Blogs from Manhattan, New York, New York, United States, North America - page 17

After a three hour delay (voluntarily, in exchange for some free flights for our next trip…) we touched down at 8:30pm local time. What we hadn’t considered when agreeing to a later flight was that, by the time we had done all the customs malarkey and the officials had laughed at ‘Notting-ham’ on Zoe’s passport for some unknown reason, it was nearing 10pm. After briefly considering our options for getting downtown, we opted for the relatively cheap subway. This was our first mistake. There are many ways to describe New York’s subway system. Clean, user friendly and well signposted are not among them. Two hours later and we had been shouted at by two officials, seen some interesting characters, been given directions by a friendly, if somewhat shady looking, Mexican man and got on the wrong ... read more

Bonjour à tous Une journée qui n'ai pas sans me rappeler le début du voyage 2014. La météo avait vu juste. 100% pluie et un petit 13°. Je décide de garder la chambre seul problème elle a pris 120$ de plus en 24h, je remonte, regarde Booking, et je trouve, pour le même prix qu'hier, dans le Upper West Side tout près de Central Park. J'ai hésité, il y avait aussi le Sofitel, très bien situé, avec des femmes des chambres très serviables, mais nous connaissons tous quelqu'un qui a eu un problème. La gâterie de Nafitoussa, lui a coûté assez chère. Pour commencer, il ne pleut pas trop, un petit café sur Time Square. et il faut que je sorte la voiture avant 11H. Cet à ce moment que la pluie a commencée.Dense et froide. ... read more

As mentioned in the previous posting there should be some talk of cultural things. However in this fast paced, time poor city of New York a posting dedicated solely to one topic, be that culture (or as is our usual want one about food) would seem time profligate indeed. And so this posting shall combine observations and experiences of both food and culture. And as luck would have it the two topics do intertwine, as exemplified by one of our very first ports of call in our neighbourhood, Katz’s Deli down on Houston Street. Renowned for its double-fisted super-sized deli sandwiches, this was the place where the infamous ‘I’ll have what she’s having” scene from the movie “When Harry Met Sally” was set. Dianne had been very keen to visit this classic deli, however once in ... read more

Not quite a ludicrous as the title suggests, but not far off. May 2015, and a grand adventure awaited! Two lovely friends of mine were getting married in the Catskills, upstate New York at the end of May, so as well as this being a wonderful thing, it was also a great time to create an adventure. Whilst on that side of the world, it would have been rude not to. (Catskills blog to follow soon).The main criteria for adventure were Spanish speaking, and easy access for the three of us reuniting from London and Hong Kong. En route to Costa Rican jungles and beaches, I stopped off in New York with the gorgous bride to be! After a sixteen hour flight, I got a train to Penn Station and emerged into Madison square feeling delighted, ... read more

We took the train to downtown NY today, alighting at the World Trade Centre. No 1 opened a few months ago and is apparently the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. It's really quite amazing (hopefully photo uploaded) and if you stand near the base and look up you can hardly see the top. We visited the memorials too, one for each tower, which are also incredible and very poignant. After a mooch around we bought tickets for a 'hop on hop off' boat trip around Manhattan and out to the Statue of Liberty. There was a very cheery chap doing a tour guide commentary which started with a request not to stand on the seats and included an invitation to buy refreshments from the on-board bar and start your happy hour early, because "...it's always ... read more