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US Part 2 East Coast
Thursday June 25 - Tuesday June 30 -You have any 8-seater vans? We asked the Caribbean, laid back, lady behind the Hertz desk… She obviously had no idea why we were asking, so we tried to explain that we might want to upgrade to a bigger one so that we would get all our bags along as well... -No sir, only 7-seaters, -but it has a navigator system? You know, the "Hertz Neverlost”, system. -You don’t have to pay for it, she added… OK, except for the navigator, it was what we had requested, so we accepted the deal even if we would have wanted to upgrade to a bigger van. The guy at the delivery booth did his best with cleaning up the car a.s.a.p. and then proudly announced that it had only taken him 6 and ½ minutes to clean and wash up our Toyota Sienna. When sitting down in the car we soon found out that it was actually a 8-seater… I don’t know how the lady calculated it but we got the last seat for free!
Friday morning and time to go to New York… We thought of making a
stop in Philadelphia, to have a Philly-steak-sandwich for lunch but now our “Neverlost” system came into action. In the hotel we had asked for the closest Wal-Mart to purchase two booster seats for the smallest kids. Well, they ensured us that there were none in close vicinity, why they directed us to a “Target” shop not too far from our planned route. Then after driving a while Johanna figured out how to work the navigator and looked through the yellow pages inside it for Wal-Marts… Soon the navigator was plotting a route for the closest one so we decided to skip the proposed “Target” and go with the “Neverlost” Wal-Mart instead… It took us a ¼ of a lap around Washington on the ring road. It took ages with all the queues and ongoing construction work on the highway. When finally arriving on the site it turned out to be closed, permanently closed, it had seized to exist. (Big sigh) Ok, so we turned around and decided to take our chances and hope for running into a Target or Wal-Mart along the road. But after a while we tried again and got a new location in Baltimore… Again we followed
Big Nick's Pizza
Oh God I'm hungry! the route, ending up in a bit “rough” neighbourhood that certainly had seen the best of days. -“You have arrived” the system proclaimed. We were all looking around and no Wal-Marts were to be seen anywhere… “Allwayslost” flashed through my mind when we successfully navigated ourselves out on the main roads again without her(tz) assistance.
A look at the time remaining for our rental car, told us that we should be well on our way to NY by now. The Philly-Steak-Sandwiches for lunch had effectively been eaten up by our navigator system. Nothing else to do, but to continue on the New Jersey turnpike to New York.
In the late afternoon when we finally see the silhouette of Manhattan we hit some hideously slow traffic. The hours pass by and I start wondering if we are going to make it in time to the return location of the rental company.
Suddenly the wind picks up and a magnificent thunder storm was on top of us at the same time as we enter the Lincoln Tunnel. Finally in the middle of the tunnel, famous from a Sylvester Stallone movie, we pass the border between New Jersey and New York.
The program set by our own New Yorker Johanna was on the more ambitious side. We started up with a NY Slice Pizza at the next door Italian place. I don’t remember the name any more but it was great!
Saturday morning we took the Subway to the Staten Island ferry to get a closer look at the Statue of Liberty. The statue has been closed since 9/11 so we went for the quicker and cheaper alternative by taking the free ride to the next borough and back. Then we had some lunch at the “Tourist trap #1”, South Street Sea Port, next to the Brooklyn Bridge. Then off to “Ground Zero”. West 4th street basketball court was next and then we called it a day. Me and Emil walked our way from 9th Ave and 34th St to 2nd and 39th . In the evening we just had dinner at a close by diner which was just fine after a whole day in Manhattan.
Sunday started with going to B&H… The biggest camera store I’ve ever seen. You might wonder why we did not buy the camera already on Saturday but as it turns out they
are all closed on Saturdays, at least the more serious ones. They are all run by Jews which means they close on Saturdays - the Sabbath…
B&H is a huge store with all the cameras and related equipment you might think of. When in NY Go-And- See!! Next on the program were Johanna’s old apartment and then the Beacon Theatre where she had worked as an usher during numerous concerts. Big Nicks, a genuine place on the upper west side served us our lunch before we walked by the “Dakota” building and entered John Lennon’s "Strawberry fields" and Central Park.
Sunday afternoon in Central Park is a wonderful relaxing place with an enormous amount of activities for those who wish to look or even participate. We saw, Jugglers, Street Dancers, CP Dancing Roller Skaters, Brazilian Martial Arts performers and the list just goes on…
FAO Schwartz toy store was next in the corner of CP and then we ended the day with a real Chinese dinner in China Town… Pheew!
Monday was dedicated to shopping, but it seemed most of our stamina was used up by the previous two days. We didn’t shop that much, Instead we went up
to see Johanna’s old college, Hunter College where she took her examina. In the evening we found the NBA-store (mostly for Emil) where we bought some souvenirs before having dinner at a genuine Steak House close to Times Square. The lights at TS at night is quite spectacular.
After TS we went to se an open air cinema which is run by HBO on Monday nights in Bryant Park all summer when the weather allows. A nice free activity for those who enjoy classic movies in good company. The park was packed but the kids were a bit restless.
TBC…
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