We love NY

Travel to NYC

What a day…  it seemed the full weight of the US government was doing its best to ensure we didn’t get there.  First those nasty climate change folks Obozo keeps talking about ordered up an October snowstorm for the US North East with up to 15” of snow predicted in some areas of NY.  Sure glad we have all this global warming… without that, I’m sure it would have been snowing when we left in September!

Secondly, we had to go through THREE separate security checks in San Jose just to get on the airplane (but they still didn’t find the bottle of water Jen was smuggling aboard) and then once we got to Miami we spent an hour at the US Immigration line up behind some disgruntled agent who seemed to be on a personal work to rule campaign… he was taking 10 minutes a person.  We finally smartened up and stood at the end of one of the other lines and by the time we got to the front, the other line was still only half way!  The agent we had took all of 15 seconds to check our docs and send us on our way.  Then we had to clear security again and just as we were getting into line, the entire TSA screening area shuts down for a “Passenger Warning”.  That lasts an hour as well with them telling us absolutely nothing.

The bells go off and they start clearing passengers again and then I get pulled over for a “Random Security Check”…  I noticed that at both immigration and security there are almost entirely only males (one Wahabbi lady in a wheel chair with the full burka on).  After all kinds of swabbing and patting down in inappropriate places (clothes on thankfully!) and getting scanned and tested for bomb residue, they send me on my way.  I find the kids but apparently Jen has been pulled off to the side as well.  I think the kids must have thought they’d been orphaned!  We wait while they repeated run Jen’s day pack through all kinds of checks and then find my folding (very sharp) knife in some secret pocket of the pack.  We had been using it for cutting fruit and I guess it ended up in her pack somehow.  Needless to say, we told them they could keep it.  That seemed to make them very happy as they had less paper work to fill out.  I guess they knew she didn’t have anything to do with it as the laser beams coming out of her eyes at me were about to set my hair on fire!

By the time we got through all of that, we arrive at the gate about 10 mins after the flight was to start boarding (with a scheduled 3 hour layover).  Of course, the snowstorm has slowed things down a bit but it’s still scheduled to leave within 15 minutes of the departure time (the only one of eight flights not cancelled to NY area) so we are able to grab a quick slice of pizza before boarding.  It was a very bumpy ride to NY and the pilot had to drop the thing down on a space shuttle descent profile… so people’s ears were really bugging them.  The poor teenage girl seated next to me was in tears the whole descent.  On this leg, we were unable to travel together so each of us was in a different spot.  I was quite pleased that everyone was fine and nobody got airsick (Rachel!).  We arrived at JFK about 25 minutes behind schedule and then waited for 10 minutes outside to get a cab (in our light summer clothes).  You really do acclimate to the temperatures as it was “only” +1 but it felt -20.  A 20 minute cab ride and we were at our Hotel  (the Pan American) in Queen’s not far from La Guardia.  Not a bad spot, but they were having some sort of a party in the lounge (6 floors down) and you could feel every beat of the bass guitar until 3:30am.  Thankfully, that was the only night we experienced that.

Rachel finally gets to see New York City!

Day 1 in New York City

So much to do and so little time to do it in!  We wake up this am and it is a beautiful clear day - a little chilly - but much better than the snowstorm we arrived in.  To take advantage of the day, we walk six figured we'd start out on the bottom of Manhattan and take the (free) ferry to Staten Island and back so that we could see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island as well as get some iconic shots of Manhattan.  The R subway train leaves from about 5 blocks from our hotel and drops us off right at the Staten Island Ferry terminal - all for $2.25 each.  Good deal!  Not too cold out and we get some good shots as you see below.

After the ferry ride, we walk through Battery Park, past Wall Street (and those dirty, slimy Occupy Wall Street protesters - most of whom look like they normally live on a subway grate or are relics from the 60's.  Tents on top of tents in a park that is the size of a very small city block.  At least they were quiet when we went by.  Lots of tents and not many people there – looked like it was all for the cameras.

Then it was over to the World Trade Centre site.  The first tower is well in progress and they are starting on the second tower.  They just changed to a ticket system for the memorial and we had no hope of getting tickets for this day so we settled for looking at the hole and the new buildings... it's still very sobering to think that 3000 people died there.  I've heard lots of complaints about the new buildings and from sketches I'd seen, I wasn't that fussed on it either, but after having seen them in person, I think they are close enough to evoke the original (very ugly design) but updated enough to look much better (and outclass any other building down there)... it gives the message... yeah, we lost the two towers but we built them back even bigger and better!  I like that.

The Twin Towers, new and improved.

Then it was back on the subway to go up to 34th street to show Rachel Macy's and then do the Empire State Building.  It’s a PERFECT day for that.  We could easily see New Jersey, Connecticut and all of Long Island.  We could easily pick out the airports at La Guardia, JFK, Newark and Teterboro - all of which, I've landed at in my old days when I was a pilot.  We also saw one other place they've landed an airliner - the Hudson River!  We had a very good view of exactly where Capt Skully brought in his wounded Airbus after flying it into a flock of Canada Geese (that both he and his First Officer noticed over a minute prior to hitting them!).

We were on the 86th floor (you can get up to the 102nd if you pay yet another $60... wasn't worth it for us) but it sure gave us a sense of how far up those people were when the two airliners flew into the WTC...  It's still amazing to me that (only) 3000 people died.  There are 18,000 that work in the Empire State Building and it wasn't nearly as big as the twin towers.  When you look up at the height of the building above you and imagine dropping it 1-2 floors, you can easily see that there is no bloody way the other 88 floors beneath you are going to hold up and why the WTC towers came down as they did.  Those conspiracy theorists are nuts and are as contemptible to me as those who believe the world is flat as well.  I should mention that we had to go through full security clearances to go up the ESB which is really quite sad.   Much of New York is like this now...  the productivity hits are huge.

After the Empire State Building we did some minor shopping at Rachel's favorite store (Aeropostiale) that was having a huge sale so she was pretty happy.  Then we walked up Broadway to Times Square and just hung out and watched some of the street shows and vendors.  It was even crazier than usual and lived up to the excitement expectations of the kids.  I'm impressed that every time I get back there, it's even cleaner and neater than the previous time.   I remember my first trip there in 82 and it was a cesspool of peep shows and we didn't feel safe walking from the Port Authority over to Times Square - garbage everywhere and you got pestered before you walked 10 feet.  I've got to give it to NYC (and Mayor Rudy G) who really cleaned it up.  It's very safe, clean and neat now - enough to put Toronto the Clean to shame.  I find downtown Toronto a dump in comparison.  New York is still my favorite city in North America by a long shot!

Toronto hasn't looked this clean in years!

After walking for miles and miles (and standing in line after line), we were all bushed so we had dinner at Sbarro's (an old standby of Jen's and mine) and then desert at Junior's Deli which I was surprised to find had a location at Time's Square.  I remember eating at Junior's in Brooklyn 20 years ago...  Great cheese cakes and the portion sizes were ridiculously huge as always.  We also saw and remembered Tads Steak House (which we always used to laugh that it stood for our TADS (Telephony Application Development System) that we were working on at the time).  Then back on the R train to our hotel in Queen's (the Pan American).

Day 2 in NYC

Another sunny day... and even warmer.  Today, we wanted to hit the American Museum of Natural History (one of my favorite places in New York) and a couple of spots for the kids (Darcy's Candy Shop pointed out to us by Jen's friend Joanne) and of course FAO Schwartz toy shop.  We passed by Apple's iStore on 59th (the cube) which was being rebuilt so Shawn being the iFan he is, demanded we go in... the place was a total zoo... must have been a thousand people in there looking at hundreds of devices.  For those of you that don't know, I'm not an iSheep and was predictably grumpy about the whole experience - although I must admit that Apple is doing something right to generate this level of excitement.  RIM is in real trouble.

Then it was back on the train to get up to 81st to the AMNH.  This was Halloween so Jen had looked up what was happening and they were running a trick or treat at 4-7... so getting there at noon gave us a good look around before the place became over run with 5-6 year olds.  That didn't stop Shawn & Rachel from doing their share of looting however and they both came away with loads of quality candies and chocolates...  A very good time was had by all - except we wished we had more time to read some of the display signs!  Much of the exhibits were about animals and scientific finds that we would be seeing in Tanzania in a few days so very germane!   Then it was back down to Times Square for dinner (back to Junior's for a deli sandwich) and more sightseeing.  No budget for theatre shows and we'd seen them all anyway.  Then back on the R train to Queen's for our last night at the hotel.

Rachel had come down with an ear infection that was bothering her and I found that my wishes for the pain/itching for the kids rashes to transfer to me had finally come true in a double dose to boot!  I have been trying every potion/cream that we had along with what else that I could find in the drug stores to not much avail.  The only good part was that when it’s cold, I'm not bothered... just when I warm up – Africa should be loads of fun!

We had planned on getting up early this am and heading to yet another clinic... for both Rachel and me but it finally soaked into my little brain that among all the planning we did, we DID manage to get some antibiotics prescribed for eventualities such as this so we broke out the prescription and started up the doses for the two of us.  Rachel seems much better already and my rashes don't seem as bad now either.  So instead we spent the morning in a local shopping centre picking up odds/ends for the next 2-3 months in Africa... more shirts for Jen, another battery for the camera and an iPod Touch for Rachel's birthday.  Now she can 'facetime' with her friends back home.  Shawn of course, had to set the whole thing up for her and within minutes had loaded it up with all his crap music and games.    The two of them are best buddies at the moment although its driving Jen to distraction because she wanted them to spend some time on studying to make up for the fact that we didn't get much of a chance to do that over the past few days (the fact that it was a weekend went right over her head - the slave master!)

Then we caught a limo to JFK, zipped through TSA and spent the last 2 hours wandering around duty free shops and writing the blog - Jen did manage to get some time from the lackies for math.
It looks like the flight is going out on time.  They were looking for 4 people to delay 2 hours for $2400 delta bucks and I was pretty tempted (we have a 4 hour connection) but Jen's giving up airplane travel in the US after our flight up to JFK and couldn't be convinced at pretty much any price.

They are closing up the plane, so that's it from NYC!  Next stop Amsterdam and then Kilimanjaro!