The Big Apple

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Today, Terry and I decided to do a day trip to New York. We were
actually dreading the trip, because we were really starting to feel
the jet lag and would have prefered to have had a day of veging out.
Unfortunately, this was the only day that we could do New York, so it
had to be done.

The day started early by catching a 6am train to New York. We got to
see a bit of the Pennsylvania countryside which to put shortly looked
like a wasteland. Essentially, think nuclear bomb exploding and
destroying everything, leaving half rotting buildings, abandoned cars
and dead trees. We tried to remain positive, thinking perhaps that
the land around the train lines usually isn't prime land and thus
attracts hobos and the like, but couldn't help wondering whether
Pennsylvania was just a disaster zone. It didn't help that none of
the trees had grown their leaves back yet, and that the sun was a
bright red ball, thus adding to the forlorn atmosphere.

Anyway, after a 2.5h trip, we arrived safely in New York. The first
stop was the famous Statue of Liberty. We decided to take the cheap
and quick route of catching a ferry to Staten Island - and island near
Liberty Island. This way, we'd be able to see her ladyship for free,
with the added benefit of not having to queue up to go on the tourist
ferry that goes directly to Liberty Island. It turned out this was
the right choice, because rather than queuing up for 2 hours which is
the norm, we just mosied onto the ferry. Within minutes we were
crusing past the good old lady, talking way too many photos.

Her ladyship was actually a bit disappointing - much smaller in
stature than anticipated. Nevertheless, it was a worthy sight.
However, even better was the sight of the Manhatten skyline, which
simply is spectacular. If you've ever seen the intro to CSI New York
- this is what it looks like!! Lets of tall buildings of all kinds of
colours.

The next stop was Ground Zero, the original site of the now destroyed
twin towers. This was sombre affair - piles of rubble and
construction stuff fenced off by wire fences. The American flag flew
proudly amidst the middle of it all, together with a large
rememberance cross. Numerous americans looked on sadly, while many
other non-american tourists just took pictures and filmed video
footage. Perhaps most moving was the sad forlorn tune of a busker
playing amazing grace on the flute - a sombre reminder of the sad
events that transpired here.

We then moved on to the Empire State building. The lonely planet had
warned us that the queues could be horrendous. However, as we entered
the building were relieved to find no such queues - or so we thought.
In glee, we started taking pictures of the lobby and thinking just how
lucky we were that the hoards of tourists had decided to bypass the
Empire State building for the day. However, upon turned the corner,
we were confronted my a massive, long queue that disappeared into maze
of corridors, and greated with a sign stating an expected wait of 1.5
hours!!!

However, a nice lady told us that a quick way to bypass this whole
queueing process was to buy tickets to the Empire State building
skyride - a multimedia presentation that, after you had watched it,
allowed you to cut into the middle of the queueing, shorting the total
waiting time to 40 mins. Although this required us to pay almost
double the entry price, we decided it was wise, considering we only
had a single day in New York.

Note to self. Don't trust the friendly lady who you think is trying
to help you out. This stupid skyride turned out to be nothing but a
government sponsored scam. You see, you ended up paying double the
entry fee, and got to see a rather cheesy multimedia presentation
about the empire state building and other attractions in New York.
This was followed by a rather B-grade motion ride (kind of the like
the batman ride in Movieworld) that took you flying over New York.
This concluded the skyride, but by now you had wasted 25 minutes
queueing for the skyride and then going through its processes. We
then got inserted into the middle of the queue to climb the Empire
State building, and after a prolonged 40min wait, managed to get to
the top. The sum result, is we ended paying of double the entry
price, but still had to wait 40 + 25 mins = 65 mins, instead of paying
the normal entry price and waiting 90 mins. So in total we saved 25
mins, but had to pay an extra $15US. Perhaps it was worth it, but I
still felt ripped off since they hadn't explained just how cheesy the
dodgy Skyride was.

Anyway, we finally got to the top of the empire state building and
walked out on to the viewing deck. It definately looked a bit
different from the one in Sleepless in Seattle. I bet Meg Ryan and
Tom Hanks didn't have to queue up for 1.5 hours either!! Or pay an
entry fee!! But the trip was worth it - the view was spectacular,
which is saying something since I'm not one for admiring views. What
made this particular view really amazing was the height of the
building. New York is filled with immense sky scrapers, but the
Empire State still stands out miles above it. Hence, you get to look
down into a maze of roads surrounded by huge buildings of a variety of
interesting colours from red brick to azure stone. Add to this the
dozens of little yellow taxis and you begin to feel like some big kid
looking down into a lego world. Hmm.... if only I could smash
something and cause an accident or something.

So yes, the Empire state building was worth it, despite the dodgy rip
off skyride. Well, at least this is what we told ourselves,
considering we spent almost 1.5 hours (it took another 15 mins to come
down the building).

By now it was lunch time, and time to meet up with some friends - ex
PhD students from the QUT speech labs Jason and John. It was fun to
catch with these guys as I personally hadn't seen them for awhile,
particularly Jason. Jason now lives in New York, and hence, we
willingly followed his lead when he suggested going to a restaurant
near the Brooklyn Bridge for lunch. We ended up somewhere near the
water on the this fantastic little restaurant overlooking the Brooklyn
Bridge. It was a pretty place, nice atmosphere and really nice food.
I had a plate of Buffalo Wings (fried chicken wings basted in Tabasco
sauce) plus a really really nice Deep Pan pizza (this pizza was great
- the crust tasted like garlic bread!!). We spent the afternoon
catching upm but were forced to leave at 4:30pm when the wind started
to pick up and our ears basically started to freeze off our face.

Hence we headed up to another New York site - good old Wall Street.
This actually was a bit of a disappointment as it was saturday, and as
such, we didn't get to see the volumes of rich financial dudes in
their fancy suits struting their stuff. Nevertheless, it was fun to
stand outside the New York stock exchange and marvel at the fact at
how a building I had seen a hundred times in movies seemed so
unfamiliar. I'm obviously not very observant.

Terry's wife had instructed him that he had to take a picture of a
certain building that starred as the HQ of the Opus Dei - a secret
society in the book "The Davinci Code". So we headed to the east side
to try and track this down. What was supposed to be a short detour
ended up into a 1 hour trek, and culminated in us unearthing a
building that you definately would consider to be the HQ of a secret
society - NOT!!!. The address and description provided in the book
(which is meant to be bsed on fact) actually was that of a fairly
ritzy apartment block. So much for the authenticity of the Davinci
code - they guy lied!!!

Our final stop for the day was Time Square - supposedly one of NYs
most famous sites, but an unfamiliar name to my philistine mind.
However, when we finally arrived, I realised that this was actually
that bright colour place full of big TV screens that you see in the
movies. This was probably the best part of New York, because it
really knocked into to you just how vibrant NY is. The place was
packed with theatres and people having a good time, and was really
just a fun place the hang around. You wouldn't find anything like
this in Brisbane. I think the atmosphere was way better than
equivalents such as Picadilliy circus in London.

After a long day, we headed back to Phili on the train. Tired and
rather worn out, we had to fight the urges to fall asleep on the
train, as we feared that we'd wake up bashed and naked lying in some
gutter. Thankfully, the train guard decided to entertain us with some
jokes which made the ride quite fun. He was actually just flirting
heavily with some women on the train, telling them all kinds of funny
jokes, but he was talking so loud that it kept to whole carriage
interested.

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