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Published: September 7th 2007
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Our Hotel.
Looks okay from the outside. New York, New York - the city so good the named it twice. Well, whoever made that statement had obviously never been anywhere else. New York is a dump, a dirty, smelly dump - but it is pretty exciting none the less.
We left Boston at around 10:45am on Tuesday on a ‘Peter Pan’ ( subsidiary of Greyhound ) bus. We should have left earlier, but the bus broke down in the depot and had to be jump started off the bus next to us. The driver was a right barrel of laughs - sour faced, stressed out old black dude that had no time for anyone. We were soon out of Boston and had a nice 3 ½ hours of gentle, un-crowded freeway flanked either side by forests as far as the eye could see. The last hour was a bit of a crawl as we entered the outskirts of New York We came in through Harlem and the Bronx, to be honest the bus is a good way to get into NYC as you do get to see a lot of the places where we probably wouldn’t venture on our own. Put it this way, for about ½
we drove steadily through the Bronx and Harlem and did not see one single white face - anywhere. I think we would look a little conspicuous heading out for an afternoon stroll through Harlem. We arrived at the Port Authority bus terminal, about 10 locks from our hotel. Normally we would walk that but our luggage was heavy and we were in rush hour New York so a yellow cab it was. 15 minutes and $6.00 later we were outside our hotel - The Hotel Penn, right opposite Madison Square Garden.
Our hotel is on 7th avenue between 32nd & 33rd street. The outside of the hotel looks good, typical old New York hotel, but the inside is a cross between Bates Motel and the hotel from ‘The Shining’. The room is a dump that you can’t swing the proverbial cat in. We called down to reception to say we had requested one of the refurbished, superior rooms in the hotel - we were told we were in one! I’d hate to say a standard, un-refurbished room.
We were pretty tired by the time we checked in, so just had a quick change and walked down 5th avenue,
Hard Rock Cafe.
Wall of signed guitars in the Hard Rock Cafe - Times Square grabbed a slice of pizza for tea and carried on as far as Times Square - which incidentally, isn’t actually a square, just a cross roads. Still, it was exciting seeing all the huge advertising boards lit up. From there we worked our way around to Rockefeller Centre but there wasn’t much going on.
Day two in the big apple saw us up early for breakfast in a local deli then a quick march down to 1st Avenue to see the UN building. We signed up for a tour so that we could see all the different chambers, the tour was excellent - we saw a lot of the inside of the UN and the gifts that each member state had donated, we were able to go into the four main chambers - the General Assembly, the Economic Council, the Security Council and can’t remember the fourth. There was a debate on climate change in the main assembly which we were allowed to sit in on for a while. The UN is technically not on US soil, once you enter through the gates you are on international territory. They have their own post office and stamps so we sent
a few cards home.
From the UN we walked to Grand Central Station and had lunch in their food hall. There is a market in the station which is like a farmers market in the UK, it has the most amazing breads, cakes, fruits, fresh meat and fish.
From Grand Central we walked up to see the Chrysler building and had a look around the art deco foyer before heading to the New York library. I signed up for a library card so we could use the internet but there was too long a wait for a free computer.
On the evening we booked in to see Hairspray on Broadway, stopping at Macys department store on the way as Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas was in there launching a range of clothes. Managed to get a snap of her. Macys is a dump - 8 floors of clothes, crumbling walls and peeling paint.
Hairspray was brilliant, great fun. Once you got into the theatre you could have been back in the Darlington Civic or the Bellingham Forum, bizarre how we were expecting something special as it was Broadway - but a theatre is a theatre
I suppose. Once the show started though, you soon noticed the difference - the sets were lavish and very well done, the performance was polished and a great time was had.
On the way back we stopped in the Hard Rock Café for a couple of beers - a couple being the operative word, it’s way too expensive to drink here. A pint is around $7.00 ( £3.70 ish ). Hard Rock café is brilliant, loads of rock memorabilia in there donated from artists and bands. The whole chain started off by two guys in a small restaurant in London called the Hard Rock Café that Eric Clapton used to frequent, The story goes that he asked the two guys t keep him a regular table, to put his name over it or something. Anyway, he later sent them a signed guitar - a week later another famous guitarist sent one in as well and that started a flood of artists and bands sending in bits of kit. Apparently, the Hard Rock Café has the largest collection of rock memorabilia in the world spread out through its restaurants.
This morning was the start of our third day in
NY. We were up early for the tube to the American Museum of Natural History, where they filmed ‘Night at the Museum’. We managed to do the whole museum by 3pm, with a brief lunch break of a hot dog in Central Park. The museum was very good and the planetarium show was superb. A 360 degree dome theatre showing a file about planets and galaxies colliding. Brilliant.
From the museum, we walked through Central Park, dodging skaters, cyclists and the obligatory white horse drawn carriages.
We walked back from Central Park to the Hotel, which was quite a hike, stopping in an Irish bar on the way for a well earned pint, before a quick freshen up in the hotel and then a walk back to Times Square for dinner in the Hard Rock Café.
We’re both nursing sore feet and backs at the moment from all the walking, still - it’s all good training for the Inca Trail.
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Yuri
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cannot wait to see you
Sounds like you managed to enjoy NYC, despite your hotel situation. That is good. After that hotel, our place should look like a palace, even though it is in a great mess as we try to finish packing for the move. We are very excited to see you tomorrow!