Speedboats, Fighter Jets and a Place Called Dumbo

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I went out early this morning to get some tickets for tomorrow’s tour and to go to the Apple store to take advantage of the fact that their prices are lower here than in the UK. I got the subway to Time Square just to find that the meeting place for the tour at the top-end of Time Square was actually closer to where I had started. Coming back from Grand Central Station required a change of train, but it went a bit wrong as I hadn’t taken a subway map with me. There is a complete lack of maps in the stations and it is all well too complicated to try and remember. Lesson four on travelling on the New York subway is to take a map with you.

Our first activity of the day was to go on the Beast speedboat. This was completely fantastic. The 3,000 horse-power speedboat powered at full speed down the Hudson River with rock music blasting out, much to the disgust and resentment of all the sailboats and other peace-loving craft whose tranquilly was shattered. Another speedboat tried to take us on, but he was left humiliated in our wake.

If you want to stay dry then sit at the front, as everyone at the back got soaked. That said, one of the guys in charge of the boat kept coming along and spraying people with a water pistol.

Next, my son and I went to the USS Intrepid whilst my wife and daughter went shopping. This is an old World War II aircraft carrier that has been converted into an air and space museum. Our New York City Passes gained us entry, but more importantly they allowed us to skip the rather long queues.

The latest addition here is one of the now defunct Space Shuttle Orbitors. This cost extra and had a massive queue, so given that we had seen one (albeit a mock-up) in the Cape Kennedy Space Center, we gave it a miss. There was also an also defunct British Airways Concord, various fighter planes, helicopters and a Blackbird spy-plane. Of course, there was also the aircraft carrier itself to look round.

We also did some shopping, which took us to the start of the footpath across the Brooklyn Bridge. Given that so far we had not left Manhattan, we arranged to meet my wife and daughter there and walk across the bridge to Brooklyn. This was a surprisingly pleasant walk, which was only ruined slightly by all the scaffolding due to some renovation work being done.

When we got to Brooklyn itself, we had a look round the Dumbo area between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges. This appeared to be an area of renovated warehouses and shops. There was the constant noise in the background of the trains going over the Manhattan Bridge. The bridge seemed to reverberate the sound, making it extremely loud.

We went to a pizza place for something to eat, which was considerably cheaper than anywhere we had eaten in Manhattan. The pizza was also the most massive I have ever seen. For some reason they had a Chelsea versus Milan football match on the TV, which I am surprised was of interest to anyone there.

Finally, we went to the park by the river with fantastic views of both bridges and downtown Manhattan. Loads of people were their taking pictures of the view as it was getting dark, so we followed suit.

It had been raining on and off all day, as it was now actually quite cool for the first time since we had arrived. Heading back down to the subway fixed that however. Whilst most of the trains are air-conditioned, the stations are hot and humid sweat boxes.

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