New York
Sunday 4th June 2006
Good journey to airport and flight, only delayed an hour taking off. United are a good airline, lovely food. Watched a Harrison Ford film called Firewall and another one called Annapolis, both very predictable but passed the time. Flight only 7 hours so seemed like nothing after Oz!!
Once in New York got met by representative and transferred to hotel. Car was quite small and there wasn’t enough room for suitcases in the boot so Dave and I ended up with a suitcase across our laps for the hour and half transfer and very dead legs by the time we got there. Hooked up with another couple called Graham and Lorraine who have retired early and been travelling the world for a year. They are on the same tour as us.
Hotel very basic, but central. Could only get hot water and no cold so had a scalding shower!! We are 29 floors up with views of Empire State building about 100 yards away. You can hear the traffic constantly. Took ages to fall asleep, still it will be better for getting into time zone.
Monday 5th
This morning Dave went and asked at reception how to connect to the internet and they told us we were on a non internet floor and offered to move our room to the 26th floor. We accepted and have ended up with a much better room, it is on the side so much quieter, the water isn’t boiling, the television works, and we’re piggybacking with wifi, so internet is free. We went up to Times Square first, didn’t think much of it, Piccadilly is better. We’ll try it at night though, before we pass final judgement. We went to try and get up Empire State building but queue was at least 90 minutes long so we decided to get on subway and go look at Statue of Liberty. Finding subway entrance was an adventure in itself let alone getting on right train, but we managed it. Had to queue for ¾ hour for ferry to island, I didn’t realise that the statue was on an island! It is very impressive, at over 305 feet tall. We carried on to Ellis Island on the ferry. This was the port for all immigrants coming to America from 1892 to 1954, over 12 million passed through here. They were often quarantined for many months and families split up, the dormitories were worse than anything I’ve seen before. There was an excellent audio tour as well. We enjoyed the museum and were there over 3 hours, so very tired once we had queued again for ages for ferry back to Manhattan. Despite enjoying today, so far, I don’t like New York as much as other US cities we’ve seen, it’s very dirty and busy. We are going to try and get up the State building early tomorrow morning.
Tuesday 6th
Awake at 5, unable to sleep anymore. Out and about on the streets by 7 and in a thankfully short queue for Empire State building by 8. Good views from there for miles. I enjoyed this more than Sydney tower, as it was outside rather than behind glass, so you could get good photos. After this got on subway to Central Park as I wanted to see where John Lennon got shot outside his Dakota apartment building and also the memorial in the park that Yoko Ono paid for. Back on Subway and back down to Lower Manhattan. Walked to Ground Zero where they have started rebuilding towers. It is incredible that there wasn’t more damaged when you see how tightly packed the buildings are. Had a brief look at Trinity Church and Wall St, not much to see, so returned to 42nd St. Looked at Chrysler building, very similar in structure to Empire State, and Public library before walking back to hotel via several computer shops on 5th Ave for Dave. By this time it was 3 o’clock and Dave had to recharge his batteries by having a nap!!
Good journey to airport and flight, only delayed an hour taking off. United are a good airline, lovely food. Watched a Harrison Ford film called Firewall and another one called Annapolis, both very predictable but passed the time. Flight only 7 hours so seemed like nothing after Oz!!
Once in New York got met by representative and transferred to hotel. Car was quite small and there wasn’t enough room for suitcases in the boot so Dave and I ended up with a suitcase across our laps for the hour and half transfer and very dead legs by the time we got there. Hooked up with another couple called Graham and Lorraine who have retired early and been travelling the world for a year. They are on the same tour as us.
Hotel very basic, but central. Could only get hot water and no cold so had a scalding shower!! We are 29 floors up with views of Empire State building about 100 yards away. You can hear the traffic constantly. Took ages to fall asleep, still it will be better for getting into time zone.
Monday 5th
This morning Dave went and asked at reception how to connect to the internet and they told us we were on a non internet floor and offered to move our room to the 26th floor. We accepted and have ended up with a much better room, it is on the side so much quieter, the water isn’t boiling, the television works, and we’re piggybacking with wifi, so internet is free. We went up to Times Square first, didn’t think much of it, Piccadilly is better. We’ll try it at night though, before we pass final judgement. We went to try and get up Empire State building but queue was at least 90 minutes long so we decided to get on subway and go look at Statue of Liberty. Finding subway entrance was an adventure in itself let alone getting on right train, but we managed it. Had to queue for ¾ hour for ferry to island, I didn’t realise that the statue was on an island! It is very impressive, at over 305 feet tall. We carried on to Ellis Island on the ferry. This was the port for all immigrants coming to America from 1892 to 1954, over 12 million passed through here. They were often quarantined for many months and families split up, the dormitories were worse than anything I’ve seen before. There was an excellent audio tour as well. We enjoyed the museum and were there over 3 hours, so very tired once we had queued again for ages for ferry back to Manhattan. Despite enjoying today, so far, I don’t like New York as much as other US cities we’ve seen, it’s very dirty and busy. We are going to try and get up the State building early tomorrow morning.
Tuesday 6th
Awake at 5, unable to sleep anymore. Out and about on the streets by 7 and in a thankfully short queue for Empire State building by 8. Good views from there for miles. I enjoyed this more than Sydney tower, as it was outside rather than behind glass, so you could get good photos. After this got on subway to Central Park as I wanted to see where John Lennon got shot outside his Dakota apartment building and also the memorial in the park that Yoko Ono paid for. Back on Subway and back down to Lower Manhattan. Walked to Ground Zero where they have started rebuilding towers. It is incredible that there wasn’t more damaged when you see how tightly packed the buildings are. Had a brief look at Trinity Church and Wall St, not much to see, so returned to 42nd St. Looked at Chrysler building, very similar in structure to Empire State, and Public library before walking back to hotel via several computer shops on 5th Ave for Dave. By this time it was 3 o’clock and Dave had to recharge his batteries by having a nap!!
posted by Jules Ballard at 1:34 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home