reflections on new york city

we did go there. i'm just a long way behind in writing about it.

primarily i'd say new york is made for childless adults. we still had a good time, saw a few of the sights and enjoyed ourselves. i am thinking of re-naming our trip: "the world tour of scaffolding", a lot of the buildings i want to take in were either partially or completely covered in scaffolding! this included the palace at versailles (one whole wing), the flat iron building (part of one facade), the gorgeous buildings lining central park and believe it or not the entire guggenhiem museum!! we'd been laughing about what was covered as we walked up the side of central park to the guggenhiem. we'd decided that because we'd just spent a few hours in the metropolitan museum of art we were museumed out and would just gawk at the architecture of the gug. not to be! paul spied it first and starting laughing and apologising all at once. i was confused until he pointed, "that's the gug..." am i the god of scaffolding? does this stuff just erect itself when it sees me coming? never mind, i'm thinking of stealing percy's 'gap year' for myself, sending her straight to uni or down the mines and taking the world trip myself. will the gug still be there in 17 years? might have to go earlier than that.

we had a hotel on west 46th street. which is not an interesting part of town really. it just seemed sort of central to me when i was booking. we did walk nearly everywhere- including one monster trip on our first day from 46th street all the way to the southern tip of manhatten. this is not just a 46 block walk for those of you not familiar with new york, as the southern end continues with streets that are not numbered but have normal names. we went past times square, down broadway, thru soho and washington square, past the world trade centre site to arrive at the park on the southern tip. sorry, the name escapes me and i'm too lazy to go look it up. we decided not to visit the statue of liberty as being trapped on a boat with a potentially nuclear percy is something we think we can do without. besides, i understand you're not allowed inside and to the top anymore anyways.

we walked part way back up the western side of manhatten. nice parks and some pretty boats to look at on that side. we took the subway/train the remaining two thirds, once the parks ran out. the new york subway is not designed for strollers. stairs everywhere, locked gates, narrow barriers and no-one to query or ask for help. oh well. i'm coming to think that most metropolitan train systems are relics from days when only men in dark suits would use them to get out the rain and have clandistine meetings with their handlers from the cia. except singapore- singapore is big and wide and clean and has escalators or elevators and runs so on time you can set your watch by it. however it's a modern system.

we did go to the top of the empire state building. which was being renovated- is this a close cousin to scaffolding? i could have spent ages looking out from the observation deck. not necessarily because the view was that captivating, tho it was quite impressive, rather because i'm fascinated by the detail. i would have picked out every roof top water tank, window, plant, gargoyle, pool, billboard, boat, bridge and bus if i was left alone long enough. not sure what this points to- my prediliction to autism? gee, that's positive. however we didn't spend that long as percy didn't seem so chuffed- does nothing impress that girl!

an interesting aside to the ascent of the empire state building is this tourist schmaltz of having your photo taken in front of a green screen and then purchasing said photo printed over the building or view or whatever. we hate these things and largely try to skip it. the guys running the gig at the empire seemed very angry that we walked right by insisting we we're going to buy their crappy photo anyways. afterwards i started to think maybe it's got two other purposes; 1. crowd control- if things get a bit pushy or out of hand one way to slow it all down and return order is to get your damn picture taken. 2. the more sinister idea is that with everyone having their piccie snapped there is a record of everyone entering the observation areas. were we risking national security by refusing to smile for the box browning? uh oh.
who's got $20 for a cheesy shot anyways?

i really liked central park. i think percy did too. we spent a while walking about, exploring belvedere castle and stumbling thru a movie/tv shoot which looked a lot like a wedding scene from 'wedding crashers' or similar.
the smaller city parks were a revelation in one regard. areas within the park are fenced off, quite small areas really, for leash-free dog runs. i suppose i'm spoiled with having sydney park just down the road, seeing doggies run over the hill and far away without a care. these little dog runs presented as very poor comparisons.

one day we booked a boat ride. as the time came to board we fronted up to the ticket kiosk, waiting patiently. not something i'm good at with percy in tow. we didn't wait long for the news to arrive that all river traffic has been shut down; our boat wasn't goin' nowhere. why was this? because the UN was having a big pow wow and little george was arriving by boat!! rude bastard. well we got our money back and took on of those open top, hop on/ hop off bus tours instead. this wasn't the brightest idea either. just 'cause little george was going by boat didn't mean all the other big wigs were. traffic in new york, which i understand can be a little tight and stressful anyways, really wasn't moving. even the tour guide apologised and said he'd rarely seen it this bad before.

i definately want to spend more time in new york. there's absolutely heaps we didn't see and couldn't do. i'd like to live there for a while to get a real grasp on it, much the same as london. somehow paris didn't exert the same pull. perhaps i want to keep paris for romantic visits, while nyc and london are places to find all the sides, shades, quirks, good and bad points. of course there is nowhere like sydney. i imagine i'll always want to come back here as 'home.' however there are plenty of places in the world i haven't been, one might pip sydney for the relaxed embrace of welcome one day.

leaving new york was less stressful than arriving. our flight into new york was held on the tarmac for three hours because a terminal couldn't be found for us! percy was over the plane thing by that time. she wasn't screaming or crying, just a lot of squirming and 'can i please do something else now.' due to the plane having landed but not yet arrived at the terminal we were required to remain seated the whole time and the bloody crew wouldn't return the bassinet either. it's not like the plane was moving!

all up new york was good and will be better next time around because we'll take longer and percy will be a little (or big) girl so we'll do much more.
photos up separately...