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Published: June 18th 2008
Ok, so I know it’s a cliché, but yes, my second port of call was the Big Apple… The City that Never Sleeps… .
I had decided to take the Greyhound from Montréal to NY, and to be honest, apart from having to leave my hostel at 6.30am, it wasn’t too bad, bearing in mind some of the horror stories I had heard from others about said mode of transport. However, the border crossing wasn’t quite as smooth… Living in Europe, I’m used to just driving across borders without any problems at all (thank you Schengen!), the Canada-US border was a different story. There were 4 guys on duty and the questions they were firing at you were intense. To make matters worse, we were bunched so close together that everyone could hear all the interrogations. The most common questions were:
“what do you do for a living?” and
“how much money do you have on you?” As I was pondering their reaction to my answers, this British guy stepped up to the guillotine, sorry, desk. The conversation went something like this:
What do you do for a living? Not much, I left my job in
the UK to spend some time traveling in the States (cue the beginnings of a frown on the official’s face).
How much money do you have on you? My credit card.
So how will you be keeping yourself in the USA? Oh, my girlfriend lives there, I’ll be staying with her… By this point the official had heard enough and sent the guy to wait in the “We might let you in, but we’re going to make you sweat first” line. So obviously I was getting kinda anxious… Next the official starts to tease one guy as he’s shaking when he hands over his passport… Anyhoo, I get to the front and fill in my entry card, take it to the desk (just my luck I get the same guy who sent to other Brit to wait) and so it starts. And surprisingly it goes ok. Until they ask for money. You have to pay to enter the States. And I had left my purse on the bus. So I had to run back and get it, but he still let me in… and I’m still pissed about having to pay (I know it’s common practise, but still… $6 dollars
Central Park
Bethesda Fountainto enter… I’m going to make sure I get my moneys worth!)
So now we were in the States. They did let everyone through… eventually. After a rest-stop in Albany we arrived in NY and I got to see my first glimpse of that famous Manhattan sky-line as we made our way through New Jersey to the Lincoln Tunnel, which would take us under the Hudson and to our destination.
Upon arrival I stubbornly decided to ignore my Mum’s advice about getting a taxi to my hostel and jumped on the subway. Well… not quite jumped… more like limped up the counter to ask the best way to get to 103rd St…only to end up staring at the woman as she spouted some goggledy-gook to me in a language which may have bore some passing resemblance to English. However… I did make it to the right stop, more thanks to some helpful people on the subway than the woman at the ticket counter. I’d also like to point out that it was horrendously humid, the trains were packed full of smelly, sweaty people and my bags were heavy… so I was obviously on top of the world. But
anyway, I get to 103rd St, and the directions to my hostel say to go east on 103rd to Amsterdam… can you guess what’s coming next?! I look up at the street signs… it says 103 West, great I figure… I’ll go the opposite way… look up at that… 103 West…So obviously I go
against my instinct and walk the wrong way… I guess I’ll learn one-day!! So I eventually fell into the air-conditioned lobby of the hostel and checked in. It was massive, I had decided to stay at Hostelling International, and compared to my little bijou place in Montréal it was HUGE. I found my room, only to be told that I was only there for one night and would then have to check out and check back in again the next day. I was too tired to argue so just nodded and asked for my key. In my room I got chatting to an English girl from Oop North and we ended up going out for dinner, with this random French Au-Pair… she was weird.
As I was only spending 3 full days in NY, I wanted to figure out the best way to see the
place. The information desk was selling these things called “City Passes” which for $74 gave you entry to 6 different attractions in the City, as well as discounts in different shops and restaurants. It seemed like a good idea, so armed with that, and my metro card (they call it the Subway, but you need a Metro Card to get on… go figure!) I set off into the unknown… in the wrong direction… I had intended to go to the Museum Of Natural History, which is by Central Park. Now I knew Central Park was 3 blocks from my hostel... 3 blocks east… someone went west… but I got there eventually…
The Museum was ginormous. Don’t ask me to compare it to the one in London, as the last time I was there I was about 10, so I really can’t remember. It was also full of annoying school groups who were running around looking for naked people. So it wasn’t really a great experience. I still ended up spending a good few hours there. Without those brats running around, and if I had more time, I would gladly have spent the whole day. Instead, after lunch I headed across
Central Park (which is a really pretty park) to the East Side. Here I walked up Museum Mile, destination Guggenheim, only to discover that it was being renovated, and only one tiny part of it was open. So after all of 10 mins there I decided to head back to the hostel to check back in, but went via Grand Central Station, to take a few pictures. After moving into my new room, I went out to visit the Empire State Building, which like the 2 museums, was included in the pass. Somehow I managed to time it right so there wasn’t really a queue to get up to the Observatory Deck on the 86th Floor. Armed with my Audio Guide (included also in my ticket) I listened to Tony the guide point out all the sites of interest. It was really interesting and there were such good views. After 9/11 the Empire State Building is once again the tallest building in NYC so the views were not only pretty special, but unobstructed too. After that I headed to Times Square to look around.
The next day (Thursday) I was up bright and early (thanks to a woman in
my room who announced to the world at 6am that she couldn’t sleep and was therefore getting up) and headed uptown to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the worlds largest Gothic Cathedral. Except that half of it was closed due to renovation after a fire a few years back (this began to be quite a theme, as I encountered so many things under renovation or repair). This time I timed it right, and was ready to leave just as the school groups arrived. My next stop was Times Square where I was meant to catch a bus to get to the river. Except I got off at 34th St as opposed to 42nd St. No big deal, just walk a few blocks and get the bus… tho it helps if you wait on correct side of the road… Anyhow, I made it in time to the pier, where I had tickets (included in my pass) for a 2 hour cruise around Manhattan. This was probably one of the best things I did in NY. Not only was it really relaxing, sitting in the shade (yes, I voluntarily chose the shade over the sun) it was a really good
way to see the island, especially having seen it all from above the day before. The boat headed out to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, where we got really close; in order to take some really cool pictures. After that it sailed round the southern tip of Manhattan, up the Eastern Canal to Queens bridge before turning round and going all the way back. Even though I would gladly have stayed on that boat all day just going up and down the river, once back on dry land I jumped back on the bus and headed to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). With another free audio guide included in the ticket I went off to explore. Some of the exhibitions didn’t really interest me that much. What I really liked were all the Cubist and Abstract sections, especially Picasso and Braque. But there were also some more contemporary artists who really impressed me. By the time I left the MoMA is was nearly 5:30 and I still had a lot of the city to discover! I popped into St. Patrick’s Cathedral but didn’t stay as there was a mass going on. Instead I decided, in the middle
of rush-hour, to jump on the subway down to Chinatown… still I made it there… kind of. I actually ended up in Soho. But I just wandered around and soon found myself in Chinatown and then Little Italy. From there I jumped back on the Subway to meet up with my friend Kristin, who I had taught with in Thailand. Armed with just the name of the subway stop and the street the bar was in, I doubted that I would even make it there… and I did, first time! Maybe my internal compass was finally tuning itself to the North American settings…!! The bar Kristin was at was a really chilled place, kinda similar to some bars I’ve been to in Soho, London. However, apart from seeing Kristin again, the best thing about it was that with every alcoholic drink, you got a free pizza… not a slice, or a piece, but a
whole pizza. As I wasn’t drinking Kristin gave me one of her tokens and we just spent the time catching up, chatting to her friends and eating pizza!
On Friday I was able to have a bit of a lie-in, as I was due to
meet Kristin at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) but as she had to get in from Brooklyn I had time to take a leisurely stroll through Central Park and still be early! We went for an early lunch before heading to the Met. However, we had thought we were being clever by taking half of our lunch with us to eat in the park after we left the museum. That plan was nearly foiled when were told that we weren’t allowed to bring food into the museum… however after giving one of the hot-dog vendors a dollar, she agreed to hold the food for us! Back in the Met Kristin acted as my guide and showed me some of her favourite rooms, as well as exploring new exhibitions and taking goofy fotos. There was a section on Super-Hero Fashion, which ranged from amazingly cool, to downright weird! It was also cool to see some early photography by William Talbot Fox in the Photography exhibition. The Ancient Egypt section was amazing, but by far the most random thing we saw was in the American History section. It was called
Visible Storage and there were over 10,000 objects on display
in glass cabinets, ranging from cutlery to wicker chairs to picture frames (with and without pictures)… it was one of the most random things I think I’ve ever seen in a museum! And that was pretty much it. We reclaimed our food from the hot-dog vendor (who tried to get more money out of us) and then sat in the park watching some kids play baseball (which I’m still convinced is a strange version of rounders) before strolling down Broadway to meet Kristin’s twin Caitlin at the Penn Station. Once I saw them off on their train to the Hamptons I headed back to the hostel to try and pack my bag again as I was leaving for DC the next morning.
Checkout on Saturday was easy enough, and as I had a couple of hours to kill I left my bags at the hostel and just wandered round the neighbourhood. When I went back to get my bags I timed it just right so I was able to see about 20 mins of the Spain-Sweden game… the first Euro 2008 action I’ve seen!! Even better I got to see Fernando Torres’ goal 😊 Tho at this point I
prolly should say thank you to my Dad and my brother for keeping me up to date with all the tennis and football results!!
And so that was it. New York, the Big Apple, whatever you want to call it: done. Another one ticked off. In a way I’m still undecided about New York. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it. But it was a place that grew on me. It wasn’t a place that I fell in love with. There were parts of it that I really liked: Central Park, Little Italy… but when I compare it with Montréal, I have to say that I prefer Montréal. Who knows, maybe if there had been a Grand Prix going on in NY maybe I would have been more enamoured!
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Kate
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directions
I could suggest you invest in a compass for the rest of your travels...