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.

More Photos's

See JD's Photo album here

And not long until I update the diary too (been busy with Paul and Kristy..!)

- jd

New York - Day 3 (Monday)

Day 3 - Monday in New York...

Ok, so it was mighty hard getting up after our first decent sleep in 3 days, but we managed to make the 7:30 Red 1 express train, which hurtled downtown to the ferry terminus, and battery park. Lucky for us, there's not much of a line for the first ferry to Liberty Island, and we start chatting to a young guy from Germany in the line. He'd been there for 2 hours that morning to get tickets. wow. Through metal detectors, and onto the ferry, we wait for the boat to fill up, and we're under way by 8:20. Being the first boat to the Island was a bonus, as we were able to make a b-line for the Monument museum at the base Lady Liberty. After a quick argument with the automatic lockers (which are keyed using your fingerprints - cool!) we are about the 5th in line for more metal detectors, and entry to the museum. 

The museum was really good, explaining how the statue was conceived, and made. I never knew it was built in France, boxed, and shipped to the US. The boats that brought it across hit heavy weather, and even ran out of fuel for their boilers, so they completed the crossing under sail. The actual metal shell - made from copper - is only 5mm thick in most places, and the supporting structure inside the "tower" was designed by the same dude that built the Eiffel Tower. (Mr Eiffel, I presume?)

These days you can only climb to the top of the base (about feet level ;-) ), but even that afforded a sensational view of Manhattan  and the surrounding areas. The weather was pretty perfect, with blue skies, slight breeze and about 28 C. Brilliant. With the obligatory photo's taken, we wander back down to ground level, and once again thank our lucky stars that we got the first ferry - the line for the museum was now over an hour long. Crikey. A few more photos, and we're back on the ferry to Battery Park, via Ellis Island. If we had more time, this would be worth a look, I think.

With our feet back on Manhattan, we grab some cash, buy some photos of "the buildings of manhattan" and jump a train to Union Square. This turned out to be somewhat unremarkable, so we hot foot it uptown to the flatiron building. Man, that really IS flat. Amazing. Madison Square Gardens is just around the corner, but all we have time for is a photo. Too bad. Off to Grand central station via the empire state building, which ends up being a fizzer, as the line is HUGE. We'll do the Rockafellar center first thing in the morning instead. Grand Central here we come. Now, this really is worth a look. What a complex - and surprisingly schmick (read: marble walls and floors)... much neater and impressive .. more-so than any other public place we've seen before. The grand hall is quite a sight with it's 50 meter high windows and its restaurants on mezzanines around the edges. (once again, see the pics earlier in this blog)

There's a Subway shuttle between Grand Central and Time Square.... which turn out to be  just another subway train, and this get's us across to Time Square in no time at all. The subway is starting to get busier now, which is what I really wanted to see. The popular claims are that this is the busiest subway (measured on people carried per day) in the world, and it's starting to look like it. Cool.

Up the stairs at Time Square and ...... nothing. Damn. Must've taken the wrong exit. A quick wander along.... 5th Avenue get's our bearings, and in a few minutes we're smack in the middle of the most concentrated gaggle of big video screens I've ever seen.

Aside: when you pop up from a subway in New York, it's sometimes very difficult to get your bearings, as the blocks are large, and the sun is often obscured. We often had to walk to the nearest corner to see the street signs before we knew which street we were on, and what direction we were heading. Now, this doesn't sound too bad, but (now) amongst 1000's of other folk wandering about, it can take 10 minutes of walking to get your bearings, and if you've started walking the wrong way.... there goes 20 minutes on a round trip!

Time square is definitely impressive, and a few minutes just standing there starts to give you an impression of what it must be like on New Years eve with 100's of 1000's of folk having the mother of all street parties.

We decide to go and find TCKTS - the quite well known broadway discount ticket box office. A quick sms to Kristy and she tells us where it is, and we discover it's moved, but not too far away. 

Monday 2pm - New York / Time Square

We jump in the TCKTS line, which doesn't open until 3pm, so we're got some time to chill out. Sarah isn't feeling well, so she leaves me to wait in line, and heads back over to the Hotel for a nap. (Luckily) I get chatting to the lady in the line next to me - she's from New Jersey, and is getting tickets for her and her daughter. She saves me by telling me that I need cash, and is happy enough to kep my spot in the line while I duck back to Time Square to visit a charity booth @ Bank of America. That would've been a bummer to wait an hour only to not have enough cash.

At about 2:45, the boards listing the available shows springs to life .... Bummer. Phantom of the Opera isn't there. As it turns out, Monday is also "dark", which means that a lot of the more popular shows aren't on that day, and I don't know anything about the ones on the list. Oops. Now our lack of preparation is starting to bite us. I jump out of the line, deciding to try to find the Phantom box office itself. This is harder than I thought, as the address I had looked up before we left wasn't right...doh. There goes another 40 minutes. A quick call to Sarah, and she finds the address on the internet back at the Hotel, and I'm there @ 3:30. The short line move quickly - mostly, I quickly discover, because the show is sold out. Boo Hiss. Damn. And Grrr. Should've just pre-booked. Shoulda Coulda Woulda.

Another quick call to Sarah with the names of the shows on sale back at TCKTS and we decide on "Title of Show". I get the tickets, and head off to Brooklyn Bridge. The subway is REALLY getting busy now, and it's squeezing room only across to the Brookyln Bridge station. Grabbing a bottle of water on the way back through Grand Central turned out to be a good idea, as walking across the bridge was surprisingly uphill, as the walkway was built with quite a camber. This was definitely worth a visit, as there is an observation deck in the middle of the bridge, affording some really spectacular shots of the harbour and the city. It's also a Civil Engineers idea of heaven to wander about on such a famous engineering achievement. With a cool breeze blowing down the harbour, it's also nice to sit down for a few minutes too.

Well, no rest for the wicked, and I'd better get back to the Hotel to get changed, and drag Sarah of to a show on Broadway. 

New York / Detroit Trip 2008 Day 2 - New York Part 2

Hour 46 - 5:30pm Sunday

After our quick nap, we grab our Metro passes and once again jump down to the 96th street subway, and head downtown to Eight Mile Creek Aussie restaurant on Mulberry St, Little Italy, NY. The restaurant is owned by a few Australian guys from Whyalla. It's starting to get dark ,and for the first time, it seems a little spooky coming back out of the subway on lower broadway. Eight Mile is only a few streets away, and we're there in no time. It's a cute little restaurant, with an upstairs and downstairs bar, and a beer garden out the back. We settle in for a Coopers (even Sarah had a pale ale...!). 

We order dinner and end up at the bar eating and chatting to the barman (from New York), a waiter from Sydney, and a very drunk Melbourn'ite that was in NY working for Citibank. We also had a chat to one of the owners from Whyalla, Frank Ford. We are actually good friends with Meg Ford (his sister) so after introducing ourselves, we got down to some more serious drinking... coopers once again, of course. The menu had some obligatory Aussie fare - kangaroo etc... - and meals were pretty damn good, IMHO. As the evening wore on, our little Melbourne friend became increasingly drunk, along with another two Aussies that wandered in - one in a wheelchair, who quite unceremoniously tipped over coming back in from outside.... oh dear. Frank dealt with them in true country style telling them (not so polietly) to bugger off, insisting to throw them in a cab. Just like back home.....

Saying our goodbye's, we head off to the Hotel for a well earned rest. When we get back to the hotel, I enquired at the desk where we could get a can of drink (soda) and ice, and was happily told that there were ice machines and soda machines on every floor. A quick first person survey revealed that this really meant ice on every floor, and coke machines on 4,5,7,9,12 .... hmm, and the ones on 5,7 and 9 were out of coke. I eventually found a couple of cokes, and filled up the ice bucket (us hotels don't usually have fridges, but instead have ice machines on every floor, and you fill up an ice bucket to keep things cold) and proceeded to pass out, quite thoroughly exhausted.

New York / Detroit Trip 2008 Day 2 - New York Part 2

I'm pretty much zoning out at this point, but Sarah is paying attention and overhears a guide telling a group that this ferry doesn't actually stop at Liberty Island. The statton ferry has just pulled in, and Sarah gets both barrels of a JD grumpy gram - the first of the trip. This isn't the ferry we want. Looking back, Sarah didn't deserve the hairy eyeballs that she got, but maybe the haze of a 40 hour commute got the better of me. I really wanted to go to Liberty Island, so I bolt back to the information booth only to confirm that we had been waiting for the wrong ferry.

We jump out of the line to the Statton Island, and hurry back past the subway station, and head towards Battery Park - where the ferries to Liberty Island leave from. We wander past a few ferries, that upon closer inspection are just a bay cruise - not stopping at the statue - and lob at the circular 'battery" building. The park guide booms out a repeated message " tickets to liberty island around to the left" .... he seems bored. We walk around the corner, only to find our first "Disney" line.

Aside: A disney line is a waiting line when you can't see where the line ends, and ultimately have no idea how long the wait really is. It's an exercise in wishful thinking for those folk in a disney line, as just when you think you're close to the front, you turn a corner, or move into a building or room, only to find that there are already 500 people in there waiting. Some might think that this is done on purpose to trick people into waiting for hours on end to get a ticket when they otherwise wouldn't wait for..... but then again, I could be a cynic, right? ..... hmmm... 

We hit the end of a line cordoned by strangely permanent looking temporary rails, and wait as the folk in front of us inch forward. About 20 minutes later, we enter the building, only to see the obligatory large room with 5 lines and 500 people waiting. About the same time, an announcement is made that there are no more tickets available for the "base" of the statue today, and the wait for a ferry is 1 1/2  to 2 hours. Sarah and aren't too keen on a 2 hour wait to get a ferry, and Sarah has a brainstorm - there is a short line where the booth signs say "pre-paid tickets", and so she jumps over to it and asks if we can buy tickets for the first ferry in the morning @ 8am. Success. We've got tickets for the island AND the base museum for 8am. Cool. Sarah also bought tickets for the harbour cruise that would allow us to see the Statue of Liberty and the Brookyln Bridge - score one for Sarah -  and we walk straight over and line up for the 12:30pm boat. 

The cruise leaves as scheduled, and we get an amazing view of Manhattan, The Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. See the pics page linked earlier for the photos. Whilst this took a hour and a half, I'd recommend it to anyone visiting New York, as it gives you an amazing perspective on the scale of Manhattan Island and the surrounding areas. One thing that we wouldn't recommend is the hot-dogs on the ferry - small, and not particularly tasty at all. Dunno what I expected, I suppose, but they did fill a gap.

With the plan set to get the Monday morning ferry to Liberty Island, we once again set of in search of the sights of Manhattan. Sarah wanted to see Wall Street, and we both were interested in having a look at "ground zero". The most striking thing about the World Trade Center is how big the area is. Whilst it is hard to visualise what it would have looked like with two huge buildings in the open space, you really do get a sensation of the enormity of what happened there on Sept 11. Unfortunately, there was construction going on and getting down into ground zero wasn't an option. Interestingly, from one of the viewing platforms around the edge, you can see a few of the train carriages that they haven't removed from what must of been the subway under the building. Kind of eerie, really. The rebuilding of the new towers is well under way, but looks as if it'll be a number of years before they'll be finished.

It takes us over an hour to walk around the Trade Center site, so we head off to the subway to go and see Washington Mews and New York University. Not really sure what the significance of the Washington Mews was for Sarah, but we got some photos, and walked through "Washington Square" to New York University. Haphazard is the best way to describe this campus - not at all like Stanford, or Harvard. Weird.

Hour 44 - 3:30pm Sunday

We're starting to run out of steam, so we jump back down to the subway and head back to Days Hotel and check in. Check in is quick, and after a quick trip up to the 11th floor in THE WORLDS SLOWEST LIFT we dump our stuff in our room, and settle in for a much needed shower and sit down. We're off to the restaurant eight mile creek for dinner, but there's also time for a quick nap.