Hour 36:30 / Start of "Day 2"
We're in New York, and both Sarah and I are keen to get into it, so we bolt to the luggage carousel .... only to wait 20 minutes for our bags in one of the most dilapidated and seedy arrival lounges I've seen. Actually, lounge isn't fair.... it was a crapped out old carousel, a few odd "smarte-carts" and not much else. The really odd thing was actually that there were about a dozen (presumably unclaimed) bags randomly scattered around the floor. We joined the other folk making sure we weren't standing too close to any of them, just in case....
Much to our delight, both the bags came out fairly quickly once things started to move, and it was off to the Air-Train and the Subway. It was a short walk to the elevator, which turned out to be the first of about 6.... up, over a road, down elevator, through a tunnel, up elevator, across a boardwalk, and up elevator again to the actual platform.
Now, I concede that these guys may have got a good price on elevators, but this was quite simply over the top - even for the US.
The air trains run quite regularly, and we were soon trundling along towards the Howard Beach subway station.
Exiting the air train, we visited the last of the many elevators, and landed in the subway transition. This is where we encountered our first moment of the trip where we didn't know what to do next.
We were faced with a wall of "automatic" ticket vending machines for the exit from the air train. Now, up until this point, all of the signs for the air train suggested that the air train was free. So we had expected to simply buy a subway ticket - or if possible a 3 day pass - and jump on the next train to Manhattan. Hmmm. Nope. The options on the vending machines were : Air train, Metro, Metro+ Air train. Now, the first and the third options just didn't make sense ... unless of course the air train is only "free" if you use it within the airport. Ahh.
A few minutes pass before one of the attendants sensed we were stumped. "we want to get a weekly pass for the subway". Oh, you need a $7 exit from the airtrain, go through those gates on the left, use the vending machine on the other side of the hall, and buy a metro pass. OR, you can buy a $5 exit from the airtrain, go through the other gates, and use yet another set of vending machines, and you can get a metro ticket there. .... Duh. Why would we go through the $7 line?
So now we need 2 x $5 tickets, right ? Nope. You buy 1 x $10 ticket, and use it twice by handing it back over the counter. Riiight, Ticket in hand, I shoot through the turnstile (which I might add, it quite obviously NOT designed for people with luggage.... kinda handy at the terminus of an Air Train) then reach back over and swipe it again for Sarah to come through.
We're experts on the vending machines now, so I set about buying 2 x $25 weekly tickets. It all goes well, except this time my credit card is denied. Oooh... heart attack. "It won't let you use your credit card more than once in an hour on the vending machines" adds one of the attendants. You'll need to use another method to pay, or wait. Grrr... but hey, BE-COOL, right....
After trying Sarah's VISA card and finding that it works, it's through another bunch of turnstiles not wide enough for luggage, and down yet another elevator to the train siding. Phew. Maybe now we're off.
The E train to Manhattan was there in under 5 minutes, and we jump on and hurtle towards the Big A. All is going smoothly, until we seem to be going past stations that aren't on the subway map that we've got. A quick scan of the map on the train wall reveals that we're on a different subway line. Hmm... that's not good. We have now missed the station we were going to swap trains to head up to the hotel. Luckily, we had planned a second station station, and both the blue line and orange line would stop at. Now, it turns out that it's normal for trains to deviate from their normal tracks on weekends to enable maintenance, not that we knew at the time!
We jump off at 42nd street (also named "Port Authority" which was initially a worry, 'cos according to the map it's smack in the middle of the island !!) and traverse to the red 1 ... other than a few sets of stairs challenging us to carry our suitcases, we manage to find the right siding for the uptown red 1, and we're off to 96th street station.
Aside: Over the next few days we discovered local vs express, thanks to watching the locals. Local trains stop at ever stop on the line. Express trains stop at ever 4-5 stations. Once you figure this out, you catch an express to a hub station, and catch a local to the station you want. This cuts your travel time in half. Much better.
When we get to 96th street, we are faced with 6 different street exits. By some luck, we manage to choose the closest to our Hotel - Days Hotel on 94th.
Hour 38:30 - Home base @ Days Hotel - 9:30 am Sunday.
We can't check in until 3pm, so we store the bags with the door man who chains them to about 30 other bags in the lobby. After charging the camera and our phones for 30 minutes, and getting a Starbucks, it's out and about to see some sights.
It was quite warm - at least 30 C (whatever the heck that is in Fahrenheit I guess C x 2 + 32 = 82 ish). We decide to walk down Broadway to the Statue of Liberty ferry. Sounded like a good idea, until it took 25 minutes to go 5 blocks ... the ferry is effectively south of 1st ... so, it's take us 4 hours to walk there ... hmm. Luckily, we come across a subway station, and head down to catch the 1 downtown.
These trains run every 3-4 minutes, which is fantastic. The sticker on the wall of the train is helpful telling us that we need to be in the first 5 carriages to get off at the ferries.... unfortunately it's not smart enough to tell us what carriage we're in, So a quick dash forward when we stopped at one station gets us to the 3rd carriage. Cool.
The excitement got the better of us for a few minutes, as we charge up the escalators to the ferry terminal for the Stratton Island ferry. A quick check at the info booth reveals that the ferry is free, which is the first time I'm a little suspicious.
.... See part two.... more to follow....
No comments:
Post a Comment