Travel Diary

New York City - Day Two

I was in no hurry to join the land of the living.

Being exhausted and having my body quite confused by the crazy sleeping patterns from the flight and nap, I was blissfully content to rest until 10am, and even then could have easily slept for another hour. But I also could not forgo the entire day. Early morning, yes. Entire day, no.

The late morning was spent in Central Park, where there's a great deal to see and do. Our first excursion there was for exercise--yup, exercise, and since my exercise apparel wasn't really designed for cold weather, I had only one option--to keep moving and moving fast.

For the most part, this technique worked well. And we had plenty of company. Many locals and tourists spend time exercising around the park, taking photos, or walking their pets. We jogged around Jackie Onassis Reservoir and quickly learned it was supposed to be one-way circuit. Oops. Easy to fix. Just turn around and continue running. We stopped here and there for photos, though I could not stop too long. Needed to keep the blood pumping. If I'm running fast, I can stay warm enough to survive in almost freezing weather. It's just the stopping that can do damage. Plus, then the sweat begins to turn cold and well, it's just bad all around to stop.

Once we had enough exercise, we headed over to the Castle. I snapped off some shots of the little lake and performance theatre (Didn't know that was there, but oh so nice), and then Terry and I went back to the flat to fetch Bri, who was done sleeping and ready to join us. Since the exercise part was over, I also grabbed my coat, sweater, and DSLR.

Heading north along the park, we saw the Met building and walked by for information. I also saw the snack stands with the thick smoke and steam coming out all over the place. The aroma was what really drew me in (Think Star Wars and that tractor beam). I bought a Philly cheesesteak sandwich and devoured it. Turns out that the exercise and cold made me quite hungry (that and not eating all morning).

After time at the park, it was back to the apartment to prepare for meeting our friends on Staten Island. The trouble was that we decided to head over in a taxi. The traffic, time of deay, and location were not ideal for a trip that should have gone somewhat quickly. And the driver did his best to help, but it was bumper to bumper in the 40th Street area. All told, it was $40 to head from 87th to the Staten Island ferry station.

A funny part was when the cab driver got stuck for a moment behind a parked truck that was on the street but did not have its warning lights on. This annoyed our cab driver who pulled alongside the truck, rolled down the window and shouted a curse at the driver, then drove off. What was interesting was that he really didn't seem all too angry about it and the tone was more along the lines of “Come on, buddy! Use that blinker next time!” Heck, he may have been doing this just for show. Hard to say. But amusing, nevertheless.

We had picked up Jeff around 5th and 46th and were taking the ferry over. The cost was great: FREE! Turns out that since Staten Island (which is HUGE it turns out--just looks very small on the subway map) does not have a connecting subway, the city provides a free ferry service instead. It's great for tourists to use, although I guess it's not a massively popular tourist spot as there's not a tremendous amount to do on the island except live and sleep.

The ferry pulled in and took a large crowd of us across. On board, we got some great shots of the Statue of Liberty and of the city skyline as we pulled away from it. The air outside was chilly and with the wind, it was only bearable for so long. Once we had enough photos, it was time to get inside the boat. I could feel my fingers getting numb from lack of circulation.

After arriving, we were quickly greeted by our friend Jim and he took us outside where his wife Tanya was waiting in the mini-van. We got a small tour of the island and I got more photos of the skyline.

At their coast guard apartment, we were treated to some fine pizza (pizza would be a dominant meal on this trip) and some sort of cheesy garlic rolls, which were quite tasty. Jim had stopped drinking years ago, but did provide us with some beer, which was very kind of him.

After the meal, the guys just sat on the couch and chatted about life and what not. It had been many, many years since the four of us had all been in the same room. There was a lot to discuss.

We were anticipating taking the ferry back home, but Jim and Tanya wanted to drive us back and give a tour of the city too. Well, okay! This was especially nice as we got to see some fancy homes and Christmas lights in Brooklyn. Many well-to-do home owners don't even do their own lights, but hire companies to deck out the front yards with extreme Christmas light festivities. We then drove through much of the Italian district and Jim pointed out many restaurants to visit and explained a lot of the history. Since he had been there five years, he knew the town like the back of his hand as he spent many days just walking through it and finding new places to eat. An interesting place was the sidewalk and storefront where Gotti was arrested. I've now seen that!

Back in Manhattan, we saw the Bull of Wall Street and drove by the pier where the Titanic was to have docked 100 years ago. The city just left the pier as a type of memorial or memento to the nightmare disaster. We continued north to Harlem and drove past the Apollo Theatre, though its lights were dark as it was late at night. At one point, Tanya wanted to use a bathroom, so we visited a McDonalds in Harlem. Again, one would perhaps worry about something like that due to Hollywood's sour, jaded image of New York City, but everything was fine. I even bought fries, though shared most of them and I only wanted a quick taste.

The last iconic place we drove by was the storefront where the Seinfeld Restaurant establishing shot was taken. It looked pretty cool, although it's neon now and of course the actual scenes were not filmed there, but in LA. Still, everyone in the car was pretty much trying to emulate the jazzy bass thumping from the show, or at least had it running through their head.

Our little tour had been over two hours and was wonderful. The most amazing part was just how much of NYC Jim knew. Just small things like where to turn left to enter the highway in upper Manhattan. We were shocked at all that knowledge in just odd parts of town.

Finally, we got dropped off and headed in. The day had simply flown by.

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