us using the free internet access at the hotel to start (now that’s a plus) after a lie-in and free breakfast before headed subway-wards to get to Penn Station.

We had decided prior to the holiday to travel down to Washington on the Amtrak and have a look at the landscape. Our first task was to check out the station so we knew how easy (or not) it was going to be to get here carrying all the luggage.

First indications were good.

Then as we were just across the road, we decided to do a little shopping at Macys.

For hours.

Holey Moley – that’s one big-ass shop. Even keeping a tight rein on wife number one, it still took several hours to traverse the store.

It wasn’t dark when we finally left Macy’s (though the overcast clouds made it feel like it was) and we decided against going up the Empire State. Instead we headed up to the New York Public LIbrary.

Now that’s what a library should look like.

Then we swung by Grand Central.

It may be one of the most lauded train stations in the world but when it’s overcast and rush hour has started …

Then we walked the four blocks over to Times Square. The lights weren’t at their brightest yet but the crowds were as thick. We braved the TKTS booth.

One of the assistants at Macy’s had mentioned that Altar Boys was a show worth seeing – of course that wasn’t showing for a couple of days and I’d forgotten that Avenue Q was still playing (thinking about it, I seem to remember some localisation of jokes so it may not have been the best choice in any case). And we didn’t want to see one of the larger (read expensive) shows.

As it happened, we had seen an advert on the side of a bus while walking over for a show called Curtains. Starring David Hyde Pierce (from Frasier and Hellboy) (who was off that night) so we got tickets for that.

Which gave us just enough time to get back to the hotel, get changed and get back to the theatre.

The show itself is pretty good fun – think An Inspector Calls meets Chorus Line

It was going fine until there was an incident with the sound desk. In that it crashed. Totally, without warning, in the middle of the act two romantic song and with little hope of recovery. And the unlucky engineer tried. We heard pink noise several times as he attempted to return it to a show worthy state. My guess is that something was untoward in the scene memories towards the end – what caused it and why no backup could deal with it, I don’t know.

After 20 minutes of pink noise spotting, the show resumed with the cast testing out their projection skills which earned them a standing ovation from some of the audience. I was glad we had stalls seats for that one.

I’m not saying what the sound desk was in case the problem existed with another bit of kit (hardware or software).

And in case the problem was with the desk, well it was made by a company that I mention elsewhere as the digital desk manufacturer most likely to tour into our space, it’s big enough to deal with a musical and it’s not mentioned on this site anywhere.

Back to the bright lights of TImes Square for one last caffeine injection then return hotel-wards to more sleep (yeah, we thought that one through).

The sun dawned on day three and we slept in that little bit later. This turned into a slight problem as one of the two lifts had failed and the room used to serve breakfast in was packed.

Still, we managed to get our free cereal and bagels then took advantage of the good weather to explore Central Park.

I say explore – I mean, walk a little distance through. The park covers over 840 acres. We entered just below the Natural History Museum at 77th, meandered past the great lawn up to the reservoir then back to the obelisk via Belvedere Castle then deviated into the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Like so many of the major collections, there is no way to see the whole thing in one day – not and do the exhibits justice. We spent a few hours in the Egyptian tombs, a disappointing five minutes in the photo gallery (guess what was under renovation), a quick stride through medieval art and a potter through arms and armour. We noticed that some of the exhibits had been loaned out. I always though that a museum that loaned out an exhibit would put another similar item in it’s place. Apparently not.

After wife number one bought, and ate a hot dog from a street vendor (and bought a second one to find out what the sauce was!) we returned to Central Park, walking past the Alice statue and joining the Mall by the summer stage before circling the nature sanctuary and onto Central Park South then getting back on the subway at 59th and Columbus – the second time so far this week.

We decided to eat in tonight – mainly cos we’d been walking past Citarella’s on Broadway to and from the hotel each day. The price wasn’t bad for us (used to London prices in pounds remember) and the food was lovely.

Which kinda made up for not getting breakfast the next morning as our hotel didn’t do breakfast at the weekend, which started on Thursday. Of course.

I seem to recall we had some spare bagels. And the kitchenette in our hotel room had a fridge, sink and microwave and we’d fortuitously stocked up on milk and OJ.

Catching the subway back to 59th and 8th (we like this station) we walked along Central Park South to Bloomingdales. Now, this is a taller building that Macy’s but it seemed the smaller store. We tried to make it quick but still lost a few hours there (not as expansively as we had in Macy’s though), which included eating at the brilliantly named but average juice bar Forty Carrots. Reviews of this place call it a ‘froyo’ bar (what?) and rave about the ‘frozen yoghurt’ (oh).

Guess what we didn’t have.

Ah well.

When I finally got wife number one out, we ended up going back to the mall at the Rockefellar Plaza.

Okay, that one was my fault. I’d noticed a Gamestop there earlier and liked the idea of picking up a game or two for the DS at prices less than I’d pay in London.

Wife number one forgave me when she found Resident Evil DS preowned … I lost the DS for most of the rest of the holiday and still haven’t had it back yet.

Sigh.

As it was still mid-afternoon, we returned to the subway (not 59th this time) and went up to the American Museum of Natural History to see the dinosaurs from Night at the Museum.

Honestly.

We arrived too late to see the rotunda (the main hall closes at 3.30pm – huh?) and could see no dinosaurs on the map but had a look through the stuffed exhibits (and stuffed exhibits really don’t do anything for me) until we reached the Gem Gallery (ooh sparkly) then went back to the Planetarium before we realised that there were two more floors.

Wife number one got to see her dinosaurs after all but the Water:H20=Life was shut. And the Sonic vision display was not advertised anywhere and I’ve only just found it now while checking the web site

Which is a pity cos it looks like we may have enjoyed it.

Instead we went back to the hotel via Citarella’s again. Not all bad then

Well, it’s day five of the holiday (day six if you count the day of packing and flying – which you probably should as we saw the saucers) and we are travelling again.

It was a good thing that we were catching the Amtrak as American Airlanes were grounding most of the flight due to potential failures in airplanes, as were a number of internal flights.

Of course, just for us, the train before ours broke so all those passengers were shunted onto our train. Now, we’d paid in advance, for business class tickets. All that got us was a higher grade carpet to sit on for two of the three hours.

It wasn’t until the train was en route that it occurred to Amtrak to allow passengers to travel by more than one train – but rather than do the sensible thing and say any connecting service would be fine, they continued to specify which train passengers should catch.

If they had allowed access to the express train at Penn Station for passengers travelling to Washington then we could have been spread out and wouldn’t have noticed much disturbance to the journey. Instead, we crammed two trains onto one and ended up an hour late having stood for a majority of the journey. And it cost them money as we got a full refund.

Still, what do I know …

So we wave goodbye to New York and enjoy the view of the luggage rack as we head down the Eastern Seaboard to the US capital …

For the brave, a few more shots taken at various times around Manhattan.