Recently, my wife and I spent a few days visiting New York City. What a different world from what we are used to here in the Midwest.
We arrived on a Sunday afternoon, and silly me, I thought the traffic would not be as bad since it was Sunday. Well, we spent the next 2 ½ hours driving around in bumper-to-bumper traffic, dodging cars turning right from the far-left lane, food delivery people on bikes and tour buses. My first thought was one of surprise because I really expected traffic to be much better than during the week. My next thought was I just paid $17 to drive through the tunnel to get into this mess.
When we finally had enough sightseeing, we somehow made our way back to the tunnel and went to our hotel across the river in Jersey City, NJ. Believe me, we were both relieved and ready to relax. I did not want to get back into the car and drive somewhere to eat, so we found out there was a mall about three blocks up the road and walked to check it out.
We were pleased to find the walk to the mall short and safe, and we quickly found a Cheese Cake Factory in the mall. We enjoyed a good meal and had a very nice server who treated us great. After eating, we found the light-rail system right behind the restaurant. When we got back to the hotel, we started researching the light-rail system and found that we could easily make it to Manhattan.
The next morning, we woke up around 5 am to horns blowing. It was Monday morning and people were on their way to work. We tried to sleep best we could, but finally decided to get up, get ready and give the train a try. We walked to the station, got on the train and went to the end of the line. At that point, I knew I had missed something in my research and found the train did not go to Manhattan. My wife told a nice woman on the train that we were trying to get to Manhattan and she told us what we needed to do. Glad to say, we only missed one step where we needed to get off at a particular stop and walk a block to the water taxi to go across the river.
Once we got off the water taxi, it was a short four block walk to our Big Bus Tour bus stop. Once on the bus, it drove us all over mid-town and lower Manhattan with the option to get off and look around, then hop on another bus. We chose to ride the entire route once, then get off at the Times Square area and do some walking.
Our main goal in going to New York was to see the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. It did not take us long from Times Square to walk to Rockefeller Center and finally get to see the tree. It was big and beautiful, but we both said it looked smaller than on TV.
We walked through FAO Schwarz toy store and looked around. It was absolutely packed, but we did see the famous walking piano keyboard used in the movie Big.
We then went back out on the plaza and walked by 30 Rock where the Today Show is televised. Of course, we were there in the afternoon, so did not see anyone from the show. Maybe, just a little, I was hoping to see Al Roker, but I knew better. We did have the opportunity to get tickets to stand out front during the show, but the idea of getting there around 4:30 in the morning and standing until 9:00 am did not interest us enough to actually do it.
After that, we got back on the Big Bus and rode until we reached our stop to walk back to the water taxi, cross the river, hop the train and go back to the mall. Once there we enjoyed another good dinner at the same restaurant with the same friendly server. Afterward, we walked back to the hotel and was in for the night, thus ending our second day in New York.
The next morning, we were again awakened by horns blowing as people were making their way to work. After we got up, and did the same routine as the previous day. We walked to the train, took it to the water taxi, crossed the river and this time hopped on the subway. We were both a little nervous about taking the subway because we had not done that before. Fortunately, we had done a little research the night before and had an idea of what we were doing. We also found a very nice guy waiting for a train and got some very good information on how to get to Central Park. When the train pulled up, we all got on and to our surprise, the nice guy was actually a subway worker.
We rode out to Central Park and was about two blocks from the park. I used my phone GPS to head toward the park and we were off. Well, after about three or four blocks, we figured something was wrong. The park was supposed to be two blocks away. Somehow, I was reading the map wrong or something and we ended up about three blocks west and two blocks south of the park. We were both a little frustrated and tired, so we found a pizza shop and went in to eat and sit-down a while.
After eating, we both felt much better. We got our bearings and headed off toward the park. This time we found it. After fending off many attempts by carriage drivers and Pedicab bike drivers to get us to take a ride, we got into the park and enjoyed a nice, casual walk. We saw the carousel, the sheep meadow, some natural bedrock that is primarily metamorphic rock called the Manhattan Schist, and the zoo. This park is huge and we did not see but maybe ¼ of it before we were tired and ready to get to the subway.
Fortunately, the subway entrance was right at the edge of the park. We rode back to Times Square to look around a little more, then back on the subway and back to the water taxi. We got to the train and rode it back toward our stop. At the stop just before ours, the train stopped and we were told there was some type of switch/electrical problem. After sitting there for about ten minutes, one of the employees said it may be some time before they get the issue fixed, so we got off the train and walked the last five blocks to the mall.
This time, we walked through the mall, passed the Cheese Cake Factory without going in and back to our hotel. We stopped at a Burger King right next to the hotel and took dinner to our room. We were both ready to sit down and relax for the evening. This ended our third and final day in New York. The next morning, we got up to horns blowing, packed and headed away from the $17 tunnel to New York and back toward home.
Overall, we certainly enjoyed our trip and had many good experiences. We were both impressed with the fact the we never felt unsafe, even after dark. There were so many people out and so much activity that we did not mind walking or taking the public transportation. The subway we rode was clean around the platform and on the train and we saw police officers or subway security at various locations. We noticed that most people on the street basically kept their head down and walked while looking at their phone or listening to their iPods. There were a couple of times that someone asked us if we needed directions and when we did speak to people, they all seemed nice. Truthfully, this was completely different than what we expected.
We did learn that in New York City, people seem to do whatever works for them as far as traffic. We saw so much double parking, cars cutting in front of others, bikes and motor bikes cutting in and out of traffic, people crossing the streets whenever they got the chance and so many horns. Seems like all you hear are horns blowing and sirens all day. It was a fun experience and oh so different from home, but we were so glad to get back to some peace and quiet in our neck of the woods (thanks Al).
Oh, and one more thing. We talked to a security officer at the World Trade Center while on our last walk back to the water taxi. He had asked us if we needed any help (I guess we had the tourist look). We were talking about how we had been using our GPS and he politely told us that the phone GPS did not work in the city because it was scrambled for security purposes. He actually made my day because I immediately felt better about getting lost trying to find Central Park.