New York, New York
New York has always been the dream. When we first talked about doing this big trip New York was the place we knew we had to visit no matter what.
From day one our expectation for the world’s most famous city were extremely high. More importantly was how would it stand up against the world’s greatest city, Perth?
We landed at JFK late Friday afternoon. Over the coming week New York was going to teach us several of life’s important lessons, we just didn’t expect the first one would be within an hour of getting off the plane. The lesson was simple; never trust a NY Cabbie. This conversation will explain;
Cabbie: “Here we are, Holiday Inn”
Car pulls up in front of hotel, everyone jumps out. Driver throws the bags out of the boot
Jon: “OK, so we are still very new to this whole tipping thing” – (OK that’s a little lie as all you do in Hawaii and Las Vegas was tip every mother #$@%$er. But every state/city has their own tipping rules)
Jon: “How much do you usually get tipped for an airport pickup?”
Cabbie: “A pick up from JFK is the fare plus $15 tip... per passenger”
Jon: “$15 per passenger? 30 dollars on top of a $45 fair?”
Cabbie: “yep”
Jon: “Look all I have is $60”
And with that he had pocketed my last dollar and was off.
We are still novice travellers but the signs were there; his eyes lighting up after asking such a green question and still being able to hear him laugh his arse off from 2 block away where the obvious two. Lesson learnt, NY 1 – Jon & Sandy 0
Alarm bells are ringing!
For the most part the streets of Manhattan run like a grid. To get around the island effectively you have to master this system. Roads that run north to south are Avenues and the roads that cross the island east to west are streets. Streets are numbered lowest to highest starting from downtown heading north with Fifth Avenue being the dividing line between east and west. Ok to make things even worse Broadway Street is a little different as it cuts diagonally down the island and if Broadway intersects both an avenue and a street at the same point then it creates a square; Times Square, Madison Square, Union Square etc. Confusing? It is at the start but once you get your head around it (and walk around for 24hours straight) it really makes getting around New York very easy.
OK so we took a hop-on-hop-off tour on Saturday. This was by far the best thing we could have done as we got a good look at the city sitting atop of an open double-decker bus. The bus tour was also very informative, being studious pupils that we are (well one of us, the other was really only concerned where the shops where) the ride was as much an educational tour as a sightseeing one, here is a quick NY educational lesson for you all.
Five boroughs make up the City of New York, 1. Manhattan – the main island, where we were staying 2. Brooklyn – The most populated borough. 3. The Bronx – The only borough not situated on an island, it is connected to mainland USA. 4. Queens – Where you will find JFK and George Costanza’s parents house. 5. Staten Island – Ummm, the island to the south of Manhattan?
We had booked 6 nights initially but once we got sucked into the vortex of New York we knew we had to extend our stay; that and we (Jon) really wanted to check out a Yankee game at the NEW Yankee Stadium. To really experience the city like a true New Yorker there were three things we had to do (or so every tour guide had told us). They were chill out in Central Park, eat a Gray’s Papayas dog (only a Gray’s dog not a Papaya King or Papaya Dog) and get to a baseball game – REAL New Yorkers follow the Mets, but seeing how they suck and the Yankees just finished a massive 50-million-cachilllion dollar stadium, we really only had one option.
There is no way that this blog let alone your attention span has enough room for us to get out everything we saw/did/bought in New York. The place is hands down the most impressive city in America (yes we know it is only the fourth American city we have visited and yes we are aware that so far on every blog we have stated that ‘wow this is the best “thing/place” ever’) New York is. While every place we have visited has been very impressive, we wouldn’t say that they are places we would like to live for an extended period of time. New York was.
Here is just some of what we did in New York: Walked up and down the avenues, checked out the view from the top of Empire State Building, ate a cannoli in Little Italy, did tours of Brooklyn, the Bronx and a night tour of Manhattan, had a beer at the South Street Seaport, checked out the Statue of Liberty, cruised over to Staten Island on the free ferry, chilled out in Central Park, visited the Smithsonian, paid our respects at ground zero (World Trade Centre site), saw a show on Broadway – THE LION KING, drank the world's most dangerous thick-shake at the Shake Shack, Times Square at night, bought a pair of Jordans (you know it), rode the Subway at night and survived, ate a Grays Papaya dog (they have nothing on Bunning’s hot dogs though), got lost at Grand Central Station, and yes checked out a baseball game at the new Yankee Stadium – Yankees won 7 – 4 over the Los Angeles Angels.
So having finally made it to New York, the experience went above and beyond our expectations. This is one big city that we will definitely be coming back to one day... or even in six days as it were.
This brought us to the end of our pre-planned holiday. For those of you who know Sandy well, will know that everything she does is well organised and planned out. So much so that everything in her life is coordinated and matching! Not having anything planned the next seven days of our holiday was a massive step for us. We knew where we wanted to go, roughly, had booked a car but that was it, let the adventure begin.
First stop capital city, Washington D.C.
New York has always been the dream. When we first talked about doing this big trip New York was the place we knew we had to visit no matter what.
From day one our expectation for the world’s most famous city were extremely high. More importantly was how would it stand up against the world’s greatest city, Perth?
We landed at JFK late Friday afternoon. Over the coming week New York was going to teach us several of life’s important lessons, we just didn’t expect the first one would be within an hour of getting off the plane. The lesson was simple; never trust a NY Cabbie. This conversation will explain;
Cabbie: “Here we are, Holiday Inn”
Car pulls up in front of hotel, everyone jumps out. Driver throws the bags out of the boot
Jon: “OK, so we are still very new to this whole tipping thing” – (OK that’s a little lie as all you do in Hawaii and Las Vegas was tip every mother #$@%$er. But every state/city has their own tipping rules)
Jon: “How much do you usually get tipped for an airport pickup?”
Cabbie: “A pick up from JFK is the fare plus $15 tip... per passenger”
Jon: “$15 per passenger? 30 dollars on top of a $45 fair?”
Cabbie: “yep”
Jon: “Look all I have is $60”
And with that he had pocketed my last dollar and was off.
We are still novice travellers but the signs were there; his eyes lighting up after asking such a green question and still being able to hear him laugh his arse off from 2 block away where the obvious two. Lesson learnt, NY 1 – Jon & Sandy 0
Alarm bells are ringing!
For the most part the streets of Manhattan run like a grid. To get around the island effectively you have to master this system. Roads that run north to south are Avenues and the roads that cross the island east to west are streets. Streets are numbered lowest to highest starting from downtown heading north with Fifth Avenue being the dividing line between east and west. Ok to make things even worse Broadway Street is a little different as it cuts diagonally down the island and if Broadway intersects both an avenue and a street at the same point then it creates a square; Times Square, Madison Square, Union Square etc. Confusing? It is at the start but once you get your head around it (and walk around for 24hours straight) it really makes getting around New York very easy.
OK so we took a hop-on-hop-off tour on Saturday. This was by far the best thing we could have done as we got a good look at the city sitting atop of an open double-decker bus. The bus tour was also very informative, being studious pupils that we are (well one of us, the other was really only concerned where the shops where) the ride was as much an educational tour as a sightseeing one, here is a quick NY educational lesson for you all.
Five boroughs make up the City of New York, 1. Manhattan – the main island, where we were staying 2. Brooklyn – The most populated borough. 3. The Bronx – The only borough not situated on an island, it is connected to mainland USA. 4. Queens – Where you will find JFK and George Costanza’s parents house. 5. Staten Island – Ummm, the island to the south of Manhattan?
We had booked 6 nights initially but once we got sucked into the vortex of New York we knew we had to extend our stay; that and we (Jon) really wanted to check out a Yankee game at the NEW Yankee Stadium. To really experience the city like a true New Yorker there were three things we had to do (or so every tour guide had told us). They were chill out in Central Park, eat a Gray’s Papayas dog (only a Gray’s dog not a Papaya King or Papaya Dog) and get to a baseball game – REAL New Yorkers follow the Mets, but seeing how they suck and the Yankees just finished a massive 50-million-cachilllion dollar stadium, we really only had one option.
There is no way that this blog let alone your attention span has enough room for us to get out everything we saw/did/bought in New York. The place is hands down the most impressive city in America (yes we know it is only the fourth American city we have visited and yes we are aware that so far on every blog we have stated that ‘wow this is the best “thing/place” ever’) New York is. While every place we have visited has been very impressive, we wouldn’t say that they are places we would like to live for an extended period of time. New York was.
Here is just some of what we did in New York: Walked up and down the avenues, checked out the view from the top of Empire State Building, ate a cannoli in Little Italy, did tours of Brooklyn, the Bronx and a night tour of Manhattan, had a beer at the South Street Seaport, checked out the Statue of Liberty, cruised over to Staten Island on the free ferry, chilled out in Central Park, visited the Smithsonian, paid our respects at ground zero (World Trade Centre site), saw a show on Broadway – THE LION KING, drank the world's most dangerous thick-shake at the Shake Shack, Times Square at night, bought a pair of Jordans (you know it), rode the Subway at night and survived, ate a Grays Papaya dog (they have nothing on Bunning’s hot dogs though), got lost at Grand Central Station, and yes checked out a baseball game at the new Yankee Stadium – Yankees won 7 – 4 over the Los Angeles Angels.
So having finally made it to New York, the experience went above and beyond our expectations. This is one big city that we will definitely be coming back to one day... or even in six days as it were.
This brought us to the end of our pre-planned holiday. For those of you who know Sandy well, will know that everything she does is well organised and planned out. So much so that everything in her life is coordinated and matching! Not having anything planned the next seven days of our holiday was a massive step for us. We knew where we wanted to go, roughly, had booked a car but that was it, let the adventure begin.
First stop capital city, Washington D.C.
