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Dancing On The Big Piano and Feasting In NYC’s Oldest Pizzeria, New York, May 2012

11 Aug

Monday May 7th – Bleary-eyed, I pressed snooze on my alarm and waited til my noisy room-mates had vacated before going back to sleep for another couple of hours, grasping what little sleep I could after a basically sleepless night in The Snoring Room. Even the housekeeping staff who came to empty the bins were quiet enough to not wake me, so that gives you an idea of how loud those four people were snoring all night!

I went downstairs and met up with Calvin in the common room. Both of us had errands to run, so we went to a printing shop around the corner from the hostel where he got something printed from the internet, and I got a couple of photos from my Cuba trip printed. Why? Well, Lew (the Aussie I met a few times in the hostel… and outside!) had mentioned that he was heading to Cuba. I met a nice guy in Vinales who kept me company when my stupid roommate cleared off with the key, so I couldn’t go home when I wanted to. I figured I’d print these pictures, and see if Lew could drop them off to this guy in Vinales, which is a very small town. I liked the idea of this Cuban guy being surprised by a random Australian with photos from someone he knew. Lew won’t get to Cuba until mid-June, though, so I won’t know until then if the mission is successful! Anyway, Calvin and I got our stuff done, and then went back to the hostel to leave the photos on the noticeboard for Lew before heading out again.

Calvin and I had a mission for the day: a 5-star meal on a traveller’s budget. “Where could you possibly find an awesome thing like that?” I hear you ask. Well, we scooted all the way to Soho, starving because we’d skipped breakfast in anticipation of a feast, and pushed open the doors at a restaurant called L’Ecole. This restaurant is actually part of an international-standard training school for chefs and hospitality staff, and the customers are essentially ‘guinea pigs’ in a high-pressure training environment. The staff are rated on customer service and the quality of the food. For a full three-course meal, including tax and tips, I think we paid about $35 each.

For the record, the food was amazing. To begin with, they brought us some beautiful crusty bread and butter, and a little ‘amuse-bouche’ risotto ball with buffalo chilli sauce. For starters, Calvin had the perfect roasted vegetable terrine, which included Japanese eggplant, zucchini and gruyere cheese (among other goodies), served on a beautiful smear of basil pesto with some yummy fresh greens. I opted for the creamy corn bisque with smoked pork belly and chorizo oil. The bisque was thick, smokey and sweet, and the little bit of pork belly was a great salty touch. The meal was already kickass and we hadn’t even hit the main course yet!

Still smacking our lips and scraping our plates from the appetizers, we greedily eyed our mains as they arrived. Calvin had the hanger steak with ‘pommes boulangere’ (sliced almost all the way through and then roasted, I think), sauteed spinach and a rich savoury sauce, which was damn good. I was supremely satisfied with my choice of fish – I had the crispy branzino with fava bean, leek and maitake mushroom fricasee (!) on a bed of sweet pea puree. It sounds wierd but god, it was like a giant party on my tongue. The fricasee was incredible.

Next, they brought us out the dessert menus, and we had great trouble deciding between all the delicious choices. In the end we managed to break down the options and decided to share the passionfruit baked alaska with a chocolate cake base and raspberry coulis (oh my god!!!), and the chocolate angel food cake with white chocolate mousse and raspberries. I’d never had angel food cake before, so the fluffy texture was quite the surprise, and it came with a twist of home-made toffee on the top, which was crispy and chewy and had just a little bit of that yummy burnt toffee taste. The passionfruit baked alaska was stupidly good – the tart passionfruit ice cream centre surrounded by toasted meringue was beautifully offset by the rich chocolate base. I was totally a food monster. Calvin was my partner in crime. We danced out of that restaurant, bellies full, ridiculously satisfied with ourselves!

Our next stop was The Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had heard from a woman at the hostel that there was some sort of free event at The Met tonight, with an appearance by Beyonce, and we figured we’d spend the afternoon having a quick look at the museum and then hang out for the show. However… we both had some doubts as to the validity of this woman’s ‘big free party’ theory. For starters, she claimed to be a successful photographer who lived in New York, and yet she was staying in a youth hostel. And when she gave Calvin her business card, it was actually for a masseuse. She had also told him stories about how she was desperately in love with Gerard Butler, pretty much to the bunny-boiler stage. She even claimed that she somehow met him once, and in preparation for their meeting she had bought a brunette wig because she had heard that he liked brunettes, but she was blonde. Cue creepy stalker-style music. Apparently she and/or her friend run some sort of celebrity stalking website where they update celeb locations 24 hours a day. I was officially creeped out by the Gerard Butler wig story, let alone by the website.

Regardless of the dangers of following the advice of a borderline nutter, we traipsed up to the Upper East Side and started walking from the subway to The Met; we figured that even if the big Beyonce event wasn’t on, we could still enjoy the museum (although I think that both of us were pretty excited about a big free concert!). We passed a bunch of kids on the way who were equally as peeved by the return of the rain as we were; one of them started singing, “It’s raining, IT’S BORING!!!!” I think I prefer his revised lyrics to the originals! We also passed the most brilliant sight – a car that had parallel parked illegally across a bite in the pavement had been completely parked in, bumper-to-bumper, by angry drivers to the front and rear of him. Not even a millimetre remained between the bumpers; I’m surprised that the car’s alarm hadn’t been set off by these precision manoeuvres! That driver is going NOWHERE until at least one of his neighbours comes back and moves their car. Serves him right, cheeky bugger. Hilarious!

One thing we both noticed about the Upper East Side was all the money. I mean, I guess there’s money almost anywhere you go in Manhattan, but here we’re talking MONEY. Our journey was dotted with professional dog-walkers, uniformed doormen and nannies pushing prams and collecting kids from school. Wowee.

So anyway, through the wind and rain and crowds of nannies we battled, and made it to The Met.

Which was closed.

Just like it is every Monday.

Eeeargh! Not only that, but this celebrity event was, in fact, a private event to celebrate the launch of the new fashion exhibit at the museum. Yes, Beyonce was going to be there, but we were most definitively not invited! Short of hanging around for the next 8 hours in the rain waiting for the limos to show up (only for us to catch a millisecond glimpse of Beyonce’s stellar booty), there was nothing for us to do but carry on our merry way.

We have the same glasses!!! Hanging with the Muppets
FAO Schwarz, New York, May 2012

Not to be deflated by one setback, we caught the bus down 5th Avenue to the bottom of Central Park, where I directed us to the legendary FAO Schwarz toy shop… definitely the place to be cheered up on a rainy day! The doorman – in his red tunic and furry high-top hat – ushered us in, and it was playtime. We rolled up and down the aisles, poking at the soft toys and waving at Spiderman as we passed. We visited the Muppets Whatnot Workshop, where I considered designing and buying my very own Muppet, but denied it to myself because, quite frankly, I should be spending my money on experiences and not stuffed toys… and I don’t have room in my suitcase! But man, it was hard to say no. I’m such a big Henson fan and I’m in love with The Muppets. This is not an exaggeration. I LOVE them. But at least I allowed myself a little play with some of the Whatnots that they already had out – one was even wearing the same glasses as me! 🙂

Sharing exciting news with the Muppets
FAO Schwarz, New York, May 2012

We stopped at a little stand next to the toy trucks and spoke to Charles, a very friendly FAO Schwarz employee, who convinced us to get some dark chocolate-covered pretzels and milk chocolate-covered Oreos, and then threw in an extra Oreo as a bonus. There’s something about the combination of a salty pretzel in a chocolatey covering that is just magic in the mouth. We nibbled our goodies as we continued our tour of the store. This walk culminated in the achievement of a dream I’ve had since I was 7 years old. I got to dance on THE BIG PIANO!!! Do you remember that scene from ‘Big’, where Tom Hanks and his boss play Chopsticks and Heart & Soul on a giant light-up floor piano in a toy shop? Well, that toy shop was FAO Schwarz, and that piano (or a very good facsimile thereof) lives upstairs. And I got to dance on it!!! FINALLY! I remember watching that scene as a kid and just yearning for a go. Of course, I yearned even more for a luck dragon just like Atreyu had in the Neverending Story, but of the two dreams this was the one more likely to come true…! I pranced, I danced, and I tried not to trample all the little kids who were on the piano with me. Calvin and I were the only ‘grown-ups’ who were there without kids, and we were the only ones actually dancing on the piano. In a way, it was a bit sad. Not for us, but for the other adults. I mean, they obviously remember the movie or they wouldn’t have dragged their kids (who, mostly under 4, would not know anything about ‘Big’) to the piano, but none of them were brave enough to have a go, even though they probably had the same dream I had when they were kids. Be brave, people! Don’t worry about looking like an idiot! Enjoy yourself!!! So, it was me and Calvin and a bunch of toddlers, who seemed especially fascinated by me. There was one teeny-tiny little Korean girl in particular who just couldn’t tear her eyes away from me, and as such she features in most of my pictures, either staring or squatting or stumbling along the keyboard behind me.

Fulfilling a dream I’ve had since I was 7 – dancing on the piano from ‘Big’!
FAO Schwarz, New York, May 2012

Having fulfilled a dream 25 years in the making, we went downstairs to FAO Schweetz, where the store sells – of course – all kinds of sweets. Candy wonderland! Surprisingly restrained, we bought nothing, and went back onto Fifth Avenue. Next stop? Tiffany & Co. Where else? Terribly snotty, incredibly unaffordable and filled with shiny things, Tiffany’s is still THE name in jewelry. We tried not to look too slobby as we rounded the display cabinets, and tried not to look too surprised by the astronomical prices. Thousands of dollars for necklaces! Sheesh! We stepped into the lift where a lady pressed the buttons for us, and we noticed another lady in the lift with us who was undoubtedly here to actually buy something, not just schlep around the shelves like us. She was in her late 50s, maybe early 60s, with perfectly coiffed hair, expensive designer clothes, dripping with jewelry, with just a little too much makeup, and plastic surgery up the wazoo. She was barking instructions for preparing dinner at somebody over the phone. One has to wonder what she (or her husband) does for a living to be able to afford to pop into Tiffany’s of an afternoon for a browse. And how can I get that kind of money?!? 😉 Although, knowing me, I’d probably spend it on a house full of Muppet Whatnots instead of jewelry…!!!

We left Tiffany’s and passed Trump Tower before going in to Hollister, which we’d both heard of but didn’t know much about. Turns out it’s a surfy-type clothing shop. It was quite the shopping experience, I have to say. First, if you’re there at the right time, you’re greeted by half-naked six-pack-baring surfer boys in Hollister shorts ushering you into the shop. Blimey. Well, at least it’s the guys who are being exploited for a change! The shop itself was ginormous, but divided into many dark, dark, small wood-panelled labyrinthine rooms, so it was easy to become disoriented and lost in the store… which I suppose was the point. The longer you stay, the more likely you are to give in and buy something. Calvin and I separated to have a look around, and I found a red dress I quite liked and took it to a change room. I fitted into it, but thanks to their dim lighting scheme I couldn’t actually clearly SEE what the dress looked like on me or whether it fitted properly! Disgusted, I took it off and returned it to the rack. As it turns out, I’m not the only person who’s had that problem in Hollister; a few fellow backpackers and locals that I spoke to later also gave up on their clothes after having vision issues. I wonder how many sales they lose that way? Obviously it doesn’t do their business any harm because they’re still around. Maybe they assume that the ‘mood’ lighting hides all manner of unflattering evils in the mirror, and makes customers feel better in their clothes? I don’t know. Either way, I’m not going to buy something that I haven’t seen properly on me!

After reuniting at the entrance and leaving Hollister empty handed, we had a little nose in Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing company that has hit the big time in New York; more than once I had overheard New Yorkers talking about it over lunch with their friends. The clothes at Uniqlo are inexpensive (by New York standards, anyway), good quality, well-fitted, and make good staple additions to a wardrobe. They also have a crazy range of arty t-shirts, but I was more interested in their jeans. This time though, Calvin and I just had a quick look at the IMMENSE store (50 storeys! Okay, not really, but close enough) before moving on. I think both of us were feeling a little beaten by the weather; neither of us was particularly into shopping but it was raining and cold, so being indoors was a better option. It’s a shame that the Met hadn’t been open…!

Not to be disheartened, we turned to that other golden indoor activity – eating. Having danced off our lunch on the Big Piano, we jumped on the subway and went downtown to NoLIta, where we were on a mission to find Lombardi’s pizza place. There’s a handful of places in New York that claim to have the best pizza in the city… actually, let me rephrase that. The VAST MAJORITY of pizza places in New York claim to have the best pizza in the city, but there’s only a large handful of them that are actually taken seriously by large numbers of people. One of those places is Lombardi’s, on Spring Street at the corner of Mott. They claim to be America’s first pizzeria, open since 1905, and I am inclined to believe them. Pizza was probably sold on the streets before then but apparently they were the first to hold a licence, and given immigration history in the area it’s quite likely they were the first.

So, this was the beginning of one of my “Best _____ in New York” tasting sessions. Much like sampling Geno’s and Pat’s Philly cheese steaks in Philadelphia and making my OWN decision as to who was the best, I had decided that I was going to try a few of the places that apparently had the best [insert foodstuff of choice here!] in New York and decide who was telling the truth… according to me, at least! Pizza was the main thing I was after, but I later added ‘definitive’ New York foods like cheesecake and hot dogs to the list just for the fun of it.

Calvin and I enjoy our classic mozzarella pizza in New York’s oldest pizza joint
Lombardi’s, New York May 2012

Entering Lombardi’s was a bit like stepping back in time (if you ignored the tracksuited tourists and trendy hipsters in VERY contemporary clothing). First, you pass a large mural of the Mona Lisa smiling over her pizza, and then you’re ushered to your table. The decor conjures a feeling of another era; exposed brick walls on one side, maroon on the other, with old photographs hanging in pretty frames, booth-style seating, and red and white checked tablecloths. Calvin and I chose the classic mozzarella pizza and delved in with wolfish enthusiasm when it arrived, crispy and hot from the oven. I liked the tomato sauce base, but had to wonder what the fuss was about; it was delicious pizza, and a cut above the rest, but I’m sure one could find its equal in many pizza joints. I think it’s the ‘specialness’ of eating in NY’s first pizzeria that takes the biscuit, not necessarily the food. We munched away happily, listening to the fantastic selection of music (apparently Channel 75 on Sirius XM Radio, according to the waiter), which included old-school crooners like Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Junior. The best, of course, was the immortal ‘New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra, and Calvin and I sang along, quite unashamed at our glee.

Finishing our pizza, we knew we had no choice but to venture out into the cold again. Not really wanting to return to the hostel, I suggested a place I’d been wanting to try for years – Teany, on the Lower East Side. This little tea shop lives on a gritty stretch of Rivington Street, and I’ve passed it many times, always wanting to stop and relax in its cosy little nooks, but somehow never found the time. Well, this was the time. We struggled our way through the cold, up Spring Street and along Bowery before hitting Rivington, our eyes streaming from the freezing wind. Hunched over, we tumbled down a small set of stairs to enter Teany.

This is not a ‘tea room’ in the traditional sense of the word; this place is owned by Moby, and as such lacks all the dated porcelain, chintz, fluffy carpets, fouffy armchairs and tweed-wearing purple-rinsed grandmas normally associated with purveyors of tea. We were grateful to be greeted by a simply-decorated warm room, scattered pot-plants, a small crowd of people chatting, and a cozy corner which looked like it had been set aside just for us. We collapsed into our seats and the girl inside was thrilled to find international customers. I ordered some sort of complicated-sounding exotic tea which came in a bright orange pot. Upon inspection of the contents, I found a large assortment of leaves and a couple of big white flowers. It was delicious, especially after our cold walk. We sat and whiled away an hour or two, chatting, sipping our tea and watching the people on Rivington scuttle by, collars pulled up around their ears, as the sun slowly disappeared.

Eventually facing the fact that we couldn’t spend the night at Teany, we found the nearest subway station and made the journey back to the hostel. There was a guy sitting opposite us who looked quite normal except for the fact that he was staring intently at Calvin. This guy’s eyes were as wide and glassy as marbles and, apart from the occasional flick in my direction, spent the entire journey focused directly on Calvin’s face. He didn’t even blink much. We didn’t really know what to do about this; either he was sizing Calvin up for a fight, or he was crazy, or he was racist, or he wanted to ask Calvin out on a date. Any one of these options was undesirable for Calvin and ended badly if it came to confrontation! Thankfully we had to change trains at Times Square and we ran panting into the station concourse in the hope of losing the guy behind us! I’m pretty sure both of us had nightmares later about the Scary Stary Guy… I wonder what his story was. Nothing quite as colourful as the New York subway, eh?

Anyway, we made it back to the hostel unmolested, and spent our usual evening with Hicham and Karen and any others who felt like joining the fray, swapping stories and enjoying quiet companionship. It was another late one, but a good one.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Gospel Music and Here Comes The Sun, Do-Do-Do-Dooooo!!! New York, May 2012

11 Jun

Sunday May 6th – Calvin had heard of a great place to have a gospel brunch in Harlem, so he and I arranged to meet up on Sunday morning to go and listen to some great music. He had met a woman in a bank who had introduced him to a gospel singer, and it was through this connection that he found out about Epiphany’s Cafe.

So, early-ish on Sunday morning, we made our way uptown on the subway. The weather was STILL grey!!! As we exited the station, we were unexpectedly swarmed by thousands of cyclists on the Five-Borough Bike Ride… not something we had expected!!! They took a long time to pass us, and luckily there were a lot of cops around to direct the traffic.

We kept walking and came across a MASSIVE queue that snaked around the corner of a block, along the block and then down another corner. Everybody in it was clutching guide books and daypacks. Both of our hearts stopped when we thought that MAYBE this was a queue for the place we were going to, but a quick stop to talk to one of the people waiting told us that the queue was for the Abyssinian Baptist Church service. Crikey. I had previously thought about visiting the Abyssinian Baptist Church for a Sunday morning service but this queue tells me that it’s already turned into… well, into a bit of a freakshow. I had always wanted to go to a gospel service but I didn’t want to feel like I was a spectator pointing fingers at the zoo, if you know what I mean; I felt a bit uncomfortable about viewing a religious service as a tourist attraction.

Not to say that I won’t be doing something similar at some point in the future, but it had never quite sat right with me. And seeing this queue, I just thought, bloody hell. There will be almost as many tourists as there are worshippers there. I was glad that we were going to a cafe. I don’t need to be inside the church to enjoy the music. And, as Sonya (the singer we met that day) ended up saying, “The church is inside you; you don’t have to be inside the church.” As someone who believes in a god but not necessarily organised religion, this sat very nicely with me.

We trotted past the queue and found Epiphany’s on a nearby corner. One of the many things that was nice about spending time with Calvin is that he was just as organised as I was. He had a map with our destination on it and he had a route in his head; I didn’t have to know where we were going, I just went. Often when I’m travelling, I’m alone so I always have to know where I am, or if I have company the people I’m travelling with generally leave it up to me because I have a good sense of direction and a good idea of where we’re headed. So in this case it was quite refreshing (and, I have to say, quite relaxing, too) to share the reins with someone.

We arrived at Epiphany’s, which turned out to be a nice little dark box of a cafe. It was pretty packed, so we shared a table with another couple until some other people cleared out and we got a table of our own. What a lovely way to spend a late morning and an early afternoon! The singers were Sonya Rogers and the Gospel Gems (all in their choir outfits), accompanied by two young men on a keyboard and on a drum kit. They sang a bunch of my favourite gospel songs along with a few lesser-known ones. It actually surprised me how many of them I knew; I guess a lot of gospel has sort of entered the ‘modern musical vernacular’. We beamed when they sang ‘Oh Happy Day’, shimmied to ‘Down By The Riverside’, stamped to ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’, clapped along to ‘This Little Light of Mine’, and sang along to ‘Go Tell It On The Mountain’. These three women had the most powerful voices, and what a vocal range! While we listened, we chose from the small menu to eat. We had waffles with a coriander-cream cheese dip, and some sort of corn twists with capsicum dip. The food was a bit ‘meh’, but we weren’t there for the food, and the music more than made up for it. We ended up staying for two sets just to hear our favourites again, and Sonya made a point of coming up and saying hello to us, as she remembered Calvin from the previous day. She just seemed like such a lovely lady; I was very happy to spend my Sunday there.

THE SUN!!! Where have you been for so long?!?
Outside the Chelsea Market,
New York, May 2012

Afterwards, we were still a bit hungry so we decided to head down to the Chelsea Market for lunch. Then I heard that Calvin had never been to the High Line Park, and that was that! We had to go, even if the weather was sucky! When we exited the subway station at 14th Street, though, something wierd happened. I could feel… warmth on my skin. My jumper felt a bit too hot. And then we realised… THE SUN WAS OUT!!!!! After days of grey skies and mist and rain, it was SUNNY! This prompted a short period of insanity where we pranced about in the middle of the street, waving our arms in the air, taking pictures of each other and the blue sky like kids on a Christmas morning when Santa was feeling particularly generous! SUN!

We raced into the Chelsea Market and bought some bread from Amy’s Breads, which we gobbled down with soup, and then fast-tracked it to Fat Witch where we each picked a brownie to take on a little ‘picnic’. Calvin went for the original, seeing as it was the first time he’d tried them, and I bought a Caramel Witch: the normal dense, kickass brownie but with a gooey thick layer of caramel through the middle. Nom nom nom!!!

The tantalising selection at Amy’s Breads, Chelsea Market,
New York, May 2012

We went full pelt out the front of the markets and entered the High Line on 14th Street. It was just beautiful up there. The sunny days made all the greens brighter and the wooden tones more glossy, and we had a ball. We wandered around until we managed to stealthily nab one of the wooden bench beds from a departing couple, and we spread out, kicked our feet up and stuffed ourselves with brownie goodness. Then, bloated with chocolate, we just sat there in the sun, soaking up the Vitamin D and watching the crowds go by. BLISS! Believe it or not, it eventually got too hot to just keep sitting there, so we went for a little walk in the direction of uptown. First stop was at the People’s Pops cart, where they were selling home-made shave ice and popsicles. The guy behind the counter had a giant block of ice and was shaving it by hand. Standing in the queue meant getting sprayed by flecks of ice… which of course wasn’t a problem on a hot day like that! I ended up ordering a raspberry and basil popsicle stick, which was heaven. It was basically just thick pureed raspberries, which meant the popsicle was lumpy and seedy and tasted damn good. Calvin got a strawberry and rhubarb one, which also looked amazing, and had actual pieces of rhubarb in it!

People watching was priceless that day. I laughed my ass off at a few sweet, dorky guys trying to pick up chicks:
Guy #1: Hey ladies, whatcha up to?
Girls: Not much, you?
Guy #1: (flustered) Me? Just chillin, chillin.
(Girls leave)
Guy #2 (turns to Guy #1): Chillin?!? You idiot.

The High Line in all its glory, surrounded by buildings and signs,
Chelsea, New York, May 2012

Poor guy! We also wandered past a child, probably about 4 years old, curled in the fetal position on the ground next to a bench, screaming blue murder. She was screaming so much that her face was beetroot. I glanced around for a parent and found him immediately, sitting on the bench and staring at her in disgust with his chin in his hands. He glanced up at me and rolled his eyes! Talk about disinterest; I wonder if she does that sort of thing often. He certainly wasn’t doing anything about it this time; I guess he’d just given up! Calvin and I found this whole scene incredibly funny and laughed all the way up to 23rd Street! We watched the butterflies and the birds, stopped for a break in the viewing window over 10th Avenue, and passed the High Line Zoo, a little art installation where someone has hung black and white polystyrene sketches of animals across the roof of a building. We walked all the way to the northern end of the High Line, where the next section is being developed; I wonder if I’ll ever see the ‘final product’.

Calvin and I take up our recliner seat and watch the crowds go by,
The High Line, Chelsea, New York, May 2012

From the High Line, Calvin and I walked to 8th Avenue and then went our separate ways. I can’t remember where he was going, but I was heading for the Hoboken Arts and Music Festival. I figured it would be a chance to eat some good food, hear some good music, and possibly drop in on Victoria at the Yankee Ferry. I had a couple of bus tickets already, which Charlie and I had left over from our little stint in Hoboken, so I thought I’d make good use of them. I walked to the Port Authority, where the buses are supposed to go every 20 minutes, and I ended up waiting nearly two hours for a damn bus. I HATE waiting for buses; it just feels so hopeless. Because if one doesn’t come, you have to figure out whether to hedge your bets – if you leave, one might turn up just as you get out of sight. But if you wait, and nothing’s coming… or maybe you’ve already waited an hour, and you’re already late anyway, so you would be totally writing off that time if you left… it’s a terrible dilemma. Every morning in Brisbane was a nightmare for me, because I stood at my stupid bus stop waiting for my useless, overpriced bus to come, and it never EVER came when it was supposed to. Never, in all my years of living in the same place, did I ever get the bus that the timetable told me to expect. Ugh.

A beautiful butterfly! The High Line, Chelsea,
New York, May 2012

Anyway, waiting at the Port Authority for that damned bus to come (I think there were supposed to be 4 or 5 while I was waiting) conjured up all the same frustrations I used to get every day on the way to work. And unfortunately, by the time most of us had figured out that maybe we couldn’t be bothered after all, the stairway up to the bus platform was blocked with people – so even if we had wanted to leave, we couldn’t. When a bus finally did turn up, I was frazzled and in a terribly grumpy mood. I was one of the lucky ones, though; most of the crowd had to be left behind because the bus was full. I was very, very thankful at that moment that I was not still staying in New Jersey; at least if your bus doesn’t turn up in Manhattan, you can walk or get the subway. If you live in Jersey and your bus doesn’t turn up, well, you can hardly just swim across the river, can you?

My delicious raspberry and basil popsicle from People’s Pops on the High Line,
New York, May 2012

So the bus came, and I got on it, and it took me to Hoboken, New Jersey. And would you believe it? The festival had ended at 6 o’clock. Had my bus come on time, I would have at least made the last hour or so, but as it was I turned up just after six when they were clearing up all the food stalls, markets stands and stages. I was spitting with fury! Damn buses!!! And what kind of music festival finishes at six o’clock, anyway? I decided to try to salvage something of my afternoon and have a look around Hoboken, which I’d intended to do when I was staying there but never found the time for. I walked along the main strip; most of the shops were shut, but the cafes and bars were open and I have to admit that a lot of them looked pretty enticing. The main drag was filled with beautiful old triple and quadruple storey townhouses, painted in various shades of cream, blue and brick, so the place looked like it had been preserved pretty well from its original era. A lot of the bars were playing music like Pearl Jam and Guns’n’Roses, which tells you something about the demographic of the people living here… all of a certain age! From the main street I took a walk out along the waterfront and the main pier, which totally lightened my mood and made the whole trip worth it. Because from here, on a little point, on this glorious blue-sky day, I had the most amazing, crystal-clear view of Manhattan from top to bottom; from the snazzy buildings of the financial district to the brown-brick edifices of northern Harlem, I could see it all. Visibility was amazing. I couldn’t help but do a little happy jiggle dance, it was so pretty. It’s a shame more tourists don’t try to make it over; the view is priceless and it’s really not that hard a journey… if your bus runs on time! So I stood for a while, enjoying the breeze and the view and watching the locals come and go. People walking with their children, kids roaring around corners on their little tricycles or scooters, a young man just sitting quietly and appreciating the view. It was great.

The stunning Manhattan skyline from Hoboken, New Jersey,
New York, May 2012

When I finally decided to head back, I found my way to a bus stop and found that the bus driver who dropped me off in Hoboken was the same one picking me up; it had taken all that time just to get his bus turned around in the traffic snarl caused by the festival!

I went back to the hostel on the upper west side, and found that my room mates were now all Brazilian. A couple of about my age, and a family of three (two parents with their teenage son). With the money they were spending on the hostel, I wondered why they didn’t just get a hotel room. Anyway, I said my greetings and then went for dinner at the Malaysian Grill… again! I had a really spicy char kway teow, sniffling my way through the chilli, and then went back to the hostel common room, where I met up with Calvin and a young Moroccan Frenchman called Hicham. We spent the evening swapping stories about our days and using the (annoyingly slow) internet. Karen joined us later in the evening, having been out with an older Brazilian woman that she met on the walking tour. Karen spoke not a word of Portuguese, and this Brazilian woman spoke barely a word of English – beginner, at best – but they seemed to have had a nice day. She asked about our plans for the next day, but she and I had very different ideas about what we wanted to do so I said I’d join her in the evening if I didn’t have something else on.

Much later, all of us finally decided to call it a night. I went back into my room and was hit by a wall of sound. My belief that the family should have got themselves a damned hotel room was reinforced when it turned out that the father, the mother AND the son all snored like freight trains, joined with harmonies by the man from the couple. Shitballs, I was angry. I was angry because the girlfriend from the couple must have known that her boyfriend was a foghorn, and with two of them they could easily have got a hotel room or at least a private room in the hostel, for about the same cost. I was also angry because the teenage boy kept waking up and could hear his own father snoring – even huffed and got angry at it and stuffed his head under his pillow – but for some reason had never thought to suggest that a private room would’ve been a better idea, so as not to inflict the honking on strangers. This is why I simply do not like mixed-sex dorm rooms. When women snore (and god knows, I’m sure I’ve been the culprit on the odd night, especially in cold weather), they just tend to be quieter than fat late-middle aged Brazilian men!!! Ugh. I tucked myself in and tried to block out the noise… and then I heard the scampering. Just quiet at first, and then clearer when there was a lull in the drone of the snorers… and I thought, oh no. I flicked my personal bed light on (one of the snorers grunted) and peered under the bed. I shook my bags around, and that’s when I noticed that a hole had been nibbled in my toiletries bag. Upon closer inspection under the bed, I found a half-eaten cookie and a couple of gummy bears, all of which had human-sized tooth marks and teeny-tiny nibble marks on them; a product, no doubt, of the teenage boy snacking in his damn bed when clearly there are signs all over the place that say that NO FOOD IS ALLOWED IN THE BEDROOMS. And little mice had taken advantage of this clumsy pig’s lacklustre grasp of hygiene. There, in the middle of the night, to the soundtrack of the fat snorers, I had to clear up that little shit’s mess and hope that the mice would not come back. I had read on Trip Advisor that there were mice at the hostel, but I figured that as long as I had clean room-mates it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Apparently, having clean room-mates was too much of a problem.

Sigh. Tantrum over, I climbed into bed and vowed to kill them all tomorrow. Surely I could use sleep deprivation as an excuse? Ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

P.S. For those of you worrying right now, all of the Brazilians survived their stay in my dorm room. No Brazilians were harmed in the making of this blog. I promise. Ha!

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Walking the Brooklyn Bridge and Saying ‘Hi-De-Hi!’ with the Cab Calloway Orchestra, New York, May 2012

1 Jun

Saturday May 5th – I was up bright and early this morning for another walking tour; this time, it was ‘Jerry’s Grand Tour’ that I had signed up for, a 12-hour odyssey across pretty much the whole island of Manhattan and beyond, into Brooklyn. Not bad for $10! This tour is pretty much designed for people who only have a short time in New York and want to see all the main sights in a day; not really my scene, but there were a few things that I wanted to do with company, like walking the Brooklyn Bridge… it’s always nicer to have someone around to snap a picture of you if necessary!

So, before the tour started, I dragged my butt out of bed at a reasonable hour and ran downstairs to leave a note for Calvin on the noticeboard; his friend JiSoo was leaving today, so I thought he might be at a loose end in the evening and I had discovered a pretty wicked swing dance event that I thought he might like to join me on. After pinning a hastily-scribbled note up, I grabbed my complimentary (and rather good) breakfast of an onion bagel with cream cheese, a hot chocolate and a banana from the cafeteria area and joined Jerry’s Grand Tour in the lobby.

As it turned out, Jerry had a voice like nails on a chalkboard. To summarise the day before I start: Jerry eventually ended up annoying me so much that I left the tour in the early afternoon. He seemed intent on repeating himself very very slowly, over and over again, and had a bad habit of preaching, telling us how we should be living our lives and giving us tips on better living. I don’t think he was a bad man, by any means. I actually think he was quite a nice guy… he just rubbed me the wrong way, and I got impatient with such a large group (there were 30-odd of us, which on a walking tour is just agony), and all the repetition. Still, it started off alright…

The first thing we did was walk down the road, stopping briefly at the Holy Name of Jesus Church, which was large and pretty but otherwise a bit non-descript. There were people kneeling and sitting in the pews, and I noticed one man with his two sons weeping quietly, for what reason I do not know. They got up to leave not long after we entered, and I was ashamed of a number of our group when they just whipped out their cameras and snapped away anyway. One girl even leaned on the marble holy water stand, using it as a stabiliser for her camera so she could get a non-blurry shot. It took everything I had not to wrench her off it physically when the man and his sons came past and tried to dab themselves with holy water, having to lean around her to get to it because she wasn’t moving for anyone. You know, I don’t practice any particular religion but I at least attempt to respect the choice of others to do so, especially when I’m in their places of worship. Some people are just trash; I hope that girl gets her comeuppance in the next life.

Anyway, we hopped the subway all the way down and over to Brooklyn. The first thing I saw in the subway station as we exited was a sign for Joralemon Street. Now, this would be insignificant to your average tourist, but as it happens my mum lived in Brooklyn for a short while in the 70s. She can’t remember many of the details; I suspect she spent a fair bit of time at dodgy parties passive-smoking odd substances and drinking booze, though she’d never admit it to her daughter! One of the things she can remember, however, is that she lived on Joralemon Street. Or at least, she thought so: she also believed that it might just be a figment of her imagination! So it was a bit of a surprise – and a delight – to find that there was indeed a Joralemon Street in Brooklyn, and thus quite likely that she lived somewhere around the subway station we were just exiting!

We came out at Brooklyn Borough Hall, which was a large grey edifice, made even greyer by the grey day we were having. We made a stop at a nearby Garden of Eden Gourmet (yes, the same chain connected to my favourite place of food worship on 23rd Street) to grab a picnic lunch. By this time, I had started chatting to Karen, a British girl who seemed terribly negative about New York and everything in it. She had only arrived the day before and had jumped onto the subway going in the wrong direction; she had been so terrified by the event that she had spent the whole rest day at the hostel, too intimidated to leave. When she found out that I had been to New York before, that I’d been around for a while and knew my way around quite well, she exclaimed, “Great! You can be my tour guide! I’ve got a list of things that I want to do and you’ll have to tell me how best to do them all – you should come with me! That’ll really help!” I remember thinking that – although she seemed pleasant enough – I was not her mother and that I did not come all the way to New York to babysit, especially for someone who seemed as negative about the city as she did. I also very much doubted that the things on her list would be the same as the things I wanted to do. She then whipped out her list and started grilling me on subway routes, opening hours etc, planning our next few days together. Most of the information that she wanted could easily be found from a map and I said as much, but I guess she just really didn’t want to be alone in New York again. She was nice enough, but I found myself having to make gentle excuses about my plans over the next 2-3 days, being deliberately vague so that I had some breathing space. I wondered for a while if I was like that when I first started travelling – latching onto others for assistance – but I really don’t think I was. I think I actually quite liked getting lost and having stupid adventures on my own, but I guess not everyone’s like that. Still, as I said, I think Karen was genuinely a nice girl, just a bit out of her depth. We ended up seeing a little bit of each other over the following days, but not as much as she wanted, I think. She even had a bit of a tantrum over it, which I’ll tell you all about another time.

At this point, though, we chose each other as company, along with a friendly Texan in a giant hat and safari shorts who was also a lone traveller. As a group, we wandered through Brooklyn Heights, along a very European-looking shopping strip and then down along Montague Street and Remsen Street, which are filled with extremely beautiful, well-maintained brownstone buildings. The ‘Hollywood of Brooklyn’, I think Jerry called it – lots of movies are shot here, apparently, as it has the definitive look of the New York brownstone areas, complete with picturesque trees and clean sidewalks. The townhouses were, in fact, quite beautiful, and I felt more than a little jealous of the people who had the massive wads of cash it must take to live on a street like that!

After salivating over imaginary real estate acquisitions, we made our way onto Brooklyn Heights Promenade, which provides sweeping views of lower Manhattan and the east side of the island. The waterfront area is currently in the middle of being redeveloped into Brooklyn Bridge Park, so it looks a bit of a mess, but I’m sure it’ll be pretty as a picture (if not prettier) by the time they’re done. Yay, more public park space for New York! It can only be a good thing. On a clear day, one would have had a crystal-clear view of the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge; as it was, with the grey mist and haze, we could just squint and see Lady Liberty holding her torch aloft in the gloom, and could just make out the outline of the Bridges. Still exciting though!

We stopped and ate our lunches on some benches that were right on the beautiful brick promenade. There were lots of tourists out and about, but also a handful of locals jogging, either by themselves or with baby strollers. My picnic lunch consisted of a bag of sea-salt Kettle chips with cilantro hummus and a handful of chocolate-covered grahams, all acquired from the Garden of Eden, despite the wondrous array of salads and sandwiches they had on offer. I wonder if Betty Ford offers rehab for people who are addicted to these three things? I suspect I might need help!

We were warned by Jerry to ’empty the tanks’ before we left, as it would be the last public toilet available for the next few hours – New York is famous for its total lack of public toilet facilities. So Karen and I and every other woman on the tour (about 15-20 of us) spent the majority of our allotted lunch time waiting in the queue for the one toilet. I would just like to say that usually I have a bladder of steel, and probably would have been fine without it, but after Jerry’s big spiel about having to cross the bridge on foot with no choice but to keep going, I got all paranoid about it! 😉

Our next stop after lunch was the Plymouth Church on Orange Street. This was the domain of Henry Ward Beecher, a preacher-slash-abolitionist, who made the church part of the underground railroad protecting slaves who had come from the south. A statue of him sits in a pretty little garden next to the church, and shows him on a pedestal while two weeping women reach for his help. He apparently helped many people, and made himself rather unpopular in some circles with his abolitionist sermons. Good on him!

Leaving the church, we passed Siggy’s cafe on Henry Street (where, according to a big sign, aliens eat for free) and made it to Cadman Plaza Park, where a number of people were playing football (one man was very obviously letting his kids beat him) and jogging. There was also a group Kendo class (at least, I think it was Kendo), right there on the green. Much better than being cooped up inside, I suppose, and at that point it wasn’t raining, so why not?

Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge,
New York, May 2012

I would have liked to stay and watch for a bit, but that’s one luxury you don’t get on large group walking tours, so we pushed on. Finally – after many years of visiting New York and always wanting to do it but somehow never getting round to it – I got to walk the Brooklyn Bridge! The beautiful old span, the iconic image of New York, was finally underfoot. I can’t remember how long it actually took – maybe 20 minutes, half an hour? But I enjoyed every minute of it. Yeah, the weather sucked, the sky was grey and Manhattan was shrouded in mist, but what did I care? I was walking the walk! If time allows and there’s a nicer day I might try to go back and do it again, but really I didn’t mind, and there’ll be lots of opportunities for me to see the NYC skyline from other places. I enjoyed watching the spaces between the wooden boards underneath me, and the traffic running below me to my right and my left. I enjoyed seeing the cyclists swoop past, screeching at dumb pedestrians who had strayed into the bike path. I enjoyed seeing the grand old arches looming out of the mist at me. Whoop whoop! I was almost sad to reach the other side, landing in Manhattan. Jerry started making silly comments about keeping fit and the value of blah blah blah (I tuned out), and took us past City Hall, another Ghostbusters location. Oh yeah, and… you know, the place where the mayor works the magic. Or whatever. 😉 We stopped in the little City Hall Park, which brought back a moment that I had, until that point, completely forgotten. On my first ever trip to New York, I somehow stumbled across this park and found myself face to face with a group of about 20 male New York Police officers. There was absolutely nobody else around; it was actually kind of wierd. Anyway, I don’t know how I had the balls to do it (I probably wouldn’t even think of doing it nowadays), but I asked this large group of big boys if I could take their picture, and they consented. So somewhere in my photo archives I have a picture of all these NYPD officers with their arms crossed, pulling what was essentially a Blue Steel…! I MUST find that picture again, wherever it is!

At this point, we left the park with its beautiful fountain and picturesque gas lamps and headed south. Jerry was making for the World Trade Centre Memorial site, which I had of course already visited. We were only a few hours into our 12-hour odyssey, and I have to admit that I was already being driven nuts. We stopped briefly in St Paul’s Chapel and I realised that I’d heard a lot about this place but never actually been inside before. Jerry took us inside and gave us a few words, but then of course, he was moving swiftly on. Well, I wanted to stick around, so I did; I told the group to continue without me (we’d already lost a few so it was no big deal). And you know what? I felt a lot happier after they’d gone! Karen was dithering about joining me but I encouraged her to go on, both for her sake (she would see a lot of stuff which she probably wouldn’t do on her own) and because I wanted some ‘me’ time. So off the rest of the group went, and I stayed at the church to look at their exhibits.

Tributes to the victims of the September 11th attacks at St Paul’s Chapel,
New York, May 2012

St Paul’s Chapel has survived over the centuries through a number of huge catastrophes, from fires and storms to September 11th. George Washington himself worshipped here, and it remains a significant New York religious establishment. While many buildings in close quarters to the World Trade Centre suffered structural damage in 2001, St Paul’s remained intact and (some would say miraculously) undamaged. It was right next door, right in the shadows of the towers, right across the street, but the people who had sought refuge inside the chapel on September 11th were spared the fate that those only metres away were facing. It was this chapel that I had seen on my first trip to New York, not long after September 11th, covered in t-shirts and candles and flowers and ‘missing’ posters (I mentioned it in a previous entry). I had always intended to have a closer look, so here I was. In the months following September 11th, the chapel offered a ministry to those involved in the recovery effort. The emergency workers who spent all day (or night) down in the pit came to the chapel for comfort, solace, food and sleep. As time went on, it became an organised effort, providing counselling, bunks, meals, toiletries, massage, health care, respite and, it seems, love to those who needed it. It became a haven for people of all denominations to meet and find a few moments of peace before re-entering the nightmare, and I think it meant a lot to many, many people. I hadn’t realised its full significance until I paid this visit. Inside there were a few carefully-curated displays of uniforms, photographs and videos, and a place where visitors could leave a note of their own.

The thing that really got me, though, was a seemingly insignificant bit of ‘trivia’. Yes, I’ve been moved before by 9/11 stories, and I’ve paid my respects, but this actually had me weeping in front of the church. And trust me, crying is really not my thing, if I can avoid it – and particularly in public. But this little tidbit horrified me and hammered something home deeper than I’d expected. As firefighters arrived at the scene, they changed from their civilian clothes into their firefighting gear; this change included their shoes. With nowhere else to leave them, the firefighters started hanging their boots on top of the metal fence spikes surrounding the church. At the end of the day, rows of boots remained unclaimed on the fence spikes, each pair representing a firefighter who did not make it through the day alive. For some reason, this image just really got to me. All of these shoes waiting for an owner who would never come back. Perhaps it comes from my own personal experience; I don’t know. I suppose that anyone who’s lost someone close to them could relate; that horrible moment when you have to figure out what to do with the clothes that are left behind by your loved one. Anyway, whatever it was, it had me in tears. These guys were just doing their job; some of them were off-duty, some were retired, but they all just ran in without even possibly being able to guess that they were running into.

Thankfully my moment was interrupted by a young boy and his mother. The kid can’t have been older than 8 or 9, so he wasn’t even born when September 11th happened. He asked, with genuine curiosity, “Mum, why did the terrorists do this?” I wish I had heard her response; they moved on too quickly. I wonder what people tell their kids, because there’s no simple answer.

I decided that I had had enough of being maudlin for the day, and went back to the hostel to spend some time on the computer. Calvin had left a note saying that he would meet me at the swing dance event, which was awesome news. I went to the common room and bumped into Lew, the Australian I had met at the jazz club, and he looked like he was at a loose end so I asked him if he’d like to come too. Then, when I went upstairs I bumped into Yuko and before I knew it there was a little posse of us headed out for a night of swing dancing.

Yuko and Lew and I bumped into Calvin at the subway station; Calvin nearly didn’t recognise me because I was actually in a skirt! We all went to the JCC (not entirely sure what it stands for… perhaps Jewish Community Centre?) on 76th Street and waited for the evening to start.

I’ve been swing dancing on and off for about 10 years now. I first got caught up in it when I was migrating from England to Australia in 2002; I stopped in Los Angeles and went down to Santa Monica for the day. I heard some of Louis Prima’s music being played, so I followed my nose towards the source. I’ve always loved Louis Prima, and I was only more pleased when I found out that he was actually the voice of King Louie in Disney’s version of The Jungle Book – “I Wanna Be Like You-Oo-Oo!” I found the source of the music alright – it was a bunch of people swing dancing right in the middle of the street, and I was in love. When I arrived in Australia, I went searching for classes and eventually found some. My involvement waxed and waned over the years, but when I was living in Montreal in 2006-2007, that’s when I really got back my passion for it. So to be able to come to New York, where it all started, and have a bit of a dance, is a pretty exciting thing for me!

Calvin, Tara and Yuko ready for a night of swing dancing,
New York, May 2012

I had found out about this event online – the Cab Calloway Orchestra, now run by his grandson Chris, was playing at the JCC with a beginner lesson followed by a social dance to live music and DJs. How could I say no?!? The Cab Calloway Orchestra!!! (If you don’t know who Cab Calloway is, do a Youtube search for ‘Minnie the Moocher’ – you’ll almost definitely know it!) Of course, I don’t really need the beginner lesson, but I often find it’s a nice way to warm up for the evening and get to know some of the dancers. The venue itself was huge, with a sprung wooden dance floor – paradise for dancing feet! Calvin, Lew, Yuko and I went upstairs and launched into the lesson; I was very proud of my companions and the enthusiasm they showed for giving it a go! Calvin eventually had to leave as he had stand-by tickets for Saturday Night Live that night (sadly, he didn’t get in, but it was worth a try), but Lew and Yuko hung in there for a couple of hours, even managing a bit of social dancing! As for me, I stayed until very late, only leaving when I realised that I was still sharing a room and should really try not to rock up at 3am and wake everyone. As it happened, it was still around midnight/1am when I started to head off. I had a wicked night of dancing, and the band was great. Chris Calloway bears more than a passing resemblance to his grandfather, and came complete with a white zoot suit and a matching white hat with a giant feather sticking out of it at a jaunty angle! The dancers seemed pretty friendly, and vaguely curious about this girl with an odd accent who seemed to have turned up out of nowhere, though they didn’t press me for information! It was amazing to see so many dancers in this one gigantic space – it was at least the size of 6 basketball courts!

I reluctantly left when things were still in full swing (pardon the pun), braving the subways and finding no trouble at all. I got back to the hostel to find my room filled with snorers. Ugh. But who cares? I had a great night!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Racist Belgians and Fried Chitlins, New York, May 2012

24 May

Friday 4th May – Staying in a hostel has its upsides and downsides. On the down side, you have to share a room with strangers (who often end up having the strangest of habits), get woken up (or kept awake) by snorers and late arrivals, share a bathroom with pigs, and keep all your stuff locked up tight. On the up side, hostels can offer a great social programme and save you a wad of money. My reasons for staying at the hostel were a mix of the two; my budget didn’t stretch to 2 months staying in a place by myself, and I really wanted to take advantage of the social aspect of the hostel before spending 5 weeks in relative solitude in an apartment on my own.

To this end, I booked myself onto a number of walking tours at the hostel, and today I took part in the first of them. The tour was called ‘Historic Harlem’, and was led by an old gentleman called Ed. We all met in the lobby of the hostel, and that’s where I first met Calvin. I didn’t know it at the time, but Calvin and I were going to end up spending a lot of time together over the next week, and he would become a fabulous travel buddy, and a good friend. Our first interaction happened when Ed asked Calvin if he was Japanese, and without thinking I said, “He’s not Japanese, he looks Korean.” Cue stunned looks all around. A lot of people say they can’t tell the difference, but as a language teacher and having spent a lot of time with people of both nationalities, I reckon I have a pretty good handle on it. As it turns out, I was right; Calvin is Korean. His English, though, is near-native and it was just freaking wicked to hear it; it gave me so much faith and hope for all my Koreans who struggle with their language acquisition! DO NOT DESPAIR MY LOVELIES! You CAN be great… if you work your ass off at it! 😉

Anyway, the tour started and we wandered towards the nearest subway station. Calvin was joined by JiSoo, a friend of his from Korea, and our little trio was joined by a girl from Hong Kong called Daion. The rest of the tour were mostly older folk who didn’t seem much interested in us, as they were travelling in groups or pairs. It usually seems that way; the ‘singles’ team up together.

A statue of Malcolm X at his memorial in Harlem,
New York, May 2012

We got off the subway at the highest point I have ever been in Manhattan; Broadway and 168th Street, Washington Heights… almost as far up as you can go! Our first stop was the Malcolm X Memorial on 166th Street. I admit that I know less about Malcolm X than I would like to. I remember that he converted to Islam, and I remember that he and Martin Luther King had different opinions on how equal rights should be achieved, but their general aim was the same. I remember watching the movie of his life when I was a kid and not really understanding most of it; I think it was at a Drive-In and I’m pretty sure I kept drifting in and out of sleep! Once again, I find another topic that I will have to read up on in the near future. Anyway, the memorial is in the cinema where he was killed in 1965. It is no longer a cinema, but the original lobby is intact. At first glance I was highly concerned, because all I could see when Ed pointed to the ‘Malcolm X Memorial’ was a barbeque restaurant (!), and I thought, “Eh what? They’ve turned the place where he was assassinated into a barbeque joint?!?” but luckily that’s only part of the building. In the memorial itself, there is a hallway and a small set of stairs, and at the top of these stairs is a very lifelike statue of Malcolm X himself, standing on a little podium and speaking into a microphone. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be African-American at the time that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were most prominent. The determination, the hope and the inspiration… quite something.

We kept walking for some time; we went through Sugar Hill, with its 19th century townhouses (and so named because of the ‘sugar’ – or money – that you needed to have to be able to live there) and we passed by some beautiful old worker’s townhouses (which now probably require more sugar than you can count to buy them). After that, we paid a visit to the Morris Jumel House, which is a beautiful old homestead that used to sit in amongst farmland, until urban spread turned it into a wooden oasis in the middle of multi-storey brick dwellings. It was built in 1765, and George Washington used it as his New York headquarters during the revolutionary war, I believe. Apparently it is now run by some sort of Republican Ladies Brigade (eep). I’m surprised they’re into it; the one-time owner, Eliza Jumel, was a lady of questionable virtue who married an older man for his money, and then after he died, she remarried another man who had apparently killed some sort of high-profile politician who is now a face on American money. Not quite the role model for ‘ladies who lunch’, is it? The plaque outside describes this woman as being ‘colourful’… ha ha ha ha ha! I can only hope that people refer to me as ‘colourful’ in a couple of hundred years…!

We strolled past Count Basie Place, and we made a stop at Duke Ellington’s old house – awesome! I was thrilled to learn that Ed did a bit of swing dancing in his day, and had even danced at the Savoy once upon a time… I am SO jealous. He was an interesting man, actually, and although he looked fairly old he must have been even older than he looked, because some of his memories go way back; I’m guessing in his late 80s or early 90s. He was a slow but steady walker, and doing a pretty good job of keeping up considering his age! He told us how his mother used to make him sleep out on the fire escapes in hot weather, to keep him cool, and how he and his friends used to hang out up there and throw peanuts on pedestrians. Cheeky little blighter!

All of us stopped at a place called Taza de Cafe for a break and a little drink. The man behind the counter was playfully insistent that we should eat something, and very persuasive, and the lady kept showing us all the baked goodies that she had, but I knew that lunch wasn’t far away – and that it was going to be a big one – so I just enjoyed my hot chocolate.

We wandered across the top of Jackie Robinson Park (Jackie Robinson was, I believe, the first African-American baseball player in the traditionally white league), from where there was a view across the river to Yankee Stadium. We walked along the promenade, enjoying the view, before cutting through a park and then through a housing complex that had been built by the Rockefellers for the poor. It was surprisingly beautiful inside, considering its boringly functional exterior; full of little green patches and scampering squirrels.

An unusual sight: an empty subway carriage (we were at the very beginning of the line),
New York, May 2012

Soon afterwards, we made our way to a subway station which was at the top end of the line; when we got onto the carriage it was entirely empty… not something I’d seen before during daylight hours! We got off at 125th Street, where our group started to part ways. Calvin, JiSoo, Daion and I had already decided to go for a big lunch together at Sylvia’s, a famous soul food restaurant on 127th Street – just 2 blocks from where we were. We were saying our goodbyes to the rest of the group when two of the Belgian women asked us where we were going. We told them, and they seemed a bit surprised. “You’re eating… in Harlem?” Uh, yeah. What’s the problem with that? They looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “Maybe we… maybe the food is not good.” I thought that they meant taste-wise, so I told them about soul food and what kind of things they might encounter, and they followed us to the restaurant. Then they started behaving in an almost panicky way, and scarpered. I found out later that they hadn’t wanted to eat in the restaurant because it was Harlem. Because it was run by African Americans. And, according to the Belgians, there is no hygiene in Harlem. WTF?!? I simply couldn’t believe it. When I found out, I wanted to go and confront them. Violently. Where the hell did they think they were? And who the hell do they think they are? People like that make me sick. Racist freaks.

Racist Belgian females aside, the four of us went into Sylvia’s and had a kickass lunch. We ordered up a veritable feast and ate up every bite. We ordered on the advice of our neighbours, who were eating all kinds of good stuff. Based on my experience at Amy Ruth’s, the others wanted to try fried chicken and waffles, so we ordered that. Then we looked at our neighbour and saw their barbeque ribs, and ordered that too. And then we chatted to a couple next to us who had come all the way from Texas, and they were eating chitlins. Totally clueless, we asked what chitlins were, and they said that basically it was pig intestines. All of us went, “Oooh, interesting!” which surprised our neighbours, as I suppose that they don’t normally get that reaction when they talk about tripe. I guess they didn’t figure that they were talking to two Koreans and two girls from Hong Kong, who are used to eating anything and everything! So, we ordered fried chitlins as well. Our side dishes were black-eyed peas, gumbo and candied yams.

Oh, what a meal. The waffles and chicken, I have to say, were not as good as Amy Ruth’s; the waffles were a bit cold and not very crispy, and the chicken wasn’t crash-hot. The chitlins were interesting; not very flavourful (more a result of the intestines than the way it was cooked, I think) but pretty good. The ribs were disgustingly good, with delicious sauce smothered all over them, and the gumbo was full of yummy okra. The black-eyed peas were great too, but the highlight was the candied yams – orange sweet potato with sugary, syrupy goodness… yum. After eating, I went to wash my hands and I met a woman from Chicago in the bathrooms; she said that the food in Chicago was much better and that I should go there to eat up instead! Still, I really enjoyed my meal at Sylvia’s, and the company was great.

The beginning of great friendships: Calvin, Tara and Daion after their feast at Sylvia’s, Harlem,
New York, May 2012

After our late lunch, Calvin and JiSoo went to the Museum of Modern Art while Daion and I went back to the hostel. I relaxed for a while before deciding to join the hostel’s evening programme, which included a choice between a night out at a nightclub or a night at a jazz club. I figured I would go downstairs and see what the crowd was like for both before making my choice. As I went downstairs, I found Daion there, and she was heading to the jazz club, which pretty much made up my mind for me. However, as the crew for the nightclub turned up I knew I’d made the right decision. They were all men, and they were mostly yobs. They were also mostly Australian, and they were already mostly half-cut. In the end, there were only four of us for the jazz club – me, Daion, Lew (an Australian gentleman from Perth), and an older Italian man whose English was fairly limited. We went around the corner to SaSa’s Jazz Lounge, which was much, MUCH smaller than I had expected it to be; just a sliver of a room without many places to sit except at the bar (which was full), and the band were set up near the entrance. It was loud. LOUD. My ears ached and I blinked every time the drummer hit the drum. The music was good, but not amazing. In the end, Daion bought and finished one beer, and we left. The Italian man had embarrassed the hell out of us by walking right up to the band, putting the camera within 30 centimetres of the saxophonist’s face (this in front of the crowd) and using a flash to take pictures. Good lord. Bad tourist! However, Lew looked like he was having a good time, and as it turned out I’d be seeing a bit of him over the next few days, too.

Daion and I walked back to the hostel and went to our respective dorm rooms. I found that the American girl above me had moved out and been replaced by an Australian guy. He’d had a bit of a rough ride; he and his friends had been going through America on their way to Europe when his appendix had burst. In the end, he had to stay behind in hospital while his friends went ahead to England. He had just been released from the hospital and was awaiting the all-clear from the doctor. All sympathy I had for him evaporated, however, when his phone rang in the middle of the night and he answered it in a very loud voice, complaining that he hadn’t been able to sleep because of the Spanish guy’s snores. And now, thanks to the Aussie guy, none of us could sleep either. Gah! (Plus, I would just like to mention that he was also a snorer… hypocrite!)

As I was lying there trying to get back to sleep, I thought I could hear some scampering happening on the floor underneath my bed. I had read that there were mice in the hostel, but so far had seen no sign of them; I put the sound down to my tired mind playing tricks on me, and tried to think no more of it. (Mouse story: to be continued…!)

And that was that for the day!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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The Eternal Post Office Queue And The Unavoidable Laundry Day, New York, May 2012

18 May

Thursday 3rd May – I woke up in the hotel room on my own, and stretched gratefully – it would be the last time for a long(ish) time! I took my time getting ready and packed up my stuff, then checked out with no hassles at all, and the staff at reception happily agreed to store my things until I came back (take that, Trip Advisor – another thing that I DIDN’T have trouble with at the Chelsea Savoy!). I couldn’t check in at the hostel until about 2pm, so I had a few hours to kill before heading uptown.

I stepped outside into another misty morning – I can only hope that the sunny mornings become more frequent than the grey ones! I went in search of food along 23rd Street, but before that I dropped into an overpriced vintage shop – all of their 60s clothes were astronomically expensive; a by-product, I assume, of the rising popularity of the fashion of Mad Men. I also stopped into Reminiscence, a kitschy little shop that sells stuff like dog pencil sharpeners, wind-up Jesus toys, strawberry-printed tissues, purple piggy banks and ‘ninjabread men’ cookie cutters. Oh, the fun I could have had! However, I thought of my overly light wallet and my overly heavy suitcase, and exercised what little self-control I have, and walked out! Yay me!

From there, I walked back out towards the Flatiron building in search of something that I thought I had spotted the day before, but wasn’t 100 percent sure. But lo and behold, there it was, on the corner of 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue. I had found it. Eataly. Oh holy grail of goodness! Where hast thou been all my life?!?

A dining area at Mario Batali’s Eataly,
New York, May 2012

Mario Batali is a prominent chef who specialises in Italian food and has a bunch of restaurants around the world. He’s not the prettiest of creatures (any man who wears orange Crocs immediately loses 50 bazillion points on the attraction scale), but in my opinion he’s got to be a bit of a genius. Why? Well, right opposite the Flatiron building on a landmark site, he opens an Italian food market called Eataly. Not just a marketplace, but a kickass, upmarket, shiny, tantalisingly-scented gastronomic wonderland serving up only the finest of Italian offerings. Inside the giant, warehouse-style room, there are a number of cafes/restaurants as well as places where you can buy fresh Italian food, fruit and vegetables. The cheese! The prosciutto! The olive oil! The bread! The pasta! Sigh. You remember that feeling you used to get as a kid, wandering into a giant toy store just before Christmas and staring around you with wonder and delight? Well, that’s how I felt when I walked into Eataly. I could barely figure out which direction to go in first, and I walked in circles for quite a while before figuring out what to do with myself. And I was starving by this point, so that made my decisions even more difficult! (Although sampling some of their fig rustica bread helped to ease the urgency a little!) There was a fish place, a pizza and pasta place, a stand-up snacking meat and cheese place (a bit like Italian tapas, if the cross-cultural Spanish reference doesn’t offend!), and the ‘Birreria’. The last on the list isn’t of much interest to me, being a non-drinker, but I know a lot of people who would give their right arm to try it out; the menu is dictated by the beer, some of which is brewed on site.

My delicious meal at Eataly – vegetable and grain soup and a toasted sandwich. YUM!
New York, May 2012

In the end, I decided that my nutritional intake needed a helping hand (especially after the waffle-with-fried-chicken extravaganza), and I decided to eat at Le Verdure, a place that deals only in vegetables and the good stuff that goes with them. Great choice, Tara! 😉 As I sat down, a waiter brought me a few slices of paper-wrapped crusty rustica bread (YUM) and a plate, into which he poured some of the sweetest, fruitiest, tastiest olive oil that I’ve EVER had the pleasure of consuming – and that includes my trips to Italy. I later asked him what it was and he said it was called ‘Boeri’; before I leave New York, I’m buying some. No ifs, ands or buts about it. I can still taste it… mmmmmmmmm. The bread and oil were gone before I even had a chance to order! Anyway, I ordered their special of the day, which turned out to be a mushroom, grain (fara? foro?) and vegetable soup with a small sandwich on the side. The sandwich consisted of more crusty bread filled with buffalo mozzarella slices, roasted tomato slices and fresh basil, all toasted into crispy goodness. So basically like a bruschetta revved up to 100mph, really. My eyes crinkled at the beauty of it. And the taste! My mouth waters just thinking about it. It’s true what they say – the simple things are often the best. I ate every damn bite of that meal – something that doesn’t happen very often. And the best part? It only set me back $16! Not bad for a fresh, gourmet Italian sit-down meal! I licked my chops as I paid the bill, and I was ready to face the day.

My next stop was to the ever-depressing post office to send a few cards. If there is a hell, it’s got to be just like waiting in an interminable queue at the damn post office, I swear. I joined the queue and watched my life tick away. I was even more pleased when a loon of a man joined the end of the queue, muttering something about New York women and red clay. The only thing I can say in his favour is that as he entered the store and saw the queue, he emitted a loud and throaty, “MOTHER… FUCKER!!!” in annoyance. I had thought the exact same thing upon entry but had decided to keep it to myself in case people thought I was nuts… this was obviously not a concern of his. In the end, after an eternity of counting the splotches on the carpet, I have to say that the woman behind the counter was really friendly and even wished me luck in my Canadian and US endeavours.

You know, on that note, people say that New Yorkers are abrupt and rude, but I’ve (so far) had nothing but the opposite experience. I’ve repeatedly found them to be open, friendly, funny, inquisitive, helpful and kind. Sure, there’s been the odd impatient bitch on the subway, and the drivers honk their horns like they’re going out of style, but you get that anywhere. And I’m not just talking about service staff (who are of course paid to be nice to you, whether they like you or not); I’m talking about the everyday people you see on the street. I’ve had people strike up conversations with me left, right and centre; people have offered me help when I least expected it; offered me compliments on my clothes or shoes and asked where they can find them; asked me questions about where I’m from, and wished me luck in all my future adventures. All with no ulterior motive other than just to make a connection or be kind to another human being. How is it, then, that New Yorkers have gained this reputation for having a whole lot of attitude? I don’t understand it. Don’t worry, New York: I love you. 🙂

Leaving the Post Office behind, I walked up 8th Avenue for the first time since getting back, and I found myself back in the Chelsea that I knew and remembered from my first trip. Let me tell you a story…

The first time I came to New York, I was 22 and emigrating from the UK to Australia. I therefore had a big suitcase full of stuff I would need for my life in Australia as well as my little backpack that I usually travel with, but I planned to leave my suitcase at left luggage at the airport so that I didn’t have to lug it all over the city with me. Not knowing what New York was really like, I was a little apprehensive about my safety. I was arriving at Newark (New Jersey) airport at 11:30 at night, so I had organised for a transfer in advance; someone was supposed to meet me as I exited customs with a name card, and whisk me to Manhattan on a shuttle. My flight was a little delayed, and then of course there was the customs and immigration process to go through, and when I came out my ride was nowhere to be seen. I waited around for a bit, but nobody came, and the airport started to empty. I approached the ground transportation counter, but they had closed for the night. I sought help, but nobody was around – not even security guards. The last public shuttles to Manhattan had left and the stands were unmanned. I looked for left luggage, but as it turned out they had been closed since September 11, and would not be reopening for the forseeable future. Where did this leave me? Well, up shit creek without a paddle in the middle of New Jersey in the middle of the night with a bunch of luggage, that’s where. How the hell did the airport empty out so quickly?

Luckily, I spotted a sign for trains and crossed my fingers that there would be some hope in that avenue. And that’s how I found myself alone on a dirty, rickety old train from New Jersey to Manhattan at 2:30 in the morning. I have to admit that I feared for my safety; the lights kept flickering on and off and I had visions of gangs of thugs wandering up the aisles with flick-knives. Lucky for me, none of that eventuated, and I arrived safely at Penn Station. There was an elderly police officer there, and I threw myself upon his mercy; he ushered me into a cab that took me straight to my hostel. You know, thinking about it, I never actually found out what happened with that shuttle. Rotten scoundrels took my money and left me in New Jersey! Anyway, I got to the hostel and checked in and realised that I had promised my mother that I would call her as soon as I arrived – she was probably having kittens by this point. Unbelievably enough, the hostel didn’t have a working pay phone, so at 3:30 in the morning, exhausted, on my first night and after all the cafuffle, I had to venture out into the streets of New York to make a phone call. My experience so far had been one of fear and uncertainty; I still had images of pre-Giuliani 1980s New York on my mind, so it took a lot of guts for me to head out by myself.

I was surprised to find the streets of Chelsea packed with people… no wait, packed with men. Lots of men. All men. I was thinking, “Bleeding heck, it’s 3:30 in the morning and the streets are packed and I’m surrounded by men! Am I safe?” It was only as I walked further and looked closer that I noticed the details: the muscle tone. The gym shirts. The epic attention to skin care. The occasional puppy with a diamante collar. I remember thinking, “Is that dog wearing a rainbow bandanna?” And then it dawned on me: Chelsea is, traditionally, a very gay-friendly area. I was under no threat of being randomly savaged any time soon; all these men were too busy admiring each other to even give me a second thought. A palpable relief flooded over me, and it was then that I initially fell in love with Chelsea. I realised that all of my fear had just been paranoia. This neighbourhood was safe, and friendly, and completely non-threatening. I made my phone call to my mother, and then basically skipped home with the glee of being in New York. Every time I’ve been to this city, I’ve elected to stay in Chelsea – it’s within walking distance of most of the places you’d want to see in the lower half of Manhattan, it’s clean, I feel safe there, and the people are friendly. The restaurant scene is booming, cool kids fill the cafes, and the food stores are legendary. Transport is a breeze, and at all hours of the day or night there’s something to do. And now, of course, there’s the High Line too.

My only concern over the last few visits has been the fact that the gay community seems to be slowly disappearing from Chelsea. I used to eat at a little cafe called Eros, which hung rainbow flags from its awnings, and there were lots of ‘men-only’ video shops and so on. Over time, the rainbow flags and the little dogs with shiny collars seem to have disappeared. BUT… (back to the 3rd of May 2012!) as I turned the corner onto 8th Avenue, I stumbled upon a bar with no windows that advertised ‘Go-Go Men Every Night!’ I then saw a giant neon rainbow in the window of a store a little bit down the road, and my heart felt a little better. I guess it’s like I’ve said before – you go from one street to the next in New York, and the whole community changes; I guess I’ve been spending too much time on 7th Avenue and not enough on 8th! The only thing that I wonder about Chelsea’s gay community is: where are all the women? There’s a famous episode in my family which involves me and my mum in a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream parlour on 23rd Street. Mum and I are choosing our flavours and a lesbian couple come in; they are all over each other like a rash, kissing and grabbing each other’s bums. They too are choosing their flavours. Mum and I sit down with our purchases, and the women stop for a smooch. Mum leans over to me, and quietly whispers in a conspiratorial manner, “They’re… gay.” I laugh so hard that the woman behind the counter must think she’s got a loon on her hands. It’s like she told me some massive secret that I hadn’t already figured out for myself; like pointing at a cloud and whispering, “It’s… white.” Poor Mum! I think she was shocked by my reaction, as if she was surprised that I knew what a lesbian was! Sigh. Bless her. I have to remember that her generation grew up in a different world to mine. Homosexuality is not big news to me, you know? Ah, dear. Anyway, the reason I recount that story here is because its the only time I actually remember seeing gay women in Chelsea. Where are the rest of them? I guess it doesn’t really matter… I just find it interesting.

Anyway, I toddled up 8th Avenue and had a quick look in Gap (meh) and Ricky’s, a New York chain store that sells all kind of toiletries and accessories (and has a curtained-off ‘naughty’ section at the back), and then I stopped at the Crumbcake Bakery for a rest. I was delighted to spot flan (a dessert that I got hooked on in Cuba) amongst their selection, so I ordered it and took a seat, but I have to say that it wasn’t much cop compared to others I’ve tried. Then I had to give in and finally admit that it was time to move to the hostel; the prospect of dragging my baggage on the subway up to 103rd Street was not an attractive one, but it had to be done.

I picked up my bags from the hotel and hopped on the 1 train, which conveniently goes from 23rd Street straight to 103rd, not far from the hostel. As I was dragging my suitcase behind me up the stairs (subway stations do not generally have lifts), I suddenly felt my load lighten, and looked behind me to see a guy with long hair and a leather jacket lifting my bag for me. I was gobsmacked, but this was not the last time that somebody gave me assistance without me even asking for it. Love this city.

The neighbourhood around the hostel seemed pretty sweet; kids were sitting on their stoops chatting, and a large guy greeted me as I passed him by on the street. There were lots of little delis and restaurants; it seemed like a family-oriented area, but I might be wrong. I passed a Ben & Jerry’s on the corner down from the hostel and knew everything was going to be okay! I checked in with only one problem – I had booked a female-only dormitory room, but was told that they were booked out and that I would have to go into a mixed dorm. And I was thinking, ‘yes, the all-female dorm is all booked… BECAUSE I BOOKED IT!’ How the hell does that work?!? I booked it, and then they don’t have it? What sort of computer system are they using? Really, I have no problem sharing with guys in a dorm, except for one thing: the snoring. I had a really bad experience in Boston once, where there were 2 older men who snored orchestrally all night, one inhaling while the other exhaled, and it drove me barmy. Absolutely batty. Bonkers. Since then I’ve made it a policy to stay in female-only dorms because usually it’s less of a problem – and if they do snore, they’re usually quieter. As it turned out, I barely slept a wink all night for about a week thanks to the nightly honkings of all of my male room-mates (3 of them in unison, at one point) in New York, so I was right in my caution, but sadly there was nothing I could do about it. Grrrr.

I found my bed and went about the totally unsexy business of washing my clothes. Doing laundry while travelling just feels like such a total waste of fun time, but I think I was at the point where my jeans were about to get up and walk away by themselves, so it had to be done. I put in two loads and did some hand-washing too; it was a real marathon! I then checked my emails on the hostel WiFi, and went down to the reception area to sign up for their various walks and activities. While signing up, a sweet little Japanese guy called Masao started chatting to me, and somehow the two of us were press-ganged into the hostel’s twice-weekly ‘welcome party’ where you get a free boozy drink (lost on me) and get to meet your fellow travellers. I actually met some interesting people though; Masao turned out to be a shiatsu masseur (“Shiatsu Warrior!”), and I met people from Trinidad and Tobago, Israel, Germany, Mauritius, Brazil, you name it, they were there. I also met a bunch of Australians (we’re everywhere) – one in particular stood out. Her name was Torey, and she looked like she’d been dragged backwards through the back door of a brothel; her makeup was thick and smudged, and her clothes were hanging off her at odd angles. She slouched when she stood, and had a voice like an 85-year-old who’s been smoking since they were 12. Her opening gambit was, “Free beer, pretty fuckin’ sweet, eh?” followed by, “Aw shit, I’d better go and put my face on, you never know what kind of party this might turn into!” She came back about 15 minutes later with even more makeup on and talked about how trashed she was going to get, and for some reason she chose me as the confidante, letting me know that there were “a bunch of fuckin’ hotties in this room, shame I don’t understand any of ’em when they talk”. In my head, she became Torey the Whorey, which isn’t very nice of me, but I couldn’t help it. Good God. I just prayed that she wasn’t from Brisbane so we wouldn’t have to figure out who our mutual friends were. (Thankfully, she was from Adelaide.) She didn’t seem like the mean type, but all the ‘F’ words that peppered her speech… ugh. What a bogan.

I made my excuses and left the little shindig, and made my way to the nearby Malaysian Grill for dinner with a copy of Time magazine to keep me company. I ate lemongrass pork chops – not very Malaysian, but delish – with brown rice. I went up to my dormitory and was pleased to find that most of my room mates (for that night, anyway) were girls – a local New Yorker who was in the process of moving house, a lovely woman called Yuko, from Japan, and a young Spanish couple (the husband snored, but fairly quietly!). A late addition was a stupidly rude Chinese girl. One could say that maybe I just thought she was rude because of the language barrier, but let me tell you this as an English teacher – she could speak English, but she just didn’t care. All of us greeted her as she entered the room, and her response was a grunt, eyes to the floor, and a slamming of her bags to the ground. The others widened their eyes and left one by one for their evening activities of choice. I was reading on my bed and without an ‘excuse me’ or whatever, I just heard a bark from across the room. “What time is it?” So I sit up, get out of bed, get my phone out of my bag, and tell her the time. And then she resets her clock and she goes back to what she’s doing. Without so much as a thank you or an acknowledgement that I even answered. I resist the urge to scream, “YOU’RE WELCOME!” in her face (which I usually do to people in the street who ignore me when I hold the door open for them), as I figure that we’ll be sleeping in the same room and I don’t really want to wake up with my eyebrows missing or my hair on fire. But I have already written her off as a bitch. As it turns out, she also ends up driving the others in the room nuts, too; she has the annoying habit of not actually closing the dorm room door, and just leaving it ajar, even after Yuko asked her to be careful as leaving the door open gives anyone in the hostel access to our belongings. Yuko was ignored, and so everybody else in the dorm huffs and puffs about having to lock up all of their stuff, all of the time, on account of one stupid troll who can’t be bothered to pull a door closed properly. Sigh. The joys of sharing with strangers.

Anyway, the rude bitch aside, my room is quite comfortable and the facilities are great, so I can’t really complain. I sleep fairly well with the background noise of the Spanish man, and settle in to my first night (of nine) in the hostel.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Fond Farewells, New York, May 2012

17 May

Still catching up with adventures from the last couple of weeks… eeep! 🙂

Big Booty Bread!
Chelsea, New York, May 2012

Wednesday May 2nd – Charlie and I rose fairly early – our last morning together before his holiday ends, and before the next stage of my adventure begins. I felt a bit sad that my trusty travel buddy was heading off, but also excited at the idea of spending the next couple of months in New York. I thought that we should finish as we had started – with a giant foodfest! Huddling against the rain, we made for the Comfort Diner, one of my favourite hangouts the last time I was in New York. Sweet potato fries with maple dip (or blue cheese dip, as was my preference)… yum! Sadly, as we approached, I realised that the damn place had closed down… HOW DARE THEY!!!! This left us with the difficult task of choosing one of the many, many other good food places in the immediate area of the hotel. Before doing that, though, we paid a visit to the Flatiron building, which was just a stone’s throw from the old site of the diner. An iconic skyscraper, it was finished in 1902 – fairly early in the high-rise annals of New York. It is wedge-shaped and highly impressive – unusual and beautiful. Sadly, it lost a bit of its lustre in the rain, but I still love the way that it looks like a different building from every angle; sometimes thin as a sliver, and sometimes like a normal square until you round the corner and go, ‘Woah!’

We went back along 23rd Street and paid a visit to the infamous Hotel Chelsea, where Sid Vicious killed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, and where numerous literati and famous folk laid their heads. Stanley Kubrick, Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain, Dylan Thomas, Leonard Cohen, Jean-Paul Sartre, Dennis Hopper, Iggy Pop… the list goes on. Sadly, the Hotel recently closed its doors to guests… there is apparently a handful of permanent residents still living there, but some random investment firm (Japanese? I can’t remember) bought it and has plans for its redevelopment… yikes.

After bumbling around the neighbourhood indecisively, getting more and more hungry, we eventually stopped for breakfast in another of my old haunts – the New Venus Cafe on 8th Avenue. I remember once having great waffles with bacon here, so that’s what we ordered. Sadly, after waiting a wee while, the waitress informed us that despite numerous attempts, the waffle machine was chucking a tanty and would not be serving us today… would pancakes do? Yes, they would! And so instead of yummy waffles with bacon, we ate yummy pancakes with bacon. 🙂

We went back to the hotel room and Charlie packed his last few things, and then we went to the lobby of the hotel to wait for the airport shuttle to come and get him. I think we both got a little bit tense, as the shuttle seemed to take forever getting there and in the end was fairly late… we had left a very large window of time for him to get to the airport, but things like that can still put you on edge because you never know if the van will actually turn up or not! Happily, the van eventually came… although sadly, its arrival meant the end of our adventure together. Charlie got into the van, and that was that. I was alone in New York, and he was on his way home to England. Goodbye Charlie – see you sometime in the not-too-distant future, I hope!

I had granted myself one more night in the hotel by myself. The next day, I would (for budget reasons) be moving into a youth hostel and I knew that sleeping in a dorm room is usually a pain in the ass, so I had decided to give myself this one night as a sort of break between one stage and the next. It was the smartest thing I could have done; I had a great evening of doing absolutely nothing, and I had a great night’s sleep, and it turned out to be a godsend as my time in the hostel was very busy and almost sleep-free, for numerous reasons.

After saying goodbye to Charlie I made a pitstop at the fantastic Garden of Eden Gourmet (not the last one for this trip by a long shot), and picked up a packet of Kettle Chips, a tub of hummus with cilantro (that’s coriander for those of you who speak my language!) and a box of chocolate-covered graham crackers (god’s gift to the universe, in my humble opinion). I then went back to the hotel room and built a nest. I caught up with my reading, I nibbled on my snacks, I wrote an entry or two for this blog, and I got into my New York guide books. I turned on the TV and watched a bunch of stuff I would never normally watch. First I watched the movie adaptation of Phantom of the Opera, starring Gerard Butler as the Phantom… who would’ve picked him as the a sparkling, buff King Leonidas after that? I guiltily admit having enjoyed this campy musical… although, gosh, her boyfriend/husband was a bit of a wimpy sort. Even with the mangled face and murderous drive, I think I would’ve picked the Phantom! 😉 Then I watched a couple of episodes of House, which I’ve always meant to watch but somehow never quite got round to (verdict: awesome). Following that, the TV presented me with the last half an hour or so of ‘In & Out’, an oldish movie starring Kevin Kline, Matt Dillon and the ever-delightful Joan Cusack (whose brother I still love unconditionally, even after the laugh-fest that was ‘2012’). I actually really enjoyed what I saw; I’ll have to go back and watch the beginning some day!

I really just enjoyed having nowhere to go and nothing to do, to be honest. I listened to music that I was given in Cuba, and thought of the friends that I made there; I considered my options for the next 6/7 weeks, and I slept like a baby.

Awesome afternoon.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Will I Get A Heart Attack From Eating Fried Chicken With Waffles And Maple Syrup? Probably. But Who Cares When It Tastes This Good?

17 May

And so, after a fairly lengthy hiatus, I’m back again! The last couple of weeks in New York have been a rip-rolling ride and I figured that I was better off being out and about and living the stories rather than being stuck inside writing about them! My mornings have been early, and my nights have been late, but now I finally find a window of opportunity to sit and catch up!

Where were we? Ah yes.

Tuesday May 1st – Another early rise on the Yankee ferry, but this time there is no sunlight coming through the windows. During the night I heard the rain thrashing down, and when I woke up the sky was metallic grey. The Manhattan skyline was misty, and the tops of some of the skyscrapers were shrouded in cloud. Eurgh. Still, I have to keep reminding myself that New York is the kind of city that can be explored in rain or shine…!

The living room aboard the Yankee Ferry,
Hoboken, New Jersey, May 2012

We met up with Victoria at 9/9:30ish, as she had kindly offered to make brekkie for us. The three of us went into the galley (kitchen) of the ferry and Victoria made poached eggs (from the boat’s chickens!) with some home-made bread. Yum! We sat and chatted for a fair while before we realised that the day was racing away from us; Victoria gave us some great suggestions for pizza places etc before we ran to the Turning Point Cafe to check emails and addresses, and then returned to the boat to collect our things and say goodbye to everyone… including Pinky and Mr Brown, the little dogs, who seemed rather unperturbed by our departure! I have the feeling that I’ll be seeing Victoria again, somewhere, so saying goodbye wasn’t that difficult! 🙂

We had found that the quickest way to get to our hotel in Manhattan was to get the ferry and then use their free shuttle bus, so that’s exactly what we did. In the end, the shuttle dropped us off right outside our hotel door – not a bad deal at all! Our home for the next two days was to be the Chelsea Savoy Hotel, on 23rd Street in Chelsea. I’d stayed there before in 2006/2007 and found the place to be minimalist but clean, friendly enough, and the location was priceless. On 23rd between 7th and 8th Avenues, it’s smack-bang in the middle of the action in Chelsea, surrounded by great cafes and restaurants, and if you look down 7th Avenue from the hotel entrance at night, you can actually see the lights of Times Square! So it was a bit of a no-brainer when I was looking for somewhere for me and Charlie to stay on Manhattan. I was a little bit concerned because the recent reviews on Trip Advisor have been less than glowing, but I can honestly say that I had no issues with the place this time at all. Something tells me that some people go to a 2-star hotel expecting 5-star service… it just doesn’t work that way! Our room was clean, there were no bedbugs, the staff processed my booking right away and offered help when it was needed. Yeah, our room was a wee bit noisy, but for Chrissake it’s New York! And you’re in a busy area! Suck it up, people!

Anyway, we checked in with no problems (even though we were fairly early, they still let us straight in), and went to our second-floor room. It directly overlooked the crossroads of Seventh Avenue and 23rd Street, so we had a birds-eye view of all the goings-on at the Chelsea Papaya hot dog stand…! We dumped our bags and headed out again almost immediately. We went west, aiming for the High Line.

The High Line park is a piece of true civic awesomeness. Once a busy elevated train line ferrying goods in and out of the meat-packing district, it fell into disrepair when other modes of transport turned out to be cheaper, and when the area became less industrial. The last train ran on it in 1980, and from that time the weeds took control and it was abandoned. In the late 90s/early 2000s, a group of neighbourhood enthusiasts petitioned against its demolition and somehow managed to convince the city of New York to turn it into an elevated garden. It is now one of the highlights of NYC, attracting visitors from all over, with a thriving community calendar and a highly enthusiastic staff. It runs parallel to 10th Avenue and runs between (and through!) apartment blocks, businesses and The Chelsea Market. The original train tracks are still there as a reminder of it origins, but winding walkways and carefully-thought-out gardens, shrubberies, water features, art works and even birdhouses have turned the whole place from an eyesore into a joy. I hadn’t been to the High Line before (it opened to the public in 2009, which was after my last visit), but I’d followed the whole process with great interest; Chelsea is one of my favourite neighbourhoods in New York and I wanted to see what they’d do with this opportunity. I just love the fact that the structure was given to the community, and that the community have welcomed it with such gusto; it gives me hope for the human race!

We entered the High Line from the 23rd Street access stairs and started our little walk downtown. The day was still fairly grey, so there weren’t a lot of people out in the park, but you could still see how amazing the whole concept was. At various intervals there were wooden seating areas with large communal benches, and behind the Chelsea Market there was a deck area, where on warmer days they have cafe-style food and food stands. At one point the pathway opened into a large, staggered… well, I suppose you could call it an amphitheatre, except not quite as grand or curved, suspended over 10th Avenue. The focal point of this amphitheatre was a large sunken window that gave an uninterrupted view down 10th Avenue, a peaceful interlude overlooking all the traffic and activity. Providing spaces like this in a big city like New York… genius. Central Park is really being given a run for its money!

From the High Line, we got a subway downtown to one of the places that was high on Charlie’s list, and indeed mine: the 9/11 Memorial, former site of the World Trade Centre, formerly known as Ground Zero. Excuse the following digressions into past New York memories; I think they set the tone for how I was feeling when we made our visit.

Everybody has their story to tell about September 11th, 2001. Mine was fairly simple; I was at home in my room in Queensland, Australia, studying. I got a call from my mother, who told me to go to the TV immediately. I went into the living room in my sharehouse to find some of my housemates gathered on the sofa. The first plane had just hit the North Tower (8:46am, New York time). We watched in horror as the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03am; confusion was high, but with the second hit there was no doubt that it was an attack and not an accident, as some at first assumed. I’m not sure at what point they announced it, but somewhere along the line we discovered that one of the flights was a United Airlines flight bound from Boston to LA. My housemate, Jeff, was from Boston, and his mother was supposed to be on a United flight from Boston to LA that day. One of my lasting images of the evening was Jeff, in his shorts and wrestling shirt, on the carpet on his knees, phone in one hand, desperately trying to call his family, staring at the television and hoping, praying that the flight that hit the tower was not the same as his mother’s. We watched the Pentagon get hit. Then we watched in total disbelief as the first and then the second tower collapsed. How on earth was this possible, and what the hell was going on? Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania. People kept turning up at our house, despite the late hour. By the end, we had a small crowd in the living room; friends who lived nearby, and their friends. I think we all wanted to be together, to reassure each other, to witness with each other. Eventually, in the wee hours of the morning, Jeff finally got news that his mother was safe (her flight had been scheduled for later in the day), and nothing new was coming from the news networks, so we dragged ourselves to bed, bewildered.

The next morning, the university was full of people; everybody had come in, whether they had classes or not. We all wanted to exchange news, consolidate, and console. I’m not sure exactly when Al Qaeda took responsibility, but I do remember that very early on, the Islamic Students Group at the university became very proactive in offering their support and separating themselves from this awful terrorist act. They were smart; they saw the storm that was coming in the shape of anti-Muslim sentiment. It was an early reminder that ‘Muslim’ is not the same as ‘Terrorist’, a thing which far too many rednecks seem to forget.

Anyway, I’ve seen the World Trade Centre site in a couple of different stages of its development since September 11, and I wanted to see what had finally been done with it. The first time I saw it was in May/June 2002, not long after the attacks and when the recovery operation was still in full swing. I hadn’t actually intended to visit the site; I had deliberately avoided it, in fact, because I didn’t really want to be part of the ‘war tourism’ movement. However, I was trying to find my way to the nearby Fulton Street Pier, and with all the chaos from the destroyed subway lines, I somehow popped up out of the ground right outside the site, next to St Paul’s church. The first thing I noticed was the church fence; it was absolutely covered with t-shirts, stuffed toys, messages, tiles, notes, candles, flowers, dolls, religious icons, cards, posters and offerings of all kinds. I went to take a closer look and it was only then that I noticed that I was right next to a giant hole in the ground, and that people were standing around, lighting candles and offering prayers. How could I have missed it? I spoke to the gentleman in charge of the viewing platform, and even though I didn’t have a ticket (available free nearby for timed intervals) he admitted me onto it, because it wasn’t very busy at the time. I was surprised by how moved I was. The people on the platform with me were holding each other and crying, and it was only then that the enormity of the thing struck me – this giant pit in the ground, about 16 acres in size or more, used to have giant skyscrapers in it, and nearly 3,000 people died in this place. A list of the dead and missing, peppered with photographs left by family members, was posted nearby as you exited the platform; of course, sadly, the ‘missing’ were added to the list of the dead. Dust still seemed to envelop the downtown area; the cleanup operation was on a massive scale and would continue for years. I left the site with a renewed appreciation this event had on the soul of New York. It would never be the same.

On the same trip I passed through Grand Central Station and came across a message board just off the main concourse, again lined with flowers and lit candles. On the board were posters of the missing and the lost. My heart broke at numerous posters which read along the lines of, “Missing: John Smith. Last seen 8:15 am, Sep 11 on the XXXth floor of the North Tower WTC. If you see him, please call XXX-XXX-XXXX.” All I could think was that these people were not coming home; it was 8 or 9 months since the event and they were simply not coming home. But hope springs eternal; I saw one poster for a missing man with a note scribbled on it: FOUND. Apparently in the aftermath, he had gotten lost and, without his diabetes medication, had somehow slipped into a coma. He had run from his office without his ID, and was admitted to hospital with no identity, only to be found some time later. Miracles do happen. Sadly, not enough on that day.

The feeling I got from New York on that trip was one of sadness; deep, deep sadness and loss. But I also felt a kind of hope, and of community – people were banding together, and trying to get through it together. It was elsewhere in the country that the hatred seemed to be brewing, an unadulterated hatred for Islam in general and the outside world. And I seem to remember thinking, “Surely it’s the New Yorkers who have the most right to that kind of thinking, and yet they are trying to turn this into something more cathartic.” It was a bit of an eye-opener for me.

A few years later I visited the site again, this time with my mother – I think it was in 2007. By this time, the recovery effort was finished and Ground Zero was basically a building site surrounded by mobile construction trailers and chainwire fence. You couldn’t actually see in to the site, but there was a display showing a timeline next to the subway station. Unfortunately, sites like this often draw the nutters – the shouters, the touts, the religious zealots waving their religious tome of choice and telling us that we would all go to hell if we didn’t do whatever it was they were doing. A site that should have been a place for quiet reflection was more like an ugly carnival; a man playing Amazing Grace on his flute was drowned out by a large woman screaming at the top of her lungs about how 9/11 was punishment from God for all the bad Christians out there, and a bunch of guys selling 9/11 t-shirts – complete with images of the burning towers on them – were shouting out their wares. The final straw for me was an Indian family I spotted next to the fence. The four of them lined up against the fence, put their arms around each other, and gave big, beaming smiles for the camera. And I thought, “Are you freaking kidding me? You’re going to go home and show your friends a picture of you SMILING next to the fence at Ground Zero?!?” They were not terrorists; they were not America-haters; they were just bloody ignorant. I think it’s difficult for some people to differentiate between a tourist site and a memorial, you know? I see it all the time, and from people of all nationalities, including Americans, Australians, you name it. You go to New York, you see the Empire State Building, and you smile for the camera. You go to the Rockefeller Centre, and you smile for the camera. You go to the World Trade Centre, and you smile for the camera. Except you don’t. You shouldn’t. Sigh.

Well anyway, it was with these previous experiences in mind that I went to the memorial. I had been terrified that it would have been turned into some over-nationalistic display of “WOOOH! YEAH! AMERICA! SCREW YOU GUYS, LOOK WHAT WE CAN DO!” Some of the original plans for the site had been to build two more towers, only taller, in a gesture of defiance. I’m happy to say that whoever made the final decisions had their head screwed on right. The combination of the memorial pools and the new skyscraper (now the tallest building in New York, and still on its way up) is one of taste and respect; respect for the victims, respect for the visitors, and respect for America at large, but without a whole bunch of over-wrought Americana. Thank goodness. (Although I wonder if the multi-billion dollar price tag might not have been better spent elsewhere, say, helping poor families or pulling America out of its debt crisis…) It is easy to become cynical about the events of 2001, especially in the wake of George W. Bush’s hate-fuelled foreign policy rhetoric and the messy, unwelcome and unsuccessful wars that followed, but I mustn’t forget that nearly 3,000 people died that day. People who were just following their daily routines, drinking a coffee or whatever, and then the world crumbled down around their ears. Terrible.

A memorial pool at the World Trade Centre Memorial, set in the ‘footprints’ of one of the towers,
New York, May 2012

Hmmmm. I promised myself I wouldn’t wax lyrical about this, but here I am. Stop it, Tara! Moving on… our visit to the memorial. Until the whole site is completely finished, numbers are limited, so in order to get in one must book one’s free tickets online OR go the the Preview store on Vesey Street, next to St Paul’s church. We did the latter, and were lucky enough to get tickets for the next entry, only half an hour away. I grabbed fries at a Burger King, and Charlie grabbed a Cinnabon (his first!) to tide us over as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and then ran for the site. We went through a fairly simple security screening, and then… there we were. The footprints of the two original towers (about 8 acres in total, if I remember correctly) have been turned into giant, square pools, descending into smaller and smaller squares; each side is a waterfall, pouring into the middle and eventually disappearing into the void at the bottom. The squares are lined with bronze panels, each with the names of the victims punched into the metal. The names are grouped according to whether they were first responders, on a certain plane, or in a certain building; allowances were made where family members asked for names to be put next to each other. So many names. The waterfalls are surrounded by a swathe of trees, including the ‘Survivor Tree’, which was just a stump when discovered in the ruins at Ground Zero, but was taken to a nursery, cared for and nursed back to health. It was then knocked over by a storm, but true to spirit it survived – it now holds a place of honour in the mini-forest on the site.

One World Trade Centre, still under construction but already Manhattan’s tallest building,
New York, May 2012

By this time, the sun had come out and it was actually warm. Charlie and I wandered around, fairly subdued, and watched the crowds react in different ways. People taking a moment of silence, families walking around looking for a particular name, and kids oblivious to that running around and playing. I don’t begrudge them that; their parents will fill them in when they’re old enough to understand. I tried to ignore a woman and her husband (by their accent, from California or somewhere West) posing and smiling by one of the tower footprints, and we just sat for a bit. Hard to imagine the horror in that tranquility, really; that’s probably a good thing. Happily, the ticket system seems to have kept the nutters out, and a large security presence also helps people remember how to be respectful… mostly!

We left the site with our tummies rumbling, so we jumped on a subway headed for Harlem and for Amy Ruth’s soul food restaurant. Ah, Amy Ruth’s. Yumyumyumyumyummmmm. Previous visits have brought a spectacular feast of good, old-fashioned comfort food, and this visit was no different. I was so preoccupied with my meal that I can’t even remember what Charlie had; I can tell you, though, that my fried chicken with crispy waffles and maple syrup, with a side order of buttered corn, was criminally delicious. The music playing there was great, too – a bunch of Motown classics with a heavy dose of Sam Cooke, one of my favourites.

After eating, we decided to take a little walk through Harlem. We only walked from 116th street to 125th, but already I could see changes since the last time I was there. 125th Street had already been ‘revitalised’ when I last visited, but one thing I spotted that surprised me was yellow cabs. In 2005 or 2006 I went to Amy Ruth’s for dinner with some friends; we were planning to head to the Apollo Theatre afterwards and wanted to catch a cab. I asked the restaurant manager where we could find one and he looked at me with something that seemed like pity for my misunderstanding. “Honey,” he said, “We don’t get no yellow cabs up here. This is Harlem.” He was so matter-of-fact about it. I was very surprised. He went out and found us a ‘gypsy cab’; he negotiated the price for us and told the driver to look after us… or else. So seeing yellow cabs on the streets of Harlem told me that maybe things continue to look up for the area. I’m sure that, like any neighbourhood, it still faces its share of problems, but it’s very hard for me to marry my mental image of 1980s Harlem (crime-ridden, scary, dangerous, mostly negative) with the Harlem that I see today, which seems quite the opposite.

125th Street, as always, was a hive of activity; 2 guys had a boom box and were dancing to jazz on the street, and there were stands and stalls stretched along the pavements. Charlie and I were exhausted, and decided to head downtown. On the subway I spotted a man in black trousers, a black leather jacket, and with a peacock feather stuck on his lapel. Natty dresser – I loved it! We got off the subway at Times Square – I think that after the initial shock had worn off, Charlie really liked it there! We sought out a few of the unmissable ‘I HEART NEW YORK’ t-shirts for Charlie and then decided to walk home in the hope of getting our dinner to settle. Just next to Madison Square Gardens we discovered a multi-storey comic book store (Midtown Comics), so of course a visit had to be paid! I was surprised to find that there is a series of novels based on the TV series Supernatural… how did I not know this?!? I resisted temptation but may have to give in at a later date. I just hope they’re not rubbish. The gospel of Sam and Dean, eh? Ha ha ha.

We walked through the Fashion District and passed a bunch of little bakeries before reaching 23rd Street. I finally took Charlie to see one of my favourite places in New York, and one of the reasons I love Chelsea. Just a few doors down from the hotel is a small market store called The Garden of Eden Gourmet. Inside, it is a beautifully-lit wonderland of delicious food and tantalising treats; each apple is wrapped before it’s stacked (terribly wasteful but very attractive), each tomato looks hand-picked. Their chocolate selection is drool-tastic; their salad bar is divine. Charlie’s first response: “Why the hell did you wait so long to bring me here?!?” And that’s why he and I will always be friends; a shared interest in the good stuff!!! 🙂 The man behind the cake counter asked us if we needed any assistance. “No thanks, we’re just drooling.” He replied, “Ha! I do that too!”

We went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening just relaxing; after more than a week of running around and having to be friendly in hostels (and to the crowd at the guest house in Philadelphia), it was nice to just be able to hang out together somewhere quiet with no disturbances. We read, we wrote, and we went to sleep. Charlie’s last night, boo!

Just a thought to round off the day: I keep seeing advertisements on the roof of cabs for ‘Flashdancer’s Gentlemen’s Club’ or ‘Sparkles Gentlemen’s Club’, etc. Why are they called Gentlemen’s Clubs when the kind of people who go there are generally the antithesis of a gentleman? The mind boggles.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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How the hell did we end up on Bowery AGAIN?!? The Long Walk, April 2012

5 May

Tara shows the Obamas how it’s really done,
New York, April 2012

Monday April 30th – I woke up on the Yankee Ferry with the sun streaming through the windows and, despite my few hours of sleep, I felt pretty spritely. After getting ready, Charlie and I crossed the gangplank and then the road to a little cafe called the Turning Point, where Victoria had told us they had free Wifi. I grabbed a corn muffin with butter, and Charlie had a chocolate muffin with a ‘Charlie’s Chai Shake’ (who could resist ordering a shake named after them?), and we mooned over the view from the giant windows. New York! Woo hoo! 🙂

We briefly got in touch with the world at large, checking addresses of places we wanted to go during the day, before setting off. Our aim was to hit the East Village and then keep walking south, through NoLita, Little Italy, Chinatown and then into the Lower East Side. A big walk! We made a short detour to get some tickets printed at a nearby apartment building that offers concierge services to the Yankee, and then decided to get the NY Waterways ferry over to Manhattan rather than the bus. We raced down to the pier and managed to snag tickets (steep at $9 each!) just before our ferry left; the guy on the ferry looked peeved but at least he waited for us!

We had wanted to take the ferry for the views and the breeze, but as it turned out there was no outdoor seating – d’oh! We enjoyed the view from the smudged windows, though, and still took some joy in our very brief (8-minute) ‘commute’ to the city. After arriving, we transferred to one of the free shuttle buses, which dropped us back in the West Village on 7th Avenue. From there, we tried to beat a path almost directly east, towards the East Village. We passed by the Stonewall Tavern, the firing point for the riots in 1969 which essentially started the gay rights revolution; I made a mental note to come back at a later point for a better look.

On 8th Avenue we made another shoe stop for Charlie, and when he stopped to pull a drink out of his bag he discovered the chocolate-covered bacon that we’d bought in Philadelphia and still hadn’t quite had the guts to actually taste yet. Well, we thought, there’s no time like the present. So, there in the street, we took a bite of our chocolate bacon. Putting it into my mouth, I knew I was probably committing a crime against something, but I did it anyway. I chewed slowly, and I have to admit that I couldn’t decide if I loved it or hated it. It tasted burnt and salty, and then the sweetness of the chocolate hits you and… well, it’s just a wierd combo altogether. It’s not often that I’m short on words, but in this case, I have nothing. What I will say, though, is that one bite was enough for both of us. We chucked what was left of it in the bin, satisfied that we had at least tried it. Bleh. Both of us needed a long slurp of water after that experience!

We continued our walk almost directly eastwards until we reached Astor Place, the ‘entrance’, I suppose, to the East Village from Broadway. The East Village is chronically trendy, in a pierced, tattooed, rockabilly, alt-rock kind of way. We wandered along 8th Street (renamed St Mark’s place in the main heart of the neighbourhood) and peered into numerous tattoo parlours and shops full of t-shirts with witty slogans, but our main destination was St Mark’s Comics, a place I had visited many years before and thought Charlie might like to see. On my last visit there I had made the mistake of wearing my ‘I HEART NERDS’ t-shirt and asking the guy behind the counter where I could find a copy of Jhonen Vasquez’s Squee compendium, making it appear as if a) I actually knew what the hell I was talking about when it came to comics and b) he might actually have a chance of getting into this English chick’s trousers because she hearted nerds. Of course, neither of these things were true and I spent a fair amount of time fending off the small talk of an over-eager (but, I suppose, harmless) boy who bore more than a passing resemblance to the Comic Book Store Guy from The Simpsons. Yikes! Mental note to self: Yes, you love nerds, but not just any nerds. Next time you’re going to a comic book store, leave the t-shirt at home!

Anyway, we paid a visit to the scene of the crime (the guy from the last time was nowhere to be seen), and Charlie once more found a few gems for his collection. We walked a bit further before heading south down 2nd Avenue and into the NoLita (North of Little Italy) district, which is full of very expensive clothes shops, designer boutiques and large storefronts that seem to have very little in them – but what they do have costs a bomb! I made a detour into Desigual , a wicked Spanish clothes designer. Many is the time I have salivated over their brightly-coloured skirts, jackets and dresses but I’ve always walked out of their boutiques empty-handed, and today was no exception. The cost of one of their jackets is about equal to a week’s travel budget for me, so I had to take it easy. Boo hoo! We also stopped in a handful of skate shops but Charlie was equally as appalled by the prices as I was, so despite our little dip into the world of trendy designers, we both left the area empty-handed.

We zig-zagged our way across numerous streets, finding ourselves on Broadway and then on Bowery, and then somewhere else and then Bowery, and then Bowery AGAIN; I felt like I was in the twilight zone! All roads lead to Bowery! There are worse places to be, I suppose, but it was never our destination or our intention to end up there!

Next stop was Little Italy – or what’s left of it. As Chinatown has grown, Little Italy has shrunk, and now all that’s left are a few delicatessens and a handful of restaurants. Last time I decided to eat in Little Italy I ended up paying about $20 for 4 ravioli which had been microwaved; I later went up the road and ate a slice of great pizza for a few bucks. Buyer beware!

Cheeky dragon and cheeky Tara slurp ice cream at the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory,
New York, April 2012

I think I’ve said this before, but one of the things that I love about New York is being able to turn a corner and find yourself in a neighbourhood with a completely different vibe. This is particularly true for this area; Mulberry Street still retains a distinctly Italian feel and then you go one miniscule block across onto Mott Street and find yourself in Chinatown, with all the charms that brings – a hustle, a bustle, people nattering in Chinese, little waving Feng Shui cat toys, tacky plastic knick-knacks, and knock-off Rolexes. Water rolls out of the fish markets, so you have to pick up your feet to avoid treading in a puddle of fish juice; roasted ducks hang in the windows; buckets of dried shrimp stand outside grocery stores. I always feel at home in Chinatown, regardless of the relentless noise and activity; I guess that’s what comes from growing up in Hong Kong! As you wander southwards down Mott Street, the street becomes narrower and more lanes sprout from each side. We took a turn on Bayard Street, in search of the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. This place makes their own ice cream in a range of flavours both exotic and everyday, from durian to black sesame and from vanilla to chocolate. Their logo is one of my favourite company logos ever: a cute, fat little dragon slurping a cone of strawberry ice cream. We both had a cone (mine was double chocolate Oreo) and stood outside, watching the eclectic crowds come and go. I sniffed haughtily at the Haagen Dazs down the road as we passed; from what I understand, Haagen Dazs heard that the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory were doing well and got snitty that some of ‘their’ market was being stolen, so they opened a rival shop nearby. I might be mistaken in this belief, but it wouldn’t surprise me, coming from a company that allegedly played dirty with Ben & Jerry’s in the early days and tried to have them closed down! Well, I gave my money to the locals and will continue to do so. Take that, corporate scum!

Continuing down Mott Street, we stopped into Aji Ichiban, a Hong Kong-based chain store that sells exotic snacks. Pickled plums, haw flakes and dried squid abound. Yeep! Crossing Canal Street, Mott eventually turned into a cobbled lane, and we decided to make a turnaround and head for the Lower East Side. And somehow… despite checking the map for street names and the direction we should take… ended up on Bowery! Again. AGAIN!!! Checking the map again, I managed to avoid a nervous breakdown when I discovered that I wasn’t hallucinating; the road we had started on changed its name partway along. Phew!

We ended up on Eldridge Street on the Lower East Side. Traditionally, the whole area was home to the Jewish community in Manhattan, but over the years Chinatown encroached and from what I understand, a lot of the Jewish locals picked up sticks and moved to Brooklyn. There’s still a few Jewish businesses in the area, but even over the time that I’ve been coming to NYC (the last 10 years or so), I can recognise changes in the district. The pickle sellers and bakeries have slowly disappeared and been replaced by Chinese restaurants and the occasional glitzy gallery. We wondered through the old heart of the neighbourhood, though, heading straight up Eldridge and crossing over Delancey. I always get a small, silly thrill out of that; there was a cheesy little movie in the 80s called ‘Crossing Delancey’, which my mother used to love. It was a romantic comedy about an arty, snooty girl whose traditional Jewish grandmother enlists a neighbourhood matchmaker to find her a husband. The matchmaker picks a lowly pickle salesman, which doesn’t please our little snob at all, and from what I remember she treats the poor guy like crap but for some reason he keeps running after her until he wins her over. I never particularly liked the ending, because I don’t think she deserved to get the guy! Still, it was a bit of a classic, painting a picture of a time and a place, and it starred Amy Irving (aka Mrs Steven Spielberg) who was big news at the time, so it’s become a bit of a thing for me to ‘Cross Delancey’. 🙂

From Eldridge Street we turned on to Rivington, which is home to quite a few interesting little shops and cafes. We popped in to Economy Candy , which has been open since 1937; it sells a massive selection of sweets and chocolate from all over the world and from different eras. Gumballs, Pez and Jelly Belly abound, as well as hand-made choccies. Yum! We passed TeaNY, Moby’s tea shop (where I plan to spend a bit of time later), and picked our way around the endless roadworks that seem to continue in the area. We then kept walking until we made it to Ludlow Street, where we took a left and walked until East Houston, where we stopped at… Katz’s!!!

Katz’s Diner, where Sally had her infamously pleasing sandwich with Harry, Lower East Side,
New York, April 2012

Katz’s Delicatessen/Diner is a bastion of the Lower East Side, open since 1888. They’re famous for their pastrami on rye sandwiches, and other traditional Jewish and New Yorker fare like matzah ball soup, Reuben sandwiches, corned beef sandwiches and pickles. I think their continuing fame, though, comes from a more recent source: they were the site of Meg Ryan’s famous ‘faking it’ scene from ‘When Harry Met Sally’… now everybody goes there so that they can say, “I’ll have what she’s having!” The service has really gone downhill since I was last there; I reckon that they think they’re catering for more of a tourist market and thus don’t have to worry about repeat business, which is a shame because they really have great sandwiches. You have to order at the counter before sitting down and the guys were more interested in chatting to each other than actually communicating with the customers. Mine asked me, “You want mustard?” I said, “No thanks.” So then he reached over and slathered mustard all over the bread. Sheesh.

Where Harry Met Sally – a pastrami on rye with pickles and fries at Katz’s Diner, Lower East Side,
New York, April 2012

Anyway, we squeezed onto a table (the place was packed with people from all over the world) and munched our shared pastrami and rye with a side of fries, nibbling on our complementary pickles. I’ve never really been into pickles, but the ones at Katz’s are pretty damn good. We then continued along East Houston, looking for the Yonah Shimmel Knishery. I knew I’d seen it somewhere around there years ago, and lo and behold, my memory was correct! I’m so proud when stuff like that happens! We barrelled right in and ordered a potato knish, which is basically a big fat traditional Jewish pastry stuffed with potato (or whatever filling you’ve chosen!).  They’ve been making knishes here for over a hundred years, and not much about the shop has changed. It’s good, hearty, basic fare, and I’d underestimated how big they are – we each only managed a bite or two before having to give up!

Continuing our marathon day, we got the subway to Times Square and paid a short visit to Bryant Park. It’s one of my mum’s favourite places; I brought her here in 2006 during the wintertime and we had warm apple ciders while watching the ice skaters glide around. It looks very different in the warm weather; the market stalls had gone, as had the ice, and been replaced with a sprawling green covered with New Yorkers enjoying the sunshine and lolling about in chairs. We went around the corner to the New York Public Library, the entrance of which is guarded by two serious-looking lions. I still think of Ghostbusters whenever I see it!

A picture speaks a thousand words,
New York, April 2012

Next, we went to Madame Tussaud’s; a few of my students have been there and raved about it, so I figured we should give it a try. At first the entry fee seemed exorbitant, but having been there now I can honestly say it was worth it – I had a ball! Who would’ve thought that wax mannequins could be so much fun?!? I got snatched by King Kong, cuddled up to Johnny Depp, kissed Patrick Stewart (“Make It So!”), yawned at Kim Kardashian, and flirted with George Clooney. I presented the news, and then got a hug from a guy in a Hannibal Lecter mask before being shoved down a ‘corridor of terror’, where Charlie and I both nearly peed our pants with fright. Repeatedly. It was dark and misty and they paid staff members to jump out in front of you, grab your arms and chase you down the corridor. Common sense tells you that nothing bad is going to happen, but when a creepy stranger is sneaking up behind you and following you for no reason, you can’t help but get the heebie-jeebies! We must have screamed pretty loud, because when we got to the end, the family that had gone in before us were laughing their asses off. Whoops!

Recovering very little of my dignity, I sang with Stevie Wonder and then made a very important phone call on the White House Red Phone before issuing a statement to the press; I hung out with Frank Sinatra, boxed with Muhammad Ali, asked Steven Spielberg how he had managed to make such a big cock-up of Indiana Jones 4, and nearly got eaten by The Hulk. It was AWESOME!!!

Batter Up!
Yankee Stadium, New York, April 2012

We left with some reluctance, but our next adventure of the day was to be even more awesome… we were headed to YANKEE STADIUM in DA BRONX to see the NEW YORK YANKEES play some baseball against the BALTIMORE ORIOLES! Woooooohooooooooo!!! I really need to use more capitals to express our EXCITEMENT!!! 🙂 We hopped a subway at 42nd Street which took us all the way north, off Manhattan and into the Bronx. From the subway station there, we followed the general movement of the crowds to Yankee Stadium itself. We were SO excited. The place was literally buzzing with the hum of excited fans both old and young, and the smell of popcorn and hot dogs filled the air. We found our seats and took our place in the crowds, and waited for the fun to begin.

Boy oh boy. What a night. What a night! I’ve never been much of a fan of spectator sports but I could really see myself getting into baseball. The show was as much in the stands as it was on the field! From the outset, we knew there was no hope for the Orioles. This was Yankee Stadium, filled with Yankee fans who were not afraid to boo and hiss at the away team. Screeching and shouting filled my ears, words of enouragement for the good guys and of dismissal for the bad guys. “YOU SUCK!!!!” screamed one Yankees fan to an Orioles pitcher who kept pitching foul balls. A pre-recorded, swanky, flashy introduction was given from the Yankees, giving us the rundown on all the players, their numbers and their positions; no such consideration was given to the Orioles…! I guess that when they play as the home team, that’s when they get the perks. Let’s hope so, anyway!

We’re at Yankee Stadium! GO THE YANKEES!
The Bronx, New York, April 2012

Before the game could start, we all stood for the Star-Spangled Banner; about halfway through we had to stand again, this time for ‘God Bless America’, sung in honour of American troops. Throughout the game, there were puzzles and quizzes set for audience members, and there were spot prizes. There were singalongs, and dancealongs, my favourite of which was YMCA. Everybody was up and dancing, including the guys who were straightening up the dirt on the pitch between innings; they dropped their little drag-dusters and threw their arms up in the air with the rest of us! There were birthday messages, and a request from one young man to his girlfriend: “Will you go to Prom with me?” Cheesy, but cute. The cameras swung from the game itself to the audience fairly frequently, giving everyone a chance to wave and say hello. It was so much fun!

The food vendors were my favourite part. They came winding their way down through the stands, shouting what they had for sale. I had already bought my $7 popcorn on my way in and was stuffed; I didn’t even have room for a hot dog, dammit! It was great listening to them. “Hey you! Beer? Beer? You drinkin’? Beer?” And the accents…! “Hawt chawclit! Get ya hawt chawclit!” (That’s hot chocolate to you and me!) One guy even got a bit creative: “Hawt chawclit! Yummy yummy in ya tummy!” I loved it!

The teams, for their part, did a lot of gum-chewing and hat-adjusting and spitting and crotch-grabbing; they pitched and they batted and they ran and they put up with all the screaming. In the end, after 9 innings, the score was 1-2 to the Yankees. Of course!

As we left, we did a little jog to warm ourselves up; it was freezing in the stadium and I couldn’t even feel my hands any more! Thanks to the Yankees win, we were treated to the aural delight of Frank Sinatra’s ‘New York New York’ as we ran out of the stadium; people were singing along, including me. As Ol’ Blue Eyes sang, ‘King of the Hill’, I flung out my arms and I thought, “Oh yeah! I’m in New YORK!”

Totally. Kickass. Night.

The New York skyline as seen from Hoboken, New Jersey,
April 2012

We got the subway back to Bryant Park and walked to the Port Authority before catching our bus back to Hoboken. The view over the Hudson to Manhattan was hazier tonight, which warned of possible rain tomorrow, but was still just as beautiful. Our last night on the boat – sob!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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From Philadelphia to New Jersey (via a little place called New York City), April 2012

3 May

Sunday 29th April – Our last morning in Philadelphia and thus, our last breakfast at the Thomas Bond House – cantaloupe with raspberry sauce, egg souffle, sausages, home-made muffin bread, a salad with dill mayonnaise, and the usual choice of sweetbreads (I went for the orange and poppyseed). Considering that my breakfast at home usually only stretches as far as a boiled egg and a single piece of toast, this is a big deal! I’m not sure how long I can keep up this rate of consumption without actually making myself sick…!

We finished breakfast and then had a little bit of time to kill before we had to leave, so we just took our time in our room, packing up and sorting things out. At around 10:45 we said goodbye to the lovely staff and went out onto the kerb to wait for a taxi, and within about 30 seconds one had rolled up. He was gesturing wildly as he pulled in and I thought, “What on earth…? Is he okay?!?” It was a few seconds later that I realised his radio was blasting, playing Diana Ross’ “You Can’t Hurry Love’ at full volume, and he was just singing along! This is definitely the kind of guy I could like, I thought. We chatted on the way to the Greyhound station; we talked about good radio stations, how people in Philadelphia can’t seem to stop honking their car horns (“These people here, they live on they damn horns!!!”), how singers like Diana Ross don’t have to work as hard as they like people to think… actually, I made a jokey comment about how I sing in the shower and I find it pretty easy, but I don’t get paid for it, and he cheekily said, “If you sing in the shower, and the shower get cold, he tellin’ you to get out!” and then he laughed a hearty laugh.

We arrived at the Greyhound station and were almost sad to get out of the cab! Still, off we went, and before we knew it we had checked in and were waiting for our bus to New York City. It was a totally uneventful journey. After nearly a week of running around Washington and Philadelphia, I was totally pooped, and I slept soundly the whole way. I remember opening my bleary eyes and seeing a corner of the Chrysler Building and thinking, “Oooh, we’re here,” and then dropping off again until we hit the Port Authority Bus Terminal!

I would like to digress a little bit here to tell you how I feel about New York. I’ve visited this city a number of times, and each time I’ve just added to the list of things that I’d still like to do and see. I always felt that I would really like more time to slow down and just see New York from more of a local perspective (if that’s possible, for a non-local!). I feel very passionately about this city; I know it’s such a cliche, but I love it. It has a certain energy, a feeling of movement; you can stroll from only one street to another and find yourself in a totally different neighbourhood with a totally different flavour. I want to fully explore as much as I can while I’m still of an age (and while I still have enough freedom, financially and responsibility-wise) to be able to enjoy it. For this reason, I have put aside just under two months to spend here. I sense that New York could be quite a lonely place to live as an outsider, but I think that for two months I’ll be able to keep myself entertained, and I’m sure I’ll meet people through swing dance or other random avenues. Charlie leaves in two days, and then I’ll be on my own until June 10th, when my friend Cameron arrives. I can’t wait to start this part of the adventure – it’s been a long time in the planning!

Arriving at the Port Authority Bus Terminal was a little bit like coming home. After spending a month or two travelling through totally unfamiliar cities, I was finally in a place where I could navigate and find my way around without having to think too much. Phew!

The first thing I saw at the bus station was a mother and her ridiculously cute little girl; they were waiting for someone to meet them and the toddler was playing with her mother’s phone. Sensing an opportunity to teach her daughter some phone etiquette, the following conversation occurred:

Mother: Okay baby, say ‘hello’!

Daughter: Hewwo!

Mother: Now say, ‘hello Daddy’!

Daughter: Hewwo Daddy!

Mother: Now say… ‘AlrightAlrightAlriiiiiight!!!’

Both myself and the luggage handler nearby snorted with laughter as we caught a glimpse of the confused little face staring up at her mother!

Our first mission was to find Victoria, who was to be our host for the next couple of nights. We booked our room through AirBnB, which is a handy service that allows people to book rooms with people in their homes, or to rent out whole apartments from private owners. The system seems to work really well, and so far my (limited) experience has been very positive! Charlie and I had booked two nights and Victoria had kindly offered to come and meet us at the bus terminal to show us the way.

Victoria and her husband Richard, both artists, are the owners of a historic ferry boat called The Yankee, which started life as a pleasure tour boat for rich New Yorkers, and was then refitted and turned into an Ellis Island Ferry, transporting steerage passengers between Ellis Island and their lives in the New World. After that fascinating stint, The Yankee was enlisted for different purposes during World War One and World War Two. Quite the history for one boat. Victoria and Richard acquired it and have fixed it up and decorated it beautifully; it is now docked in Hoboken, New Jersey, overlooking the Hudson River and the Manhattan skyline. As soon as I read about it, I knew that I wanted to visit, and luckily Charlie had been of the same mind!

We had arranged to meet Victoria at a bakery and it took us a little bit to find it, but we got there in the end. Victoria had told me that she was easy to find, thanks to her multicoloured hair; she was indeed correct. My first impression of her can be summed up easily: she was stunning. I walked into the bakery and there she was, a vision of awesomeness: a wonderful shock of multicoloured hair, tied up with tartan ribbons; a tartan skirt; long stripey socks; a button-up shirt under a military-style khaki jacket, and, last but not least, a pair of rollerblades, on which she was zipping around while surveying the bread on offer. In many ways, it reminded me of my wardrobe from when I was a bit younger, which was a wild and multi-coloured affair full of tie-dye, patchwork and tartan; seeing her dressed like that made me want all my old clothes back!

As it turns out, she was just as friendly and lovely as she looked; the three of us chatted all the way to Hoboken about this and that, and the journey was surprisingly easy – the bus left directly from the Port Authority and, thanks to the Lincoln Tunnel, was in Hoboken in about 15 minutes. We got off the bus and made the short walk out to the waterfront, which has obviously been through a whole bunch of ‘urban regeneration’ programmes. Old warehouses and woolstores converted into red brick apartment blocks – you know the look. The ‘boardwalk’ area had apparently just been rebuilt because a while back it had just fallen – ker-plunk – about 6 feet down! So, it was all very shiny and neat. On the whole, though, even though it was more manicured than I expected, it was quite beautiful, and there was enough greenery to keep the peace. And the view….! Oh, the view. The whole of Manhattan laid out before you, shining in the sun. Nothing quite like it. I was quite dazzled.

We approached the Yankee through a small dog park and along the pier, and we met three young men coming in the opposite direction. Victoria introduced one of them as Jacques, who lived on the boat with them, and turning to greet him I found myself dazzled all over again. Peeping out from underneath a woolen beanie was a pair of stunning eyes and a face that had no business being that handsome. Did I giggle like a schoolgirl and twirl my hair? No, thankfully. I think I managed to maintain my British composure… phew! 😉

The boys went on their merry way and we entered the Yankee via a gangplank, whereafter we were mobbed by a pair of sweet wire-haired daschunds, one a miniature called Pinky and the other an 18-year-old gentleman called Mr Brown. I am so enjoying having so many dogs around on this trip! We had time for a quick gander around the boat before running off to explore New York at Victoria’s behest. First impressions of the boat? Ah. Sigh. Cosy, warm, colourful and homely for the main living areas, filled with comfy armchairs and hand-made cushion covers and furniture. Outdoors, five chickens cluck and shuffle with utter contentedness. The upper deck, where Charlie was sleeping, had wooden floors and was lined with passenger benches, with a wood-fire stove at the heart of it. Just delightful.

Anyway, without much further ado, and with the promise of a boat tour later, Victoria walked us to the city-bound bus stop, even running ahead of us at one point when she thought the bus might be pulling up. We passed a local museum which I must investigate at some point in the future! Before we knew it, Charlie and I were back in the heart of Manhattan.

The unrivalled magic of a Fat Witch Brownie,
New York, April 2012

A short subway ride later, and we were at one of my favourite places in New York: The Chelsea Market. A veritable cornucopia of tasty food, this is my go-to stop for a good lunch. It was absolutely packed; lots of The Beautiful People out for a Sunday afternoon snack and stroll. The Chelsea Market used to be a Nabisco biscuit factory and lay in disuse for a while before some genius came along and decided to redevelop it into a trendy food emporium. Now it is filled with small specialty stores in a sort of urban-retro-steampunk (!) setting. There’s Eleni’s, a place that only makes decadent iced cupcakes and cookies; then Fat Witch, which specialises in the best brownies you’ll ever eat (unless you try mine, of course!), Amy’s Breads, Ronnybrook Dairy, People’s Pops, who make gourmet ice lollies… everything looks amazing. I was like a kid on Christmas morning; I could barely believe I was back in New York, and it lent an air of the surreal to the whole experience for me. I wandered in a bit of a daze, trying to take in the fact that it had been five years since I was last here, and it basically seemed the same.

For lunch, I decided to go for my favourites; I went straight to Amy’s Breads and bought their amazing semolina, raisin and fennel bread (a party for the tastebuds!), and then crossed the corridor to Hale & Hearty Soups (a chain, but a good one, and the soups are made on the premises) where I chose a Curry Shrimp and Roasted Corn Bisque – be still my heart. Charlie grabbed a sandwich from the soup place, and we commandeered a table nearby to feast upon our goodies. The soup was incredible; the bread was just as good as I remembered it. To round off the party, we rolled into Fat Witch and bought a couple of their unwrapped brownies (which are half price, if you come at the right time of day). I had a milk chocolate chip one, and Charlie went for the double chocolate, both of which were supreme. Sighing happily and licking our fingers of the last brownie crumbs, we decided to go for a bit of a walk and explore Greenwich Village, aka the West Village.

Classic fire escapes,
New York, April 2012

We started by walking east along 14th Street, and when we spotted a sign that said ‘Young Designers Market’ we detoured and went inside. There were clothes and there was jewelry, but the thing that caught my eye was the stall selling feathered headbands – just perfect for swing dancing and general dress-ups! I dithered over a few of them and ended up with a red one, a green one and a brown one. I was in love! I later spotted a bunch of stalls along 5th Avenue selling feathered headbands, but to be honest most of them looked flourescent and a bit tatty – and they were slightly more expensive – so I’m happy that I bought mine when I did. I guess they must be quite popular in New York now, which would normally steer me away from wearing them, but they just look so good. Now I just need to start wearing fancy dresses every day so I can wear the headbands with them! 🙂

We continued our walk and started heading downtown along 7th Avenue, into the West Village, where the orderly street grid system disintegrates and it turns into a series of diagonals and lanes, some lined with beautiful townhouses (would they be considered brownstones? I think so) and tucked-away businesses and boutiques. We stopped in an overpriced trendy gadget shop and gawked at the designer cookware. A shop attendant said a bright, “Thank you!” to a customer who was leaving, and then blew a giant farty raspberry when the customer ignored him. I definitely felt that the assistant was somebody I could have a lot in common with…! Manners cost nothing, buster!

We wound our way through the streets, taking detours through whatever looked interesting, but generally sticking to 7th Avenue, Bleecker Street and Houston (pronounced ‘How-ston’, not ‘Hew-ston’, in New York). I collected business cards from any restaurants or cafes that I thought I might like to visit later, and we poked in more than a few shopfronts. We stopped to watch a game of street hockey (on rollerblades!), and Charlie was in awe of a basketball game being played by a bunch of local kids in a caged square. Welcome to New York!

Times Square,
New York, April 2012

When we’d finished our little circuit, we ended up back at 14th Street and caught the subway up to Times Square, emerging in the chaos just as the sun started to set. Times Square is positively insane. Even at night, the bright lights make it seem almost like daylight, and the sheer volume of human traffic is immense. It’s a throbbing, pulsating human centre and you have to have your wits about you or you risk being collected by the swarm and pulled in a direction you’d never planned to go in! The billboards and neon threaten to overwhelm you almost as much as the people. They scream, “BUY BUY BUY!” and the constantly-changing ticker-tape messages just keep on runnin’. Perversely, I quite like it. I hate advertising and all that rubbish, but there’s definitely a frenetic energy going on that is quite captivating, and I’m not yet so cynical that I can’t get swept up in the excitement of it all! We went for a lengthy walk around. I could sense that it was Charlie’s turn to be dazzled; even after seeing two large cities like Washington DC and Philadelphia, Times Square can still be like a smack in the face with a wet fish. I was happy to be seeing it through his eyes, remembering what it was like the first time I came.

Scattered around the square were a bunch of people in costume, much like Fremont Street in Las Vegas. We spotted Mickey Mouse, Elmo (cunningy hanging around right outside the Toys’R’Us to catch the kiddies as they went in or out), Iron Man, Hello Kitty and the Statue of Liberty, among others. Charlie had a veritable shoegasm at a number of sports stores… he’s quite the collector and all of these limited-edition shoes had him in a bit of a tizz! I was just happy to toddle along and keep him company; it was refreshing to be in the company of a guy who was distracted by shoes (and sexy cars, which he frequently salivated over in the street) rather than the chests and/or bums of random women walking past!

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
Times Square, New York, April 2012

From Times Square, we went upwards and east, where we passed by Radio City Music Hall, home of The Rockettes, and a number of tempting smells from street vendors before making it to the Rockefeller Centre. We considered visiting the Top of the Rock (an observation deck with apparently spectacular views over Central Park), but the monumental queues deterred us; I’ll have to do it another day, preferably when I won’t be wasting 3 hours of my time in a queue! We went around to the front of the Rockefeller Centre and admired the bronze statue of Prometheus (overlooking the space that becomes the famous ice rink during the winter) before walking out to Fifth Avenue where, it being Sunday night, things were fairly quiet. It was getting pretty late by this time and, mindful of our journey back to Hoboken yet to come, we decided just to stop at the first place we came across for food – and that turned out to be TGI Friday’s…! Sigh. All the food of New York, and we ended up at a TGI Friday’s! Still, I’ve visited TGI’s in Cairo, Prague and Southampton (!) so I figured I might as well give one a try in America. And on Fifth Avenue of all places! Both of us ordered a Kansas City BBQ Burger (which came with bacon, cheese and onion rings) and, when we were finished, decided that we should walk back to the Port Authority Bus Terminal for a bit more exercise… I’m pretty sure that even with all the walking we’d done, we hadn’t done enough to compensate for the ridiculous size of that burger!

Charlie had been charged with a mission to find a packet of Twinkies while in America, and so far our search had borne no fruit – has Hostess gone out of business? Anyway, in a random Duane Reade (New York’s ubiquitous chemist/general store), I spotted a packet of caramel Tim Tams – Australia’s national biscuit of choice! What on earth…? That was the last thing I expected to find in a Times Square Duane Reade!

We arrived at the Port Authority with 5 minutes to the next bus; we bought our tickets and raced upstairs and just scraped in! We were back in Hoboken within 20 minutes and we came out onto the waterfront with a collective sigh; the view that had been spectacular during the day was doubly so at night. It was a very clear evening, so the city shone like sparkling jewels on the other side of the water, crisp and clear. The Yankee was lit up with fairy lights and we were once again so pleased that we had chosen this as our temporary home. It was about 11pm by this time, so we crept in hoping not to disturb anyone – but as it turns out everyone was up anyway. Victoria gave us the tour of the boat, showing us all the different rooms and cabins, from the cargo deck to the crew quarters (now almost a little apartment in its own right) to the cabin boy’s room (complete with a beautiful angled writing desk) and the main dining area, which came complete with a grand piano and a suspended dining table, which could be hoisted to the ceiling to make more room.

The passenger deck was lined with benches and later on in our visit, when nobody was looking, I took a little time to sit quietly on a bench and tried to put myself in the place of a newly-arrived immigrant making the journey from Ellis Island on this very ferry. How would they have felt? It must have been terrifying and exciting all at the same time, arriving in the New World and, in many cases, being given a new name and a new identity. I’ve moved countries many times now, but the advent of the internet has made the world seem a lot smaller and nothing seems very permanent. For these people, it would have meant an almost total separation from their old lives and families – forever. What a choice to make. To be able to sit on this ferry and just taste a little of that history: amazing.

Anyway, our tour continued of the boat, which was much larger than I had anticipated, and full of enticing nooks and crannies. We went up to the top deck where we once again encountered Jacques, who was brushing his teeth before bed, and we got to meet YM, another full-time Yankee inhabitant. The two of them share a small but friendly common area, and YM’s room was compact but very inviting – her elevated bunk had storage space underneath, and a nice big desk took centre stage. It’s the kind of place I dreamed about living in when I was a student (and, in fact, was lucky enough to find in my second year of university – but of course not on a boat!). Jacques slept in the wheelhouse, which I guess must have had one of the most kickass views in New Jersey.

After our tour was over, Charlie retired to the passenger deck and I took my place in my room, lulled to sleep by the almost imperceptible rocking of the Yankee; and there ended our first day in New York.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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Running In The Footsteps of Rocky and Al Capone, Philadelphia, April 2012

29 Apr

ROCKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Philadelphia, April 2012

Saturday 28th April 2012 – We woke to the smell of frying onions this morning – always a promising start to the day! Wandering downstairs, we were presented with the usual assortment of sweetbreads but, because it’s the weekend, they put on an even bigger spread than usual! Quiche Lorraine with baked ham and ‘breakfast potato’ (fried with onions), plus a delicious fruit salad with a honey and lime sauce… slurp!

Emulating Rocky on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Philadelphia, April 2012

We walked out to Market Street and braved the local bus system (which turned out to be pretty simple, cheap and effective) to get to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in the northwestern corner of the city. Were we there to admire the priceless artworks? No. We were there to emulate Philadelphia’s favourite fictional son, Rocky Balboa. Awwwwww yeeeeah! We were there to run in his footsteps – up all the stairs in one go, jump the last flight in a couple of steps, do a little U-turn, stick your arms over your head, jump about like a loon, pull up your trousers and jump about some more. Classic scene!!! We decided to film the whole debacle; there’s no point in making a total fool of yourself if there’s no evidence of it, is there? Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be able to post a video of our antics for you to see. We had an absolute ball running up and down the stairs, pumping our fists in the air and snapping pictures all over the place. Who would’ve thought you could have so much fun with a set of stairs? Hundreds of tourists were doing the same thing, and it was totally cheesy but it actually created a really nice atmosphere – everyone connected by this one silly little act. We also visited the Rocky statue, by the base of the stairs, and paid homage to his victorious stance. “ADRIAAAAAAAAN!” 🙂

Cell block at the Eastern State Penitentiary,
Philadelphia, April 2012

After wearing ourselves out with all the running and jumping, we walked to our next destination for the day – the Eastern State Penitentiary. Our tone was quite different at this place! Built in 1829, the jail was the world’s first true ‘penitentiary’, a place where inmates were treated in such a way as to encourage true penance for their crimes. Up to that point, prisons had been a kind of violent free-for-all where prisoners were often kept in large common rooms all together, spreading disease and causing a danger to the prison staff and the prisoners themselves. The ‘Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons’ (one of the founders: Ben Franklin) envisaged a new system for prisons, to be instituted largely by the Quakers: complete isolation. Each prisoner would have his or her own cell and have no contact with other prisoners or the outside world, save with their guards. A white mask was worn whenever the prisoner left their cell to avoid excess stimulation. The prisoner spent 23 hours a day inside their cell, and then had two half-hour breaks in their own little outdoor exercise space to stretch and get fresh air. Quite a different vision to today’s penal systems! As time passed, disciplinary methods changed and prisoners had to share cells; overcrowding soon became a problem.

The prison building was also quite revolutionary for its time; it was built in a wheel shape, with a central post for the guards to keep watch over everything easily, and with the ‘spokes’ being the cell blocks, the entirety of which was surrounded by high stone walls. This ‘Pennsylvania Design’ was adopted by prisons all over the world and is still in use in many places.

An evil-looking barber’s chair in an abandoned room at the Eastern State Penitentiary,
Philadelphia, April 2012

The Eastern State Penitentiary itself was completely empty by 1971; the age of the building made its upkeep difficult and its conditions unpleasant. In the 40 years since, nature has reclaimed much of it; it’s funny how quickly something can become completely dilapidated if left unmaintained and at the mercy of the elements. The paint (what’s left of it) is cracked and peeled; the mortar is crumbling off the walls, and trees have made their homes in some of the old cells, creeping through weaknesses in the brick. Abandoned buildings are always eerie, and this prison even more so. Tiny doors leading to tiny cells; echoing corridors; empty shower rooms; furniture left to rot in cells; a single barber’s chair in a run-down room; fenced-off areas that are structurally unsound; the whole place was morbidly fascinating. Such a state of decay is rarely seen in everyday life.

Admission included an audio tour, so we plugged in and were surprised to hear the voice of Steve Buscemi guiding us through the bends and turns of the prison, along with the voices of real ex-prisoners and historians. We saw the cell in Block 8 where Al Capone spent 8 months in 1929 (where he apparently lived in relative luxury, listening to his waltz records and walking on his fine rugs), and we visited Cell Block 15, also known as Death Row (although inmates were not put to death here; they were transported to another prison and taken to the electric chair). We both got creeped out in one particular cell block (Number 14? I’m not entirely sure) which had not been properly restored yet; a chicken-wire fence separated us from the main part of the corridor and I was actually quite glad of it. Something about it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end; brrrrrrr. We went underground briefly to see the pipes and catch a glimpse of ‘the Klondike’, which was basically the solitary confinement unit, used for punishment after they stopped keeping everyone in solitary all the time. We also had a bit of fun with some of the mirrors which had been installed at the end of Cell Block 8, positioned so that even if a guard was around a corner, he could still see down the next block. The way they were arranged was quite confusing to the eye; you never knew quite which direction you were looking in! We also giggled (perhaps cruelly) at the mug shot of ‘Pep: The Cat-Murdering Dog’. Apparently, Pep was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1924 after killing the State Governor’s wife’s cat…!

Mirrors pointing at all sorts of wierd angles lead to directional confusion! The Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, April 2012

There were a lot of other things there that we could have seen before leaving, but hunger called. We had already been at the Penitentiary for a couple of hours and it was freezing inside (I dread to think what it must have been like for the inmates during the harsh winters), so we knew it was time to go. As we left, we spared a thought for the older gentleman we had met on Thursday who had been here as an inmate years ago. By our calculations, he was probably in his 20s (or possibly his 30s, if he was among the last prisoners to live there) when doing his time, and conditions must have been awful. Sure, you do the crime, you do the time, but wow. What a dreadful place.

We gratefully walked out into the sunshine and walked down Fairmont onto Pennsylvania Avenue to get the bus back into the city centre, where we made a beeline for the famous Reading Terminal Market. Talk about a foodie haven! If we hadn’t been gorging ourselves everywhere else in town, we might have tried to make it there earlier! The whole joint was a-jumping with people out for a food fix, and boy was there a lot to choose from. Everything from Indian to ice cream to Greek to Chinese to fresh fruit, fresh meats, wicked cheeses, confectionery… we did the logical thing and did a round of all the aisles first, to see what we’d most like to try, but by the time we go to the other end we’d forgotten the multitude of things we wanted to try and had to go back again! We were tempted to join the gargantuan queue at DiNic’s to see what all the fuss was about (I think they were just selling sandwiches), but in the end, we settled on Cajun food. Charlie had a muffaletta sandwich (which the server carelessly shouted out to the kitchen staff as “One quarter muff to go!” …Sheesh!), which was basically meats, cheeses and pickles in a whopping stack, and I tried a bit of prawn and crab pasta salad with corn bread and mac & cheese balls. Oh my. I didn’t even get halfway through it but it was gooood. We sat at a nearby table and enjoyed the piano skills of a young man who had set up a keyboard in the area; his rendition of Love Rollercoaster, done with a jazzy beat, was particularly awesome!

I resisted the urge to buy an anatomically-correct chocolate heart (ventricles and aorta!) but could NOT resist ‘The Famous Fourth Street Cookie Company’. We were about to order a chocolate-chip cookie to share when we discovered that they were selling the same cookies, dipped in chocolate. SOLD! We were so thrilled but knew the danger of eating cookies like that (once you start, you can’t stop!)… the man checked that we were over 21 (so we could cope with the pressure!) and said that he wasn’t allowed to sell them within 500 metres of a school…! We sat at a table outside and before we knew it, the cookie had magically disappeared. It was amazing, but gone all too soon.

We walked from there, through Chinatown, to the National Constitution Centre, but I am ashamed to say that by the time we got there we weren’t all that keen, and the $15 entry charge sealed the deal. We turned right around. Maybe I’ll regret that later, but right now I feel fine about it. Instead, we walked past the building that holds the Liberty Bell and marvelled at the length of the queue outside. Not wishing to waste two hours of our afternoon in a queue, we kept walking and then spotted the bell itself through a side window! Job done – we saw the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. We then tried to get in to Independence Hall, only to find that all the tickets were sold for the day, but we were able to get through the security check and hang out in the courtyard behind it for a little bit. I had a little bit of regret over that, but there wasn’t much we could do if all the tickets were gone! Feeling a bit lazy, we then wandered home and spent a nice couple of hours just relaxing and hanging out in our room – probably something that was a bit overdue. One has to remind oneself to take a breather when travelling, sometimes. It’s all well and good to run around like a headless chicken and see everything you think you should see, but sometimes you need to find a bit of peace, too.

For the first time, we made it to the 5:30 wine and cheese that our hotel organises for the guests; we found that we were definitely a different ‘demographic’ to all the other guests present, by at least 30 years. “One of these things is not like the other!” Still, we had a nice chat and enjoyed the cheese (we were Philistines and ignored the wine) before going back to the room to back up photos before heading out for dinner.

We decided just to explore our immediate neighbourhood in search of food. A lot of the places nearby seem to be bars that also serve food, but we didn’t really feel like being in a bar and it’s Saturday night, so we felt a bit too scruffy to hang out with the Beautiful (and in some cases, not-so-beautiful!) People. In the end, we opted for Rocchino’s, a swanky pizza joint, where Charlie had a Florentine pizza (spinach, peppers and olives), and I had the Rustica: rosemary oil with chopped pancetta, potato, parmesan and mozzarella. Nom nom nom nom nom!

Our walk home took less than two minutes, and when we came through the front door we found our nightly fresh cookies waiting for us. I’m going to miss those, that’s for sure! We made ourselves a hot chocolate and sat down in the sitting room for a little bit of peace, only to be swarmed by about 6 other guests about 2 minutes later – bad timing. Next thing I knew, we were embroiled in the fringes of a heavily political conversation, and one of the guys had the balls to make an incendiary comment along the lines of “The Muslims are taking over America”. I realised soon afterwards that in this group of people, that was not considered an incendiary comment, and I was appalled. I found myself telling them how much (and why) I disagreed with that rubbish and to their credit they listened politely, but honestly I don’t think there’s much you can do to change people like that; all you can do is hope that they forget to vote! Sigh.

Anyway, Charlie and I escaped upstairs as soon as was humanly possible (the pitfalls of being in a shared guesthouse!) and now it’s bed for time again.

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

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