Hi everyone! Yes, it has been a long 4 months since blogging, but I have been having such a great time with the travels. Well, an interesting time. Argentina was a bit hit and miss (the miss bits unfortunately outweighed the hits, but not by much!) Chile was an absolute highlight of my entire South American venture. Spain is brilliant - mainly because I am catching up with the boy for the first time in 9 months. I am currently in Florence, Italy and am amazed at how magnificent and how down to earth a city can be. But today I am here to begin my backtracking of 4 months of travel. It won't be easy, but I have highlights - starting off in December 17, when Adventurous Andy went for a wander in Manhattan, New York. So here it is: (I wrote this 4 months ago and had forgotten half of the stuff I did. Thank you crib notes!)
60 MINUTES IN MANHATTAN:
PLANES, TRAINS, AUTOMOBILES (AND THROW IN A COUPLE OF BUSES HERE AND THERE TOO!
OK, I know I’m going out of order with my blogs, but honestly I had to tell you the best 60 minutes - and dare I say 60 of the most interesting minutes of my life that I spent in downtown New York City. In one hour I managed to be witness to some bit of petty New York crime and watch 2 muggers run for their lives (and that was in the first 2 minutes!), lots of bright neon lights (all in English this time around), made a new friend, saw NYC at its busiest at night, ate a pretzel, saw the Chrysler Building and walked and explored Times Square before having to go back to the airport. And that my friends was just the summary! Here’s how my December 17 came about:
8:00am. LOCATION: EAST TORONTO, ONTARIO. Wake up and get ready to say goodbye to Dawn and her folks and farewell to such a marvellous 5 weeks in Canada. Before I do, I get to go exploring a bit, but downtown first!
9:00am. LOCATION: DOWNTOWN OSHAWA, ONTARIO. Catch 2 buses here! (Just the start of my transportation!)
9:50am. Transfer to the express highway bus to Scarborough Town Centre, which is the ‘burb before you hit downtown Toronto. It’s a nice area, and it’s where Dave works.
11:10am. LOCATION: SCARBOROUGH TOWN CENTRE. Meet with Dave so he can take me to the airport, as it’s not far from here. And here is where I get to do some exploring on my own before going to the airport, which was nice. Got to say goodbye (yes I’m a sop, but I know I’ll be back someday!) I had such a great stay (and yes, despite my bitching of the food, but the day before we had a homemade Newfie Jigs Dinner, which is a beef and veg stew….mmmmm yummy!)
11:50 On our way to the airport by car (here’s the automobile part!)
12:30 LOCATION: LESTER B PEARSON AIRPORT, TORONTO Checking in with Judy keeping me company. I had been packing and weighing my stuff and was at the 23kg limit, so imagine my surprise when the scales said I had 53kgs. The kgs sign was on, despite it being pounds. Was told to take 3 pounds of my stuff out, which was a winter boot and a bag, which I stuffed into my backpack quite easily. Had to say goodbye straight away to Judy and she had admitted saying that thanks to me, she realised just how spoilt Dawn was and how that needed to change. So apologies to Dawn with the new and improved Judy not doing many things for her anymore (I guess I’m such a good house-guest, but I did get that a lot J ). At check in I was told to retrieve my luggage at JFK to clear customs, which is a common practice whenever going to the States, even on transit. After all that, she then said my luggage was checked all the way to Buenos Aires. No biggy, but even so I wanted to double check at JFK to make sure that my bags were indeed en route to Arg.
12:45 LOCATION: CUSTOMS LINEUP, AIRPORT. As I was in line, I hear a familiar accent behind me. It was the splitting sound of my friend Brad - I quickly turned around to see if it was him (no, it wasn’t), but I was glad to hear the Aussie accent once more. He was telling the story of when he checked in only moments before: He gave his passport, as you do, When she was done, he asked, “Where’s my passport?”. She said, “I gave it back to you”. She hadn’t. “No you didn’t”. It went back and forth, with this lady adamant that she had given back the passport. He asked if he could go through all his luggage to find it, which he did. Still couldn’t find it. She checked her work area and found it - in her rubbish bin! What a cow! I would have cracked the shits! And it turns out that a passenger who was checked in before him had the same problem, only that time she threw out his boarding pass in her bin. I don’t know what she was on! So we chatted a bit and I managed to lose him when we were going through security.
1:00pm. LOCATION: GATE 11, TERMINAL 3. Go to my gate and hang. Turns out the Aussie is catching the same flight to JFK and he joins me. We have 90 minutes before departure and we chat away, exchanging travel stories. Turns out he looks like Brad, he talks like Brad, lives in Sydney like Brad, lives on the western side of Sydney like Brad - it was too much of a coincidence. But he doesn’t know Brad L It was going to be Albert’s first time in NYC, as was mine. I told him of my plan to go to Manhattan for a while during my 6 hour layover in NYC. He said, “I might come with you”. So I had a companion, which was lovely! He had arranged for a private car to get to downtown, but was having problems with confirming it, coz when he rang the driver, he had no idea he had to go to New York. I had done my research at 1am the previous morning and found a way to get downtown in 35 minutes by train, compared to an hour he was quoted. So I told him we’d take the train, if he wanted the adventure. He was up for it, so off we planned J We both did research the night before. His consisted of maps and layouts of the subway and train network - must have been about 20 pages. Mine consisted of a scrappy A5 piece of paper, double spaced with scribbles. We laughed and loved my idea of research!
1:45pm: There’s an announcement from the airline. The flight has been overbooked and there are some weight issues with the checked and carry on luggage. They asked for 4 volunteers to get off the plane and go onto the next flight to New York, which flies into La Guardia. I don’t even know whereabouts in New York that is! As compensation, the airline would give you a US$300 voucher to use for another flight. If I didn’t have a connecting flight from JFK and if I hadn‘t have had plans to go to Manhattan, I would have taken it. A voucher to another destination would have been great.
3:30pm. LOCATION: SOMEWHERE BETWEEN TORONTO AND JFK. We were an hour late boarding and taking off, but arrived only 10 minutes after the original ETA of 4:10pm. I guess the airline anticipated there would be delays with weather and other factors, so they had in the itinerary that it would take 2 hours to fly to New York. Which is crap, coz you can drive there in less than 3 hours!
4:20pm. LOCATION: JFK. As I was told, I went to get my baggage, partly thinking that it wouldn’t be there and it would be tagged to Arg. It didn’t come. I wasn’t overly concerned about it until I saw 4 other parties on our flight who also didn’t get their luggage. And for one of them, JFK was his last stop. A lovely family from Toronto had 2 other connectors to catch to get to Uruguay. After 20 minutes we asked the airline chick what was going on and she kept blowing us off and telling us to wait, as sometimes they can mix up the baggage claim chutes (there were only 3, how confusing can it be?). So we did. An hour finally went by and we all ganged up together to talk to her. All she said was to make a claim with baggage personnel and if they find it, they will send it off to the final destination. The only problem is: we didn’t know if our stuff was taken off the plane in Toronto due to the weight issue (and if so, we were pissy as to why we weren’t told), and if it was sent on another flight to JFK, or if they were proactive enough to tag it all the way to our final destination and lucky enough not to have to claim it and clear it (although being in New York, you’d think you’d have to claim it). Because the nice family and I were going to South America, we asked again about the status of our bags. After looking at both of our tickets, she said to me “Your bags have been checked all the way to Argentina, but his bags haven’t”. He had to make a claim. I really felt for them. The couple had 2 boys and it was their first family vacation and to have this to happen to them was just rotten, especially if they did take the baggage to them a few days later, it‘s a 2 hour drive from their final destination in Uruguay. I hope it worked out for them. The others had to make a claim too. I was REALLY lucky, but I just felt for the family. And Albert was waiting with me the whole hour. I lost 60 minutes with that debacle, which could have been spent in Manhattan, but I wasn’t going to let that spoil my adventure!
6:00pm. LOCATION: IN TRANSIT TO MANHATTAN! With sheer relief that my bags were OK, and still with an appetite for adventure, Albert and I made our way to downtown Manhattan. Not hard to do, but due to my relief of being out of baggage claim, I made an error and took us to Howard Beach station, which would take too long to get downtown. We backtracked, found our way again to Jamaica Beach station and instead of taking the subway, we took the local line to downtown Penn Station that only took 23 minutes. That saved us a lot of time (as you know, I had to catch a flight in 4 hours and time was something I didn’t have). And for those of you wanting to do the same, don’t confuse Penn Station on the Long Island Rail Road (that’s the local line) with the Penn Station subway line. I was on the ball with that because even the info booth dude at the tourits information centre told us to catch the subway!
7:20pm. LOCATION: DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN! Penn Station is HUGE! In fact it looked so recognisable that perhaps I had seen it in movies or TV shows I’ve seen, because I had a dream years ago of the EXACT station: the location, even the newspaper stands. It was like I had been there before. As a result, we didn’t get lost! As we left the station and revelled in the buzz (LOTS OF PPL!), we saw 2 big guys with a handbag making a run for it. One of them almost shoved me to the ground. This happened 2 minutes after getting out of Penn. We were thrilled to see it (we felt for the victim though, who was out of sight. We had a lot of sympathy today!), but it was just another warning to be vigilant with our belongings. I promptly put my passport in my zipped pocket, locked my money up and we were on our way!
LOCATION: 7TH AND 34TH - PENN STATION AND STREET VENDORS! I hadn’t eaten anything all day, not even brekkie or lunch at Toronto. I wasn’t hungry anyway, up until I saw my PRETZEL! I’ve ALWAYS wanted to get a pretzel from a street vendor - so I did! $2 - the same price as the hotdogs were. Albert got the hot dog with mustard while I got my beloved pretzel. Tasted more bready than I expected. And smelt like sausages, til I realised it was because it was next to the hot dogs! (DUH!) We got directions from another nice family for Times Square. They had an 8 year old daughter and when she found out we were Aussie, she FLIPPED! (In the good way!) “I LOVE THE WAY YOU AND THE BRITS TALK, SAY SOMETHING!” It was so great! Albert did his best Steve Irwin impersonation and that got her going even more! She was blown away. It was nice to do that to a kid!
We were on 7 and 34, we needed to get to 7 and 43, so we just kept walking up. The closer you get, the more people you run into and the more lights you see and the more of an energetic and anticipatory buzz that you can only feel when you’re about to enter one of the world’s busiest and well known intersections. And we were happy to say that we weren’t the only ones being snap happy! There’s still a strong police presence, but after seeing the muggers, we were vigilant. We saw Macy’s along the way (where they had the Thanksgiving Day parade that Dawn had planned on taking us, but never happened). Saw a lot of the decorated Christmas windows, but with not a lot of time to peruse, we kept going. Times Square is stunning! You would normally think: it’s just an intersection with neon lights, but it’s the atmosphere that makes it. Everyone was trying their Marilyn Monroe impersonations on the air vents on the ground (even me - didn‘t quite work with jeans and a backpack!) The main attractions were on the centre island, parts of which are pedestrian friendly. And just like in Shinjuku or any place in any major Japanese town: LOOK UP, or you‘ll miss an attraction or a sign! I almost missed the Chrysler building! I didn’t have time to get a lot of great photos, but was happy just being in a place that everyone wants to go to. All the circumstances, events and obstacles that took place in order for us to finally get downtown were worth it. Even though I only spent 60 minutes in Manhattan, I saw more than I ever thought I would in such a limited amount of time. It truly is the city that never sleeps! (Even the local train lines run 24 hours. I thought it was just the subway line) New York City rocks!
8:00pm: Start making our way back to Penn Station. My flight is at 10:15 and I had generously said by 8 to start heading back, seeing as it only takes 35 minutes all up to get to terminal 8 at JFK. Said goodbye to my new friend, jealous that he had 3 more days to explore, but also feeling great knowing I’d be seeing my family and friends the following day in Arg and getting into ’Spanish mode’ for the next 6 months.
8:30pm. LOCATION: PENN STATION Catch the express line train again back to Jamaica. In the train, the lights went out 5 times! It was a very Seinfeld moment, where Elaine is on the local line on the way to a Lesbian wedding and the train comes to a complete stop with no announcement on what’s happening and her talking and yelling to herself “MOVE TRAIN MOOOOOVE”, then her bitching about this guy rubbing his leg on her. The final straw was when the lights went out and she yells “MOTHER FUCKER!” Classic! I have lived a Seinfeld moment! Maybe that’s why I liked New York so much!
Not sure when the next blog is coming, but just know that my travels have been fantastic!!!
See ya later!!
