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New
York! New York!
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My New York Diary (October 1998) - Part 2Tuesday 27th October Central Park today, and by taxi. Walking from 25th to 58th is just too much: my legs are not used to this much exercise! Unfortunately the temperature has dropped again, into the mid-fifties making it just a little chilly. The Park is very autumnal, looking a bit bare. I'm surprised to see so many grey squirrels. There must be hundreds of them and they don't seem to be terribly afraid of humans: a little wary, yes, but not scared. I considered a buggy ride - after all, I am playing tourist - but decided they were for rich tourists, not people like me staying at a $52 a night hotel! Still, I spent a pleasant couple of hours, and sat for a while drinking tea before making my way down to Times Square. I think I made a mistake here. I walked down Broadway when really it would have been better to go down Sixth Avenue and take a look at Radio City, the Rockefeller Centre and perhaps St Patrick's Cathedral on the way. Still, there's always the next time! My first stop was the theatre to pick up my ticket for tonight's Broadway show. $75, nearly £50 forsooth! I've never paid that much for a theatre ticket. Still, how can you visit New York and not see at least one Broadway show? After that lunch (in the same diner in which I'd had breakfast yesterday). Something light, I thought. A chicken sandwich. Would I like fries? Why not? Bloody Nora! you could have fed a family on that little lot! I think the sandwich had a whole poultry farm in it! Then back to 42nd Street for my visit to The Mining Company to meet with all those people with whom I've worked for the last eighteen months but who have otherwise been no more than names on an email. It was great! As my previous contacts with them suggested, everyone from Scott Kurnit, the big boss, down was really friendly and seemed genuinely pleased to receive this Transatlantic visitor, even though he's famous for pedantic arguments over excluding American English from his site! It's an impressive organisation, About.com, occupying one floor of the News Building, and a veritable hive of industry - as it has to be, maintaining over 600 sites run by almost 600 Guides around the world. I spent a very enjoyable and informative couple of hours there. And then it was back to the hotel, a bit of a rest, a wash and off for a meal. It was Tibetan this time. Very tasty - and the portions were reasonable, too! And then back to Midtown for tonight's show, Chicago. On the way back I had my first dispute with a NY taxi driver. I asked him to take to me 26th and 3rd but he stopped at 26th and 5th. Wrong, I said. He denied it. I had said 26th and 5th. No I hadn't. Yes I had. No I hadn't. Well, you get the picture. Alright, he'd take me there, but he'd restart the meter, so I'd have to pay the initial fee again. Now $2 isn't a fortune, I know, but it was the principle of the thing. To hell with him. I got out and walked - and he got no tip! Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! My feet were killing me by the time I got to the hotel, so, once more, a quick crash and I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow! Wednesday 27th October If you go to New York, you've got to do the touristy things, and nothing is more touristy than the Empire State Building. Alright, it's no longer the highest building in New York, much less the world, but it's the one everyone knows and it's essential visiting. So that's where I spent this morning. Unfortunately the day was very overcast and everything beyond five miles faded into obscurity, but even so the view is impressive. In fact, looking straight down is almost as exciting as looking towards the horizon. This afternoon was to have been time for another matinee but the show I wanted to see was down in SoHo and when I came down from the Empire State I felt absolutely exhausted and could not face the trek downtown, so I dragged my weary way back to the hotel, lay down on the bed to read a little, and promptly fell asleep! What a waste! But it was inevitable, I suppose. The early start on Saturday, the flight, the full days and all the walking combined to knock me out. It's a good job I didn't get to the theatre, because I'd probably have fallen asleep. It wouldn't be the first time! I have actually begun to drift off in shows at Edinburgh and, just on the Friday afternoon before setting off, a colleague had to kick my leg with considerable force to wake me up when I dropped off in a meeting at work! Fortunately the guy taking the meeting hadn't noticed. Still, the sleep did refresh me, so I headed off to see the last show of my visit, a production of The Taming of the Shrew. This was so far off-Broadway that it was almost in the Hudson River! It was in the back room of a bar near the junction of 40th and 9th in the area which used to be known (and still is, by most New Yorkers) as Hell's Kitchen. A few years ago they decided to rename the area so as to give it a less sleazy name - so they called it Clinton instead! The man who thought of that deserves a cigar! I have to admit that this was the only time during my entire stay that I felt a little vulnerable: it was real Hill Street Blues country! It was an early start - 7.00 - so the show came down early enough for me to have a meal. I hadn't had time beforehand: I'd slept too long! I got a taxi - warnings about danger in certain areas filling my thoughts and putting me off walking - back to Third and treated myself to another Afghan meal. By the time I came out of the restaurant it was pouring with rain, so I just headed back to the hotel, read for a while, and then retired. My afternoon's siesta had had no effect on my ability to crash out in seconds! Thursday 28th October The last day! I was really sad to be leaving but I fully intended to make the most of the last day. My flight wasn't till 6.30 so I had time to head off to Pier 83 at the west end of 42nd Street for a three hour river cruise around Manhattan - an absolute bargain at just $22. The wind had got up and it was a bit chilly on deck, but it was a pleasant and interesting three hours and made me realise just how much of Manhattan I hadn't seen. I'll just have to go back again! The rest would be quite boring in the telling (and the doing, for that matter), if it hadn't been for the fact that, when I got to Newark I was informed that they were having mechanical trouble with the aircraft, so we were all put on a bus for the two hour journey to Philadelphia where we were all crammed onto another aircraft, having had to go through the checking-in process yet again - why, for God's sake? The flight was like all overnighters (!) and we arrived in Amsterdam with just enough time to rush to another gate to catch the Teesside flight. Except that when we got there, we discovered that it was delayed by two hours because of the dreadful weather. So it was nearly midday by the time I was faced with the forty mile drive home. Oh boy! A lot of people have made comments about how I could afford to fly to New York for just a few days, and yet it isn't that expensive. The return airfare was just over £270 - less than the fare to Rome and the hotel cost me about £150 for five nights. OK, it isn't cheap, but it's not expensive either, and I can assure you that it was worth every penny! |
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