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Published: December 15th 2007
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Well this wasn't in the original plan….. New York again!!!
A second time in the USA and New York City in 2007 was never on the agenda, after going there in January with Daz, Mai and Alissa…. But during the middle of the year, when we were experiencing supposedly the wettest summer ever in the UK, I was chatting to Mum and Dad regarding their trip to Europe and what we would be doing when they arrived.
Egypt was on the agenda as you all probably know by now, and they would be using their Frequent flyer points to do an around the world trip. It turned out that they had to make a 12 day stop in New York before getting the flight back to Australia.
Qantas Frequent Flyers don’t make thing too easy on scheduling your trip as they only designate limited seating to Frequent flyers, so if your going to use your points on a trip, book way way in advance.
So upon booking my trip to Egypt with British Airways, I found they were having a special and it would only cost me 200 quid (About 450 Aussie Dollars) to fly return to
New York City from London. So I thought, why the hell not hey!!
And so that’s how I ended up in NYC again….
After a 6 hour flight from Cairo to London, a full day lay over in Heathrow, London and then another 7 hours of flying to the US we ended up in NYC at about 5am Egypt time, 3am London time and 11pm New York time. Yes, our body clocks were slightly out of wack.
Standing in the taxi line awaiting our ride to a 2 bedroom apartment on Statton Island, a driver on the other side of the rank yells out anyone want a limo? Dad chirps up “Bloody Oath”. So anyone calling my folks “cheap”, (yes I mean you Uncle Chris!!), they aint !!
And it was well worth it, when we got to the apartment, the lady had forgotten to put the key where she said she would leave it. We thought, hey at least we have a Limo to sleep in :>
On waking up the owner, we gave our thanks to the limo driver for waiting and we entered the Lounge room of our apartment, through main windows
the glittering lights of Manhattan twinkled in the distance. I wanted to run and put Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York on the CD player, but was so stuffed I decided to do it the next night and head to slumber land.
The next day we had a nice sleep in and we headed into Manhattan on the Staton Island Ferry (A free ferry that runs right by the Statue of Liberty), roaming down town NYC, visiting Wall St, Battery Park, Ground Zero (Which has actually come along way since I saw it 6 months ago) and working out the metro system. It actually quite easy once you get what letter trains go where (A single is 2 bucks or 1 pound, $2.50 aus) a trip it's good value too compared to (4 quid or 10 bucks in London).
Over the next few days we did the usual things one does in NYC, Empire State building (Dad wasn't too happy about the ques, but we ended up being allowed to walk up the stairs from the 80th floor which saved an hour of queuing), The guggenheim, Central Park, Times Square and so on and so on...
I
still love the place and hopefully some day soon I'll work for a bit in the city that never sleeps.
On leaving Statten Island we pick up a 24 foot CamperVan (RV), and head out of Jersey. Thank Christ I made Dad hire a GPS Tom Tom as we probably would have ended up driving through Times Square without it.
We headed North from NYC and made our way upto Niagara Falls and Daz & Mai, I'm so glad we went to Orlando in January instead of the falls. It was Fickin freezing (and it was only early November). But still a pretty amazing site. Unfortunately we didn't realise all the camping sites were closed a week prior to turning up and had to stay on the side of the road.
It was Dad's birthday after picking up the RV, and I managed to buy 2 Maine live lobsters from the local supermarket and some nice Crab claws. Dad was pretty shocked at also getting a leather jacket from the same shop Daz and I went mad at in NYC (under the Empire state building), so I think it's safe to say, Dad had a pretty good
birthday in the US.
After the falls we headed into Toronto. Couldn't believe it, we found a Parking place for the 24foot RV directly under the CN tower. Was a great park by Dad. That’s like parking a BUS in Sydney CBD.
On heading up the current worlds tallest building, mum was freakin a little (She does not do heights, but after the balloon trip in Egypt, I think she's conquered a slice of her fear). (I'm about to visit the worlds new largest building in Dubai (not yet complete as far as I'm aware). We had another excuse of an extravagant birthday for dad by sharing a seafood platter in the revolving restaurant 1000 feet up, although a snow storm came in and couldn't anything. It was very mystic though.
We did a loop around lake Ontario and passed back into the US via the 1000 Islands which were very picturesque. On following the Eyre canal back down through Upstate New York we bumped into the Finger lakes region which you could tell where all the rich from NYC have summer houses. Not a bad little weekender area!
Arriving just outside of Ithaca in a
State forest, we camp the night and explore the woods the next day, a 3 hour walk while constant leave fall from the tree was a memorable experience. See the pics !!
After driving back through Ithaca and Pennsylvania to NYC we got our good mate the Limo driver to pick us up from Jersey and deliver us to JFK where my folks and I parted ways, they flew back to Sydney (West) and I jumped on a plane for London (East). On arriving at Heathrow at 7am I grabbed my backpack and headed straight to work. That day we were off to Birmingham for a satellite office migration.
Well I’m heading back to Australia on Monday, (17/12/07) with a 5 day stop in Dubai, so I hope to see you all at home very soon. Merry Christmas to all…..
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Megz
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As usual......I'm jealous...
Hey Roh, Have a safe trip home - looking forward to the "live" versions of this blog. Megz