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Published: January 28th 2009
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Arriving in New York is like stepping onto a film set. It's so familiar from TV and the movies, and the street names are dropped in so many hiphop tracks that I feel like I know it already. Manhattan Island is also quite small and really easy to navigate with logically numbered blocks, that you can feel at home quite quickly, which is just as well as we only have a few days here.
Our flight lands at JFK really early in the morning and we didn't sleep on the awful 12hr American Airlines flight...I'd rather do 30hrs on a Brazilian bus than fly with them again. When we get to the Hotel Alexander it's too early to check-in, so we decide that instead of taking our tired and confused brains out into the bustle of the city, to go to the nearby Natural History Museum. This is a good choice...it's the best museum I've ever been to. We travel all around the world, virtually this time, in their excellent exhibitions displaying the history of human and animal evolution. The dinosaur rooms are especially impressive (unfortunately Ross seems to have bunked off work today), and the underwater world is stunning.
We pass a group of school kids learning about other religions and laugh as one answers a question correctly because he'd "seen it on the Simpsons"...see, TV is educational Mom!
We emerge hours later, brains stimulated, into the bitterly cold afternoon. The -3 degree daytime temperature is a massive shock to our systems after the heat of Brazil. We retreat to the warmth of the hotel for a siesta and the local news channel is forecasting 8 inch blizzards for tomorrow. I go back out to buy some woolly tights to wear as long johns in preparation!
The next day we head off from our Upper West Side 'hood, walking down Broadway til we hit Times Square. We walk all over the place...the Empire State Building, Madison Square Gardens, the NYC Public Library and Macy's, but the snow starts falling heavily as we're exploring mid-town so we decide to head to Central Park where the snow's already settling. We walk through Strawberry Fields (the John Lennon memorial) and up to the Jackie Onassis Lake that is frozen solid. It's totally surreal to be messing about in the snow when 48hrs earlier we were sunning it on Ipanema. I
feel like a kid, with that same surge of hyper excitement, but it is absolutely freezing and we decide to do the sensible thing and find a cosy bar. The Dublin Tap House clearly doesn't get many female visitors, but the Guinness is good and it's a proper neighbourhood bar that has been there donkeys years, and is the perfect spot for a snowy Saturday afternoon.
You could easily get fat if you lived in America. Just a day and a half in and we've already hit the delis for the ubiquitous smoked salmon bagels and pastrami on rye, stuffed ourselves with clam chowder and jumbo shrimp, and tonight, to ward off the cold (!) we go to Artie's, a famous jewish deli, where we eat a spectacular burger topped with pastrami and served with a mountain of proper chips, 'slaw and pickles. It rocks...could even be the best burger I've ever eaten, and as we roll each other home through the snow I think it does keep me that little bit warmer!
The following day we set off to walk off yesterday's food mountain, although not before stopping in a sports bar off Times Square to watch
ManU spank Chelsea...not a good start to my day 😞 but it leaves Ritch, ever the gracious winner, with a spring in his step and a smug smile on his face...oh joy!
We pass a surprising "Free Palestine" demo on our way to the subway and head south for a look at the Statue of Liberty. We do it the cheap way, crossing the Hudson River on the free Staten Island ferry which gives you a good view of the Brooklyn Bridge and Lady Liberty herself. We stifle our laughs when an American asks when they painted it green and if it glows in the dark...doh!
There's no more snow today but it is freezing as we head north, past Wall Street and up into Chinatown. I'm going to have to talk about food again as we eat an incredible lunch; in an area saturated with restaurants we have a lucky accident when we choose Joe's Shanghai, which turns out to be award-winning for their famous dumplings. Even though the waiter tells us "soup inside" twice, I still don't get it until I bite into my first dumpling and scalding soup pours down my chin...classy!
After lunch
we pass into Little Italy, the streets lined with wannabe Godfathers, wearing full-length fur coats, trying to talk us into their restaurants...but they don't make us an offer we can't refuse as our bellies are unfortunately already full, but they do make us laugh with their characiture style.
We have literally walked the length of Manhattan over the past 2 days and both of us, having worn flipflops for over 2 months are feeling the strain in our Achilles. We decide full days of sightseeing are no way to prepare for nights of clubbing or bar-hopping, so instead we hobble out for a night at the movies (Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler...brilliant...go see!) and finish off at a little jazz bar...nice!
The New Yorkers speak with my favourite American accent...I could listen to them rapping about how "the Giants have gotta learn to represent!" all day (they lose the play-offs while we're there) and there's something about talking to Americans that makes me posh up my English-ness! Ordering a lux bagel breakfast at our local deli is made more fun by the guy declaring his love for me in his Brooklyn drawl. In fact people here have been
so friendly to us...I don't know if that famous NYC hard-edge has softened after 9-11, or if we just got lucky, but I found the New Yorkers to be welcoming and warm and the city is accessible and totally iconic. Like the t-shirt says...I heart NY.
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Cassie
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Mmmmmmm, clam chowder! x