Two days in New York. That is not even enough time to get oriented, but it is all we have, three nights and two and a half days actually. We join the ship tomorrow afternoon.
We made contact with Ian and Judy early in the morning and met in the lobby. First time in two years that we have seen each other. Within 50 feet of the hotel we are chatting with one of about 5,000 yellow-jacketed black ticket sellers for the hop-on-hop-off bus tours. We had months ago decided that we would do that on day one.
Breakfast in an open-air cafe and by 10 we were on the Bus. We took the 'Downtown' tour, which includes 'Midtown'.
Maybe a quick geography lesson would be in order. We are in Manhattan, and island, 20 Ks long and four Ks wide. So, downtown is the bottom half. The buses are open top two-deckers. It seems that here are almost as many tour buses as there are cabs in NY. We spent over two hours having an informative and delightful tour of this fascinating place.
I have been here a few times in my life, always in some hurried fashion and never really became oriented about what was where: Wall, street, the garment industry, the theatre section, the Brooklyn bridge, Greenwich, Soho, [which means South of Houston, a street in the area], and so on. Seinfeld makes more sense to me now.
On the way we passed Macy's, both original and new location. Did you ever wonder why Macy's shopping bags have that humungous big red star on them? Because Mr. Macy was originally a sailor and he had a red star tattooed on his hand.
Soon it was time to grab a lunch at a deli, unfortunately not a Jewish one that offers the whole 'Jewish Deli Experience'.
After lunch, back on the bus for the uptown tour. Through Upper Westside, Morningside, Harlem, east Harlem, etc. Past Central Park [2 1/2 x 1 mile], and all the fancy homes and mansions of the rich and wealthy. The tour was a feast for anybody remotely interested in architecture and a museum buff would have had a field day.
When we got on the bus in the afternoon, we had a Japanese tour guide. We had difficulty understanding him and it did not get better the longer we went on. We went past the place where John Lennon got shot. They have created a bit of an attraction in honour of him called 'Strawberry Fields', suddenly we had an urge to see the Strawberry Fields and got off the bus. Within minutes we were back on another bus. This time we had the most informative and knowledgeable guide ever! We never did see the Lennon shrine, as our intention was to change buses without offending our host.
By the way, New York seems to have cleaned up. Or maybe it never was as nasty as I thought. Harlem and the related areas are clean and tidy, as were all that we saw, all day long. I know there are poor areas everywhere but none that we saw. New York seems to be a very highly organized and well regulated city, from what we saw at least.
Back to the hotel in late afternoon, time for a jet-lag nap. A few showers were falling near the end of the trip, but not enough to spoil the day.
Later had a delightful dinner at Rosie O'grady's Saloon, across the street from our hotel. In bed at 10 and up at 6.30.
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