New York City, New York
Thursday, July 23, 2015
We had come to New York as on the 23rd Bryan was hoping to do another marathon swim, this time around Manhattan Island!
Known as M.I.M.S. (Manhattan Island Marathon Swim) it is one of the big world-wide, open water swims everyone aspires to do and you can only do it if you have already swum the English Channel. But more about that later.
The flight from England was great. We flew with Norwegian Air on a Boeing Dream Liner and it was a really lovely plane. Helped enormously by the fact that Bryan got us an upgrade which meant it was one of the rare occasions we turned left when we got on the plane.
Nice one Bryan!
The flight was smooth and really comfortable and we made good time landing an hour before schedule
handsome man
. We had hoped to see Jody's cousin Rhonda at JFK as coincidently, she had taken off an hour before us from Heathrow so we were hoping our 1 hour early landing meant we would arrive at the same time but we couldn't find her. :-( She was on her way to Buenos Aires to meet her grand daughter for the very first time so had a much longer flight ahead of her still.
We made it through immigration in record time, the pilot of our plane had told us to hurry as over 500 Koreans had also just landed and we should rush if we wanted to make it ahead of them. Which we did with the help of our upgrade - our bags came off first. That will do nicely thank you!
We didn't get asked any immigration questions at all as we had expected to be. Last few times we had been here it had been like the Spanish Inquisition.
We finally made it to our hotel - The Jane Hotel in Greenwich Village at 5:30 am UK time. The hotel looked beautiful all in authentic 1920's style (lots of it original by the look of it) and we were excited to see our room. We knew we had to share bathroom & toilet facilities but surely the room could not be any worse than our first night in New York when we went Off On Our Own the first time could it?
No - luckily for us it wasn't.
The hotel was lovely and when we opened the door to our room, we both started laughing. It was tiny. No really teeny tiny. Imagine a sleeper cabin on a train. It was the width of a single bunk bed and the door
Wow
. That was it. bunk beds on one side and no room to stand with our luggage together on the other. One of us had to climb on the bed if the other one wanted to go out the door. It was hilarious!
Still it was warm, spotlessly clean and the bunk beds were very comfortable indeed. We had slippers and robes provided for midnight dashes to the toilet so we were sorted. To be honest we were so tired we probably would have slept anywhere.
New York is somewhere we have both been before; together and in previous lives so how do you make it different? Determined to create a new impression we decided everything we did had to be something we haven't done before.
So the following day we explored the surrounding area. We hadn't been to this part of New York before and it was lovely. Very tranquil, clean and full of little cafes and bars. We stopped in one for a lovely New York breakfast and very friendly service (also a first for us in New York - the friendly service not breakfast!) and walked on to Madison Square Garden. John whom we had met in Australia, very kindly alerted us to the fact that U2 were playing there this week and we went to see if we could get tickets.
They were sold out but it looked promising if we went on-line. We headed back to our hotel to check out but as time was ticking away we dashed back on the subway (yet another first for us as) which has to be the dirtiest tube system in the world. Even India, China, Malaysia and Thailand have cleaner systems than this - it was disgusting.
on the subway
So after we had checked out of the Jane, we had to brave the subway again to go all the way to Wall Street, which believe it or not, is where we were staying next. Hotels and hostels are so expensive here that we were trying out AirBnB for the first time. For those who don't know what that is; it's where people with a spare room in their house advertise it and rent it out. So we were going to stay with a complete stranger in her home and pay her for it. It was a perfect solution for us as she was very close to where Bryan would start and finish his swim which meant no expensive taxis either.
We arrived at Wall Street and set about finding No. 37. It turned out to be an apartment block right above Tiffany's. This could be dangerous if Bryan leaves Jody alone for too long.
Sarah came out to meet us with her little dog Bobo. She was lovely and Bobo was very cute. Turns out she has just graduated from Harvard but did some schooling in England. It was a tiny apartment so the room was small without any window but with a double bed and walk-in wardrobe - the wardrobe was as big as our room in the Jane Hotel!
After a bit of a snooze we decided to go for a wander around the financial district. We found out we are right next to the Stock Exchange so that will be interesting come Monday morning. Also not far is the memorial to the people that died in the twin towers attack. As we didn't come to this part of the city last time we were here, we decided we would go and see it this time.
The Jane Hotel
Not really sure what to expect, we actually found it very tranquil and peaceful. The whole area has been landscaped and planted with trees where you can sit under. There were an awful lot of police around which was not very reassuring but aside from that it was actually a really nice place to be. The new Trade Centre One towers above it too, gleaming away in the sunshine as if in defiance of the people who brought the other two down. It's a beautiful building.
The main feature though is the two giant holes in the ground where the towers had stood. Now water features similar to waterfalls sit, they too were very calming. Well done New York, it could have been tacky but you made it something better than that.
The next day, as if on a mission to visit every one in the world, Bryan headed for the Apple store. He said he had a problem with an app on his phone but Jody thinks he just wanted an excuse to go there!
And as it was very near the start of "the High Line" we decided that in another first, we would go and walk the tracks. Heading over that way we bought lunch and stopped in Washington Square Park to eat it. Being a Saturday, the city felt very relaxed and many many people were out sun bathing, cooling off in the fountain and generally just chilling out. In many ways much nicer than Central Park.
We headed off to 'The Tracks' as it is also known. Here is some info about it:
The High Line is a 1.45-mile-long New York City linear park built in Manhattan on an elevated section of a disused New York Central Railroad spur called the West Side Line
our teeny tiny room at The Jane
Better than all that, it is one of the few attractions in the city that's free. Ideal for our pockets. It was also very hot whilst we were there and very busy. We walked about half of it, bought a couple of souvenirs and decided to head back. We had walked a very long way to get here and being too tired now to walk all that way back, we had no option but to brave the subway again. Oh dear. Never-mind. We survived.
We made the trip to Coney Island on Sunday morning. It's like Blackpool. Quite literally - it had funfairs, roller coasters, miles and miles of sandy beach, deck chairs and lots and lots of greasy food. Yuk!
We only stayed here long enough for Bryan to get some swimming in
Jane Street
. It's only 2 days now until his big swim around Manhattan Island so some last minute warming up is in order.
The same evening we were off to Madison Square Garden. Why we hear you ask?
We got tickets to see U2 in concert - Yeahy!
A band who have been on Jody's bucket list for some time now and we didn't want to miss the opportunity. MSG wasn't as big as we expected it to be - it holds 20,000 people but it was fully booked for 8 nights just to see U2. The concert was good - as you would expect from one of the biggest bands in the world, but we both felt Bono got a little bit preachy. Going on about justice - not that we are opposed to justice - no way, but we didn't pay all that money to be preached at. Entertain us Bono - just sing!
The following day was the day before Bryan's swim and we took it easy. We took the subway to Times Square again and walked from there to The Museum Of Sex. Ummm! Not what you think it would be at all. In fact it was a) boring - the floor about the victorians b) boring - the floor about the animal kingdom c) pathetic - the floor with the Booby Bouncy Castle. All in all a real waste of money.
From there we walked to 46th Street & 2nd Avenue. What was here? well nothing really. It is the setting in one of Jody's all time favourite books which was the home of the TET Corporation in one world and the home of The Rose in a parallel world
beautiful New York homes
. What book are we talking about? Stephen King's The Dark Tower of course. On the site is an actual tower block which is made of black glass. Of course in Jake's world it was just a vacant lot..... but that's a whole other story.
Not wanting to overdo it today and with a very early start Tuesday morning, we made our way home and got Bryan's feeds ready and went through the checklist for tomorrow. We were in bed by 8pm ready to get some sleep credits.
You can read all about Bryan's swim in a separate entry.
Our very last morning in New York and we were out the door early - well 8:30am but Sara wasn't up yet so we didn't get chance to say goodbye to her or Bobo which was a shame. She had been a good host although we were not sorry to leave the uncomfortable stuffy room behind.
It should have been a simple affair to get to the bus but it wasn't. First of all we had no idea where to go. Bryan had to rush back up to the 16th floor to get wifi to get a subway map for our exit. then when we got on the subway, Bryan used the ticket to go through the turnstile but there wasn't enough money on it to get Jody through as well. Simple to top it up you would think but no. The machines were not taking any cash. So use your credit card yes? No - wrong again. When you enter your credit card you have to enter your zip code which of course we didn't have. So now we are on opposite sides of the turnstiles and no apparent way of getting Jody through.
load of Bull!
She tried to ask a couple of people to help but they just ignored her. Finally one lovely sweet lady just offered to swipe her through the turnstile on her own card. Thank you whoever you were. We gave her our ticket which had almost the full fare on just 20 cents short and finally we were off. On the wrong line!
Grrr! Never-mind a switch further up the line and we were back on the right track. We got off at the stop Bryan had looked up and there was absolutely no sign what-so-ever of any buses...! We asked several people and they had no idea what we were on about. Eventually we looked up the street names to get a reference point on google maps and.... we were miles away.
How can this happen to 2 well seasoned travellers????
Time was ticking. It was now 8:55am and we had to be there at 9:15am or they could give our seats away. The bus left at 9:30am.
Easy you think - jump in a taxi as there are hundreds of them.
Nope .. hundreds there may be but none of them would stop. Many were already booked and several empty ones just would not stop. Grrr! It took us around 15 minutes to get one and luckily he knew exactly where we needed to be and understood our panic. He put his foot down and ... the traffic ground to a halt.
Well by now we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we were not destined to get on this bus at all and we would have to get the next one
Wall Street Bull
. But at 9:28 with just 2 minutes to spare he stopped at the bus stop where the bus was waiting and our seats were still ours. Phew!
The most frustrating bit about it was we were now only a very short distance from where we had been staying on Wall Street. It should only have taken 5 minutes not an hour!!
Never mind though, we were on the bus to Washington DC at last - a new city - somewhere neither of us had ever been before. Bye bye New York. We had a great time here this time and met some really nice people. We were really struck by the kindness and helpfulness of almost everyone we met which was the exact opposite of previous stays here.
We might just go back again after all!
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