Advertisement
Published: October 19th 2013
The common areaOur flight to New York leaves just after lunch...so we took our time to pack and repack and pack again! Such fun - not! It's that one part of a holiday that everyone despises!
Rental car had to be dropped off at the National depot at Montreal Airport - all went smoothly there. Then check in and customs - takes so long o do the process - deep sigh of relief when you finally pass through all security Customs.
Checked in 3 bags $90 - flying with Air Canada - we had heaps of cabin baggage with us - no problems getting through with it all...had a snack at burger king (it was either that or pay for airline food both equally as nasty). Flight to NYC was less than 1.5 hours.
It was an amazing sight flying into NYC. We landed in La Guardia airport and caught a taxi to our accommodation in mid town Manhattan - Urban Oasis Hostel. While collecting our baggage at the airport terminal we were approached by a guy asking if we needed a taxi into the city. We told him where we needed to go and he quoted us a price
Common areaof $70...Straight away we were suspicious as we had received an email from the hostel advising that the taxi fare from La Guardia would be around $35-$40. The guy told us that there was no way any taxi could take us to mid-town for that price. Anyway we told him we would think about it and then we quickly walked off in another direction. Geoff then told me that he had seen a sign in the airport advising guests not to take rides from anybody if approached in the airport.
We went outside and caught a yellow taxi to our destination for the price of $35 plus the toll cost. Just goes to show that you need to have your wits about you all the time. On reflection we should have reported this guy to security but at the time we just wanted to get away and have no dramas.
We have a double deluxe room here at the hostel for $165 per night and we are very happy with our choice. We are on the 9th floor of an old building which has 2 floors turned into hostel style accommodation - and we are just around the
Kitchencorner from the Empire State Building - how amazing is that!
The people working here are super friendly, very obliging and are happy to share local information with us. The place is extraordinarily clean and well maintained. This has to be a Manhattan secret! No hesitation in recommending this place to anyone. Coffee and tea are provided as well as free use of computers in the common area. There is a lounge room and full size kitchen available for guest use. The bathrooms are shared and they are always spotlessly clean.
This is our second experience with staying in a hostel (the first being in Anchorage) and we feel very comfortable here - feels more like a home than anywhere else we have stayed. Sure is better than a sterile hotel environment - well it suits us anyway. Also the place is so quiet you feel like you have the 9th floor to yourself.
Got ourselves settled into the room and then went for a walk just around the corner to the CV Pharmacy to pick up a few groceries for breakfast, etc. As expected food is quite a bit more expensive here than other places -
Our roomthats just the way it is.
This is our second visit to NYC - the first being in 2011. Most definitely this time we do not feel as intimidated by the sheer size of the city as when we first came here. Although we spent 10 days here in 2009 there is still a lot more to see - tonight we will fine tune our itinerary to make the best possible use of our time here. We are very central to everything - times square, Madison Square Garden, 5th Avenue, Broadway and the subway just up the street.
This evening we walked a circuit around where we are staying (west 31st), to west 24 th and 7th Ave. Forgot how easy the walking is in NYC - so nice and flat - you can walk for miles and not even know it! There was a food expo on around Madison Square - the street was packed with people sampling local foods. We stopped by the local Whole Foods Market (one of my favourite grocery stores in the States) and bought a hot meal to bring home and a bottle of raspberry and apple cider along with some other
Flying into NYCfresh foods...we are all set for a good night and a big day tomorrow.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.262s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 13; qc: 74; dbt: 0.1287s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
