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Published: September 9th 2011
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There is no doubting that being in
New York makes you feel more alive. This was my 3rd visit to the Big Apple, but the second I step off the train in Manhattan it still puts my senses into a trance – everything moves so fast, the neon lights are so bright, the traffic and people on the streets are so loud. It must be the most alive city in the World. We stay at a hotel just opposite
Penn Station – an ideal location to hit everything in central Manhattan, and as we check in there is a barrage of information hitting you on the screens above the reception desk. One screen shows baseball scores, another has the weather, another has CNN headlines and along the bottom scrolls stock prices. In the elevator is a TV showing CNN, on the back of the taxi driver’s seat is a TV – New York City is a constant bombardment of information like nowhere else on earth.
First morning we find an old school diner for breakfast and slide into the booth. An overly cheery waitress pounces on us immediately and offers us coffee, it’s like as though she is reading our
mind. I order a stack of blueberry pancakes. For $6 I figure they must be small, but I forgot, this is New York, everything is bigger and better and out comes a huge stack of blueberry pancakes swimming in golden syrup. What a way to start the day! As I struggle through my pancakes, I can’t help but notice that the rather large woman in the booth opposite has the same pancakes and manages to smash through them and then tucks into a muffin. I’m certainly not well enough trained to be a proper New Yorker yet. The diner was perfect though and coming from London, the Manhattan level of service is simply amazing!
Unfortunately, early September brings rain to NYC, but it isn’t cold so we take a stroll up to
Central Park where we were supposed to be doing a bike tour, but it is cancelled so we reschedule for tomorrow. We then head to
Broadway and stop in at the
Late Show with David Letterman to enter the ticket ballot – and we get tickets – too easy. Watching a letterman taping in the
Ed Sullivan Theater is a great experience. The CBS orchestra are a
great band and get everyone upbeat, as does Dave and his banter. His main guests are the
Kardashian’s – who he basically takes the piss out of most of the interview but they are good sports and give it back to him. His main guest two days later is
Michael J Fox so I am a little gutted to miss that!
We went to 5th avenue and spent way too much time in the 6 storey
Tiffany’s store where I come out with a maxed out credit card but at least a happy wife. 5th Avenue is dominated by other over-the-top retail flagship stores that I try to avoid and shield my wife from seeing.
The next morning the rain subsided briefly enough for us to do the
Bike & Roll Central Park bike tour. We were the only ones crazy enough to brave the conditions, so got a personal tour of the massive park which you can really only do on a bike as it is so big. We stopped along the way at
Belvedere’s Castle,
Shakespeare’s Garden, the huge reservoir in the middle and of course,
Strawberry Fields. Our guide Tony pointed out other things along
the way, including the building where
John Lennon got shot, the building where
Jerry Seinfeld lives and most importantly, the building where the
Stay Puft Marshmallow Man defeated
Zuul.
From there we went to
Shake Shack in
Madison Square Park for what could be the best burger in New York and I was also introduced to the peanut butter milkshake. The American’s don’t beat around the bush when it comes to calorie intake! Our shopping expedition continued as we hit up Macy’s and other shops along 7th avenue before picking up half price tickets at TKTS booth in
Times Square for
Mary Poppins (certainly not my choice, but anyway).
Mary Poppins was in the impressive
New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd Street and we got surprisingly good tickets in about the 10th row. The show contained some incredible sets and I can appreciate the ticket prices having seen the way at which the sets and props are moved in and out of the stage by what must be hundreds of people offstage. The performers are all fantastic, particularly the two Banks children. The character of Mary Poppins also is quite funny as she has a bit of a New York attitude to her. While it wasn’t my scene, I could certainly appreciate it, and the acrobatics of the performers were also impressive with the chimney sweeper guy walking and singing upside down on the ceiling and Mary Poppins flying over the crowd. Broadway certainly puts on great performances and I wish I could stay for a few more days to see more. Sadly, that’s all we had time for in The Big Apple – the city that is so engrossing you never want to leave.
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