Broadway and Off to Detroit

Sarah needs a bit of a nudge to get going, but we shower and jump down to the subway, and back over to Time Square. As it turns out, there is an Irish pub next door to the theatre on 42nd Street, so we grab some bangers and mash, fish and chips and a drink, and it's time for the show.

The theater was a cute little one, and in the "orchestra" (which translates to ground floor) our seats in "O" were the back row. Still, we weren't far away from the stage. Good stuff. The initial disappointment of not seeing a "blockbuster" show faded pretty quickly. As it turns out, this was a great show. The plot was quite funny, with the story based around a group of actors that were trying to get a show on broadway. The resulting chaos saw the actors seamlessly switching between the real show, and the creation of the show. It was a true musical, with a mixture of humorous dialog, and medleys. As I expect is the norm, the show ended to raucous applause and cheering, which was a real buzz.

Back to the Hotel. Half a day to go, and still so much more to see. ZZZZZ......

Tuesday am - Rockafeller / 5th Avenue / Central Park / Strawberry Fields

We're on the home stretch. The hotel has a 12 noon checkout, so we take advantage by scooting down the red 1 subway and stop at an express station to get the yellow line across to the rockafeller center. We're making good time until we "brain fade" onto a blue downtown express - oops. Off at the next stop, back over the track to the uptown platform to get an uptown blue back to 42nd street, THEN we catch a yellow. Doh. That's the first real muck up so far. Grin ... had to happen sometime!

Luckily, the Rockafeller center doesn't open until 8:30, so by the time we jump out of the subway and track down the skyview platform entrance, we walk straight to the ticket booth with no wait - bonus. This disney line was empty, and after a short walk, and elevator ride we spend a few minutes in the "Rockafeller Museum". This guy was a real visionary, and made a few really good business decisions to boot, building the largest private office complex of it's time. For the history buff, it'd be worth researching a little more on Rockafeller.

The lifts to the top of the center were fast enough to make our ears pop! Wow, what a view. I find it amazing really, that we can build buildings so tall - and I'm a Civil Engineer! Once again we're lucky with the weather, and after a "moment" with the camera (I realise that I've left both the camera memory cards in the hotel - luckily the camera itself has it's own memory, albeit smaller than the 2 GB memory cards) we get right to the open viewing platform at the very top of the center... I'm not sure if the pics give a true indication of the enormity of the island and the surrounding areas, but needless to say, it all takes the breath away.

The people are just starting to flood in as we make our way back down to street level - via another ear popping lift ride. It's definitely worth getting up early to see the popular tourist spots. We're both getting a little peckish, and Sarah suggests having b'fast at a "traditional diner". We head back to Broadway, and stumble across a diner called "Ellens". Table for 2 ... no problem. Ooh, it's loud in here, with one of the waitresses belting out Bette Midler's "Boogy Bugle Boys of Company B" (or whatever that song is called). The other staff are wandering about the restaurant with tip buckets and tamborines... oh my god, this IS over the top.

Well, the song finishes, and we set about ordering a cooked breakfast. Bugger, another waiter starts belting out an Elvis song, right near our table. We can't hear each other talking, and it's hard not to laugh. This is amazing. Really bad, but amazing. Our food arrives, and thankfully is really nice. A good dose of traditional US breakfast potatoes and sausages is never a bad thing, but we're now on our 4th song, and we hurry to finish, and pay the check.

It's a giggling 20 minutes walk to 5th avenue, where Sarah's eyes glaze over as we walk past all the exclusive shops at the central park end of 5th avenue. Of course, we somehow end up at Tiffany's, and take a moment to look in Audrey's window (from Breakfast at Tiffany's). We wander in for the obligatory look around.

It's pretty impressive, and suitably snobby... as expected. I couldn't believe that there were 4-5 levels... now that's a lot of jewelry. The funniest section had to be the charms and bracelets, with hoards of over excited women of all ages scrabbling for charms as quickly as the staff could bring them out. Grin... must be the cheap stuff! Sarah manages to find a really neat little ring engraved with the 5th avenue address on it (apparently from the Tiffany "notes" range!). After a bit of rudimentary negotiation, I sanction the purchase (like I was going to say no, or that Sarah would listen if I did say no..!) and she's beaming from ear to ear when the lady hands over the little green gift wrapped box - and she's noticeably more upbeat all of a sudden, I would say!

Down the street, in the most amazing location looking across to the corner of central park is arguably one of the most impressive Apple stores I've ever seen. These guys have an unmistakable style about them. All there is on ground level is a 20m x 20m glass cube with a huge carved glass apple logo. I know... it's a geek thing, but I'm the one that's giddy now. The entire store is underground, and packed with folk poking and prodding the large number of laptops, iPods and iPhone's on display. There's a line for the Genius (help) bar, and the iPhone sales desk is 3 deep with enthusiastic punters. Well, I've had my fix, and we're behind schedule for the hotel check out, so catch the circular, see through glass elevator back up to ground level, and hail a taxi back to the hotel.

Another first - a NYC cab. Big, and grotty. It's even got a touch screen in the back for street navigation, and TV. After having to repeat the address 3 times to the cabbie that's also talking on his phone at the same time, we hurtle off across the bottom of Central park, past what seems like 100's of horse drawn carriages. Unfortunately, a romantic horse drawn ride around central park isn't an option this trip .. but maybe next time! Now the taxi takes a left, and starts heading downtown. Not happy Jan. "Hey, we said West 94th and Broadway, why are we heading downtown ?" "Oh, I thought you said 34th". Um, no. W 94th and broadway, and now we're really in a hurry. Hmm, no big tip for this guy. Luckily, he recovers quickly, and starts making good time back uptown. He's something of a maniac, but somehow that seems to add to the thrill of darting across manhattan island at lunchtime on a sunny Tuesday in a yellow cab.... it's the little things.

The desk at the hotel is, busy, but we've already paid up front, so we drop one of the keys to "officially" check out and head upstairs to pack. Now, even though it arguably had more rough edges that I'd ever seen (or would normally tolerate), it was good value and so close to a hub subway station that it worked out really well. Ultimately I believe that we got what we paid for. Cheap, and close to transport!

For our last hour or two in manhattan, it's off to central park for a casual wander. It's only a few blocks down 94th street to the park, and the first thing that strikes us about the park is that it's just a big patch of scrub in the middle of a big city. There's everything from manicured paths and gardens to overgrown grass and dirt. We meander through the park, heading south towards the downtown end. It's quite hilly, and we soon start to realise we've underestimated the effort of dragging our bags around. We carve a path to strawberry fields - near where John Lennon was famously shot - and after a quick 5 second rest, it's onto the subway for the last time, and off to JFK.

We managed to negotiate our way to the other Air Train station at JFK, and this turned out to be much easier than the way we came in to Manhattan. We also knew the difference between a local and an express train, so it was way faster too.
The Northwest check required us to get a boarding pass at a self service kiosk, then mill about with 30 other people waiting for our names to be called in order to check our bags. This was quite odd at first, but once we caught on to what was happening, it made a lot of sense. Seemed that everyone else was confused too, as the lady "helping" didn't do a very good job of explaining the process. The folk at the bag check were friendly, and after navigating back through the same 30 other people to drop our bags at the x-ray machine, we wandered down to our gate. The big yellow arches of MacDonald's caught my eye, with a 1/2 pound swiss mushroom burger. Ok, so my eyes were bigger than my stomach, but it was quite nice. Interestingly, even though I mentioned all of the items I needed for my order at Maccas - ie. swiss burger medium meal with coke, and a big mac burger by itself, I seemed to confuse the girl by putting it all in the wrong order. She started again 3 times, and asked me the same questions over and over. Quite funny. Whatever you do, don't muck up the order! (We don't know how luck we are in Australia having 15 year old kids that can think for themselves....!

Now here's another almost f&*k up on our part. With 20 minutes to go to our flight, we up stumps and walk around the corner to our gate, and to our horror are confronted with the longest security line we've seen yet, and it's not moving real fast. Sarah and I swap nervous glances, faced with the real possibility that we're going to miss our flight. We can see our gate, and they start boarding people early. Oooh, not good. When we finally clear security, we full on sprint to the gate, and aside from the fact that the ground staff are not happy jan, we're on the plane. Phew. Off to Detroit MI.