Two Horns, Call Yourself a New York Cab Driver?

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When I said previously that the bucket list of brave and reckless things to do should include driving in Manhattan, there is one thing that needs to be added to the list, namely getting in a taxi and letting him do the driving in Manhattan. We hailed one of the larger cabs as we were heading to the airport and needed to accommodate all our luggage. Our taxi driver was a psychopath. He spent most of the time half way between two lanes, all of the time right up against the cars in front and was constantly switching from one lane to another. He was, however, obviously not that experienced as a New York cab driver as he only used his horn twice, although there were a constant barrage of horns coming from all around us. I can't imagine why.

I'm sure if I was driving around the streets of Manhattan all day every day then I would probably be psychotic as well.

We had allowed enough time to get to the airport based on our drive there on Sunday. Needless to say that now we got to there excessively early. The cabs are all marked as a "fixed price for JFK", so he obviously wanted to do it as quickly as possible.

However, before all that we had a few hours spare. I started the day with an alternative view of Manhattan, this time going across to Queens for the view back on Upper Manhattan.

Next we left our bags at the hotel and did some last minute exploring, photographing and, needless to say shopping. We had a look in the highly impressive Grand Central Station. I'm not sure if there was any specific security threat but there were a large number of soldiers rather than police guarding the inside of the station.

One of the top levels of the station is an Apple shop. I'd noticed that the prices in the Apple shop are, almost across the board, the same in dollars as they are in pounds back in the UK. Even with the tax, that is still a considerable saving. There were a couple of things that I had been considering and both were out of stock at all the convenient Apple shops, unless I was prepared to make a trek up to the Upper East side, which I wasn't. Come-on Apple, it's not like they were particularly new or special.

I came across another one of those 'love' signs, like the one that wasn't in Philadelphia. I'm not sure if that is coincidence or if it is a cliché for lots of American cities, not just the city of brotherly love.

We were gong from Terminal Four, which doesn't have a particularly wide range of shops. There was no Apple gear, but it was a particular shock to find that they didn't have any Southern Comfort in the Duty Free. My annual top-up of Southern Comfort is going to have to wait until next year now.

We had loads of time to kill and the free wifi only lasts for 30 minutes.

We then had yet more time to kill waiting for the flight to take off. By the time we should have been an hour into the flight we were still on the ground waiting in a queue, much like Heathrow. At least the plane was one of those so called Dreamliners, so if the PR is to be believed, we should all be full of beans when we land tomorrow morning.

A few things worth mentioning once we got home:

1. There was a note in one of our bags to let us know that it had been opened and checked (probably due to my tripod). Anyway, when we opened it, the most massive spider crawled out and caused mass panic throughout our house.

2. I got an email back concerning the earlier toll for the Queens and Midtown Tunnel. It has a link however to a website that can only be accessed from the US, so I guess we will just have to wait and see if a fine comes through from the rental car company.

3. Although it was very convenient walking to and from the car in the short-term car park (see Stormy Times in Washington and Not in The Political Sense), there was one big disadvantage compared to the long-term. In the long term there would probably only be one or two other cars coming and going next to you. In the short-term however there are probably hundreds and, inevitably, there would be one selfish bastard who was quite happy to open their doors and smash the car beside them.

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Photos

Love Sculpture
Brotherly love has moved to New York if that can be believed.

Queens View
Upper Manhattan from Queens.

Times Square
A last view of Times Square.

Grand Central Station
The clock on the outside of the station.