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Published: September 20th 2010
Tuesday, July 6th Today a day for the cliches. The stuff you don't do as a local. Rising at a reasonable hour we hit the subway down to Ground Zero. It's been four years since I was here and five since Hayley had been. Not a lot has changed, it's still just a work site; a tribute to bureaucracy no doubt. The pictures look like it will be nice once it's finally complete - we'll probably never get to see it though. This was only a quick stop on the way to the bottom of the island.
At our stop, the Statue of Liberty, crowds of people were gathered all in one single line to catch the ferry. Man, we thought the British loved a queue! Does a statue relatively insignificant to either of us warrant such a wait? Nope, it most definitely does not. Especially in today's heat - the hottest day for 20 years topping at 104f or 39.5c. Ice cream is just cream. Luckily we spotted a tour that got "the closest to the statue of all the tours" and opted for that.
Our little boat tour took in lots of the local sights, moving down
The beautiful lady statue
and an uglier blue one...to the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges via the Financial District and by Pier 17 with its old-timey boats. The inside of the boat was a sweat vessel, the outside had METAL seats! Fire extinguishers were scattered across deck for when passengers spontaneously caught fire. How do you like your ass? Rare or well done?
On to Governor's Island and then the Statue of Liberty itself where we were pleased to note that a completely different tour boat undercut us by a good 5m. The statue itself is smaller than we thought for such a 'global' symbol (Americans keep saying - seriously how much do they think we care about them?), but definitely worth seeing. The remainder of the tour took in the stunning New York skyline, the Jersey shoreline and a really old pier that the locals saved from destruction.
In the afternoon the Empire State Building. Nearly tricked into paying a fortune for queue buster tickets (we're British we love a queue we said) we were surprised to see that the building was largely empty. Perfect. Skilfully avoiding the volume of people trying to sell the merchandise we hit up to the viewing platform. For those who
have done it, it needs no description. For those who haven't go do it you tight b*st*rds.
Very touristy. Very hot. I tracked what I drank today because it seemed excessive. You be the judge:
- 2 pints of water, 500ml apple juice, can of Mountain Dew, can of Ginger Beer, 2 more pints of water, a litre of water, 500ml blackberry juice and another 2 pints of water.
Only went to toilet like once as well.
Wednesday, July 7th In the morning we resolved to heading to the King Tut exhibition having missed it in London last year. Since it returns to Egypt so it was an opportunity not to be missed. The exhibition was held just off Times Square (more of later). As we stepped toward the entrance with its statues either side we spotted a tide of orange, some sort of organised trip. We ran to the ticket booth to avoid the queue. Only for them all to walk right past into the exhibit. Hmmm, there was just 5 fat kids in a row. Not totally unusual for here. A skinny one. Another group of chunkers.
Oh no. Fat camp. Skinny had 'staff' on
his shirt. As if his waistline wasn't enough of a clue.
We paid $29.50 to get in unaware of the guy in Times Square with $10 off vouchers. The exhibit has something like 250 artefacts so loads to see but not Tutankhamun's gold head and not the actual mummy itself. Funny since these are what is on the poster advertising it. At least Hayley is happy, you should have seen the face she made at the Met about how everything should be in Egypt. Now we know; it's just the cr*p that gets shipped over.
You would just about need to own the head of Tutankhamun to afford the audio guide. It's not necessary since the artefacts are adequately labelled. There's a whole ton (or tonne, that whole gold versus feathers thing always got us) of gold stuff, statues and doodads from the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Thankfully no Brendan Fraser. Interesting stuff but plagued with what felt like contradictions. Tutankhamun was portrayed as the saviour king who restored religion after his father had reduced it down to just a single God. However, he was just 12 at the time. Hmmm. The orange kids engulfed
us at every turn sucking the air out of the spacey (once) rooms. This must be like what it feels like in a smoothie.
One thing that was weird to us was how the Egyptians worshipped Sun Gods. Same as the Incas. Small world.
Times Square, as always we imagine, was absolutely packed. Again it probably needs no description the lights and adverts akin to something like a grand scale Thai backstreet. It was impossibler to go five seconds without being hassled; so much for civilisation you can get this in Africa. There's no shame in begging here when your badly written prose has been rejected. The most consistent theme was those 'Comedy Night' guys who start with "do you like comedy?" to which you have to answer yes but then have to think of elaborate lies why you don't like it enough to pay for a show.
Times Square is Times Square. We went to watch Spain against Germany.
Some funny names. Yes, even the US who hate to lose face has them:
BONA - can't remember what it was for
JACOB FUCHSBERG - family lawyer and part time butt of all his mates jokes.
Toronto in the morning.
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