USA (Part 5) - The final North American Chapter, the drab and the fab!

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Roll of the dice....

No sooner had we hit the road leaving Washington behind us heading North Eastish than it started to rain and rain all the way it did right through Baltimore, where we passed the Ravens stadium, past Philadelphia to Atlantic City. Tracy and I have both been to Vegas before, we both loved it and we both wanted to go again on this trip and in hindsight lord knows why we didn´t. I mean we started in Arizona at Phoenix anyway, what difference would a few hundred miles more make and start in Nevada at Vegas, still we didn´t and so instead we decided to see what the poor man´s Vegas was like.

Poor is the word. Probably not financially, I mean it has near a dozen or so casinos including the Tropicana and a couple of Trump casinos to name just a few, it also has a boardwalk right on the coast but it just plain doesn´t have the glitz and glam of Las Vegas.

We pulled into our very glitzy motel (Econolodge) right next door to the Tropicana and went for a stroll, right into the Tropicana. To be fair it was very nice inside and looked just like one of the Vegas casinos, in fact the shopping area reminded me of the Venetian in Vegas with the blue and white cloud ceiling. It had quite a number of restaurants and bars and a pretty big gambling area as well, but somehow though it just didn´t feel like sin city. We grabbed a drink in one of the bars and ate at another one, but as neither of us are big gamblers we called it a night pretty early at just before midnight.

The following day when we finally dragged ourselves out of bed we walked along the boardwalk and got a view of the beach, it was nice enough I suppose: I quite liked the Bally´s casino frontage, however the weather was a bit on the chilly side for our liking so we decided to duck into one of the restaurants only to be told they were full. This did not improve my view of the place one bit. We continued to walk around a bit and just by chance came upon a hospital. For some time now I have been wanting to get another x-ray of my arm to see how it is healing, the last one I got was at 8 weeks. I did get a tomography done in Panama at about 14 weeks and sent it to the surgeon in Buenos Aires, but of course he has been paid now and can´t be bothered to go pick up the CD from DHL to analyze it no matter how many times we called and emailed him. I am still seething about the whole thing now and that was in early September that I got the Tomography done at over $500 USD, plus $60 USD to send it to him. Anyway the information on the CD is now near three months old and so no doubt out of date and useless and so, as I said, I wanted to get an up to date x-ray so I could see how it was progressing. Unfortunately I was pretty much halted in the first instance, the hospital wouldn´t give me an x-ray without a prescription from a doctor, which of course I don´t have, so at this point we just knew it was going to be a lot harder to get an x-ray than in Bolivia and gave up without getting more frustrated and went to the hospital canteen for lunch. Now I know it sounds cheap but the food at the Hospital in Scottsdale, when Tracy was there some 5 weeks ago, was excellent, not so much so in this case in Atlantic City unfortunately but still it was cheap.

With nothing better to do we walked around Atlantic City´s version of the Outlet mall for an hour or two, just behind the main strip, again it was OK but nothing to write home about so I shall say no more, other than Tracy buying gloves because she was cold. That evening was spent in a similar fashion to the previous one in the Tropicana having a few drinks, some food and taking in the ambiance generally of the casino.

We had initially discussed the idea of spending three nights in Atlantic city, but as the third night was going to be a Saturday (November 6th, day 415 to be precise) and expensive as all the New Yorkers and Philadelphians come to Atlantic city for the day we decided to head north and cut the distance to New York in half by staying at little motel near Tinton Falls. Prior to this though we took in the New Jersey outlet mall to spend the money we didn´t spend on the tables at Atlantic City. About 5 hours later and $500 down we finally headed to the Roadway Inn motel that we had booked. Well what a joke, whilst the room was adequate in size, the TV didn´t work, neither did the internet and they said on their internet site when we booked the day before that they had laundry (which they didn´t) which was important to us. Now I have seen and stayed in a lot of rubbish on my travels, but to say you have a service (which we relied on) and then not have it is unacceptable to me. So with some five minutes of my constant onslaught of my opinion of the derisory state of his motel to the owner I had my money back and we were on our way to the Budget motel just down the road where the room was twice the size, the internet was really really quick (I am serious) and it was $10 cheaper too. As for the laundry I did it in a launderette down the road.

Start spreading the news.......

Now I know Tracy really enjoyed Texas and to be fair I thought it was great too, especially Austin but for me there is no better place on the planet to visit than New York City (NYC). So on this fine Sunday November 7th morning Tracy and I made our way the 60 or so miles though the New Jersey tunnel to the island of Manhattan. Interestingly enough you can not drive to Manhattan without paying tolls, this is not to say we were trying to avoid them, but weren´t sure if you could pay cash at them and if you had to register first, we took a chance and all was good.

No sooner was I on the island than I was in a traffic jam, no doubt due to the fact the NY Marathon was on that day, love NYC. Eventually we got round to Mr and Mrs Archit Shah´s residence on 59th between 9th and 10th Avenue and dropped of our bags there, they were out celebrating Indian new year, and then we were on our way again to drop off the motor at 22nd Street and 2nd Avenue. Now I have driven over 5000 miles in the USA in the past 6 weeks, but the last 5 miles I drove to 22nd and 2nd was the worst by far. Driving in Manhattan is clearly an art form best left to the Taxi drivers, I swear Tracy screamed at me more than once and that I was a hair´s breath away from a couple of crashes. There is just no lane discipline in Manhattan, the taxi drivers go as fast as they can and are all over the place. I was damn thankful to make it in one piece without any dents and to drop that car off. The old Kia Optima did us proud.

With all that mad driving there was nothing for it, I had to calm the nerves and have a pint and with good fortune it was NFL Sunday too. Off to a bar on 10th and 34th called Mercury to catch the Sunday football and relax a little. Tracy meantime decided to go take a look at the marathon and would you believe it, she ran into an old flame, Rael, who happened to be there running in the marathon also, incredible. So, some seven or so pints later for me and in to the Mercury walked Archit and Maria, incredibly sober I noticed for people having just celebrated new year, I obviously do it a little differently, Tracy had already returned earlier. It was great to see both Archit and Maria and before I knew it we were off (after seeing the Giants win) to a pizza place somewhere south of our present location which to be fair was excellent, if I go back to NYC I will definitely go there again, once I have figured out where it was.

Now I have been to NYC on many occasions, generally putting myself on Shah´s doorstep (literally on one occasion, but that´s all history now) up on 87th. However on this occasion of course he has moved to a very swanky new looking flat that must be at least 50% bigger than the former flat, though the rent is 50% higher too I am lead to believe. Still is has a view of downtown Manhattan and the Hudson River to kill for if you ask me, very nice indeed. Unfortunately however Archit wasn´t around other than the Sunday night as he was working in Montreal, so it was just Maria, Tracy and I in the flat for the duration.

Our near four full days in NYC were spent doing somewhat typical tourist things. It rained one day and was particularly miserable so Tracy and I did very little other than go and catch the film ´Wall Street 2´ at the cinema and ate Indian that night up near 86th and Amsterdam. The following day we did something I have never done before and went to Staten Island on the free ferry and took in the views of the Statue of Liberty and the view of Manhattan on the way back again. I would recommend it, though I would pick a warmer day than we had as it was bitterly cold, still I shouldn´t complain as at least it wasn´t raining. That evening Tracy was craving for chinese, and with us not wanting to cramp the flat anymore than we were already doing with our 3 big bags, we headed out for it towards Lincoln square and took in another film as well, on this occasion the ´Social Network´. Very good actually, however it left me feeling very sorry for Eduardo and not thinking to highly of Mark Zuckerburg.

On another day, weather now improved, I wanted to go and see the NYC History museum and also take in Central Park, so we combined both. After walking for well over an hour in Central Park, seeing the ice rink as we went, we came out on 5th Avenue at only 77th street and the museum was still 30 blocks further north, so that made the decision for me, we were taking the metro up. Eventually we got to the museum to be told it that it is under renovation and all they had was a special exhibition on dresses and some paintings, all the permanent exhibitions had been removed, well fabulous. We watched some 15 minute video on NYC history which was the only thing of the permanent exhibition they had remaining which only served to frustrate me even more as it was very good film and left me yearning, oh well next time. The museum departed somewhat earlier than expected we took a taxi south and did a little wandering along 5th Ave. Before I knew it Tracy wanted to go to Bloomingdales and I did what I do best and headed to the pub for a social few with the locals, that evening we had dinner and a couple of bottles of wine and generally put the world to rights back at the flat with Maria, lovely evening, I especially enjoyed the story of her brother Johnny on the plane being sick with a dustbag.

Our final day in the big apple we spent again doing something a bit different than just wandering the around the shops. We headed down to Chinatown to have dim sum at Golden Unicorn and then continued on by walking past the supreme court and taking in City Hall before walking to Brooklyn via the Brooklyn bridge. This was very nice indeed, the views of wall street and midtown from the bridge were pretty damn impressive if I do say so myself and Brooklyn heights was again pretty swanky I thought. We headed back to Manhattan via the metro in the mid afternoon with Tracy jumping off at Union Square to go do a little last minute bit of shoe shopping for Gary´s wedding. I mean time had a final couple pints in one of the locals before we both packed up our stuff back at the flat and said our goodbyes to Maria and headed off to JFK to catch the 20+ hour flight (via Heathrow) to South Africa.

I love NYC, greatest place on earth I think and this visit did nothing to dispel it, as Arnie would say, I´ll be back. Thank you Maria and Archit for your hospitality it was much appreciated.

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Photos

One of Patrick´s beer photos!
This shows how few photos we took in Atlantic City! I thought I would then show you one of Patrick´s local beer photos which he has been religious taking from the start of our travels.......slide show?

The Wall Street bull
A very popular photo spot apparently if the crowds were anything to go by