New York, New Yorrrrrrrkkkkkk

These little town blues
Are melting away
Gonna be a part of it, in old New Yorrrrrkkkkkk

Yep, that's right. The Big Apple. Liberty City. Home of 20 million of the most foul tempered people in the known universe. Where could we be - why New York of course. After some hassles with the Wi-Fi in the hotel we're at, I am finally online, and hence able to blog a brief account of what we've been up to for the last few days.

Our rendezvous with New York began at 4am yesterday, when we arose like Lazarus and zombie-like, made our way to JFK international airport to return our beloved Kia. We had been warned of the drive into New York and initially, we didn't see what all the fuss was about. The freeway wasn't empty, but it wasn't exactly full either. However, once we crossed the bridge over to Staten Island, things started hotting up. The Verrazano Narrows Bridge, which crosses the entrance to New York Harbour was frighteningly huge, and busy. It's a great design actually - a standard suspension bridge, but with 2 road decks, one on top of the other. Which is handy, when you're frantically trying to avoid being run off the side of the bridge and plunging into the depths of the Hudson River, since it breaks up the traffic. It must be said, that my navigating, as it has been throughout this trip has been top notch. 50 miles to JFK and we didn't get lost once. The same must be said for Dad's driving, who has mastered the art of driving on the wrong side of the road. Mind you, the years of driving inebriated in his youth no doubt gave him a great deal of practice at this sort of driving.



We were very glad we returned the car before heading into Manhattan. We had the luxury of being chauffered into our digs in Manhattan by a crazy Japanese man in a shuttle bus, who seemed displeased when Dad tipped him a buck. Oh well. But yeah, driving in New York would be an interesting experience. Like a certain composition by Mozart, a Concerto in F, the chief instrument seems to be the Horn. My god. Heaven help the driver who hesitates more than half a second, or leaves any more than half a centimetre between his front bumper and the rear bumper of the car in front of him. In the event that either of these criteria is met, you can expect a titanic blast from the car behind. In fact, I read about a company in New York that specialises in ripping out the stock horn one is provided with by the car manufacturer and replacing it with something packing more decibels. Here's a standard NY intersection, this one on 45th and 12th.


So far in New York we've been reasonably busy - yesterday we wandered through the streets, walking upwards of 10 kilometres. We've been to Central Park, saw the Guggenheim, Times Square, 5th Avenue, Grand Central Station, the USS Intrepid Museum and plenty more besides. We were planning to do a harbor cruise, however the freezing rain that has been going on all day today led to the cruise being cancelled. So, that's on for tomorrow. Tomorrow also has us planning to visit Wall Street and Ground Zero, as well as the Empire State Building.

All in all, New York is an amazing place. I can't say I love it, but I can see why people would. It;s one those of places that is unique, and has to be seen to be believed. People would either love the energy, drama and constant sense of action, while others would despise those very features, and long for a quite moment to themselves. It's an expensive place too - everything, from food, to gas, to clothing to accomodation is far more expensive here than anywhere else we've been.

It's hard to describe this place - the best way is to say that everything you've ever seen in the movies is true. It really is that outrageous, lairy and crass. That's probably the best way to describe it.

So, for some photos. First of all, some shots of New York itself.

This is a shot of the 5th Avenue sidewalk taken just outside Central Park. The park is epic - to have such a huge area of recreational space in the midst of a gigantic city shows great foresight on behalf of the town planners. It's no joke that they call it New York's backyard.


A bit of corporate advertising in a glass box. Not sure what this means, but it looked cool. Plus no doubt Nye the Mac junkie will appreciate it.


Me at Times Square. Behind my Dad, taking the photo was a guy playing the guitar and wearing naught but his underwear. Only in New York, as they say.


A nice shot of the skyline rising up behind the treeline at Central Park. Pretty much the only way to see open sky in this city is to look straight up - and that's only if you're not near a skyscraper. Which you are. Always.


A fairly standard crowd scene and road. Pedestrians in New York city have mastered the art of traffic dodging. In a traffic jam situation, pedestrians flood onto the road from all directions, crossing any which way. Mind you, it's not all one way - Dad almost got cleaned up by a bus today when he was a bit slow making his ground. You gotta be quick.


The main thing we saw today was the museum based around the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, a WW2 carrier that also served in Korea and Vietnam. However, it's been raining all day today, and sneakers don't work well when gigantic freezing puddles are involved. It's taken a few hours for my feet to dry out after squidging around in soaked socks for the better part of a day.
Anyways, here's the carrier itself.


There is a concorde attached to the museum, which is on a barge moored near the Intrepid. For a supersonic jet, the cabin wasn't all that flash.


Standard leather, and not much leg room. Still, I guess like all airliners, they needed to cram the passengers in. Ultimately, you're paying for the speed.


The cockpit of Concorde. Now, this makes bugger all sense to me, but I'm sure Air Marshall Nye the Mac Nazi will appreciate it.


The attack submarine USS Growler, and the New York skyline behind it. I had a real problem with taking this photo, since I had to use the umbrella to shield my camera from the rain, which was fine except that gusts of wind kept blowing the umbrella fabric down in front of the lense just as I kept clicking the button. This was about the 4th attempt. I hope you're all appreciating the sacrifices I'm making to bring you this.

*Cue massive guffaws and eye-rolling on part of readers*


The torpedo room on the Growler.


The flight deck of the Intrepid. It had a whole range of jets parked along here, most of which I've already shown you in previous blogs, so I'll skip most of them.


Except this one. Should be immediately familiar to anyone who's played Desert Combat on their computer. To be truly accurate it should have either Captain Crayon or Morrobin chalked on the side as pilot.

And finally, some of the people you can expect to see roaming the streets of New York. It's almost like Animal Planet, but with people! Species classifications and all!


Here we can see a classic case of Parkbenchius Devoidofhomeiness. Note the tattered baseball cap, the bag of possessions doubling as a pillow and the towel that serves as both shelter and raincoat. This species remains near park benches, and is almost always surrounded by pigeons, who, in a sort of symbiotic relationship, feed from the filth and scraps that accumulate in the vicinity of this creature.


A similar species, Roamingaroundness Crazius is illustrated here. This species differs from Parkbenchius in that it is far more mobile, and active. It can usually be found wandering around streets, impeding traffic while extending its palm into taxi windows and rambling incoherently at anyone who enters into its territory.


An extremely rare species, known as Geriaticus Wallstreetfailureus. This species is rare because unlike most of its homeless contemporaries it has reached senior status and has not succumbed to the myriad of diseases resulting in living a miserable life on the streets. This particular creature was sighted attempting to sell potato peelers for the princely sum of $5 apiece. In the background you can see another species, Geriaticus Dawsonus who is showing unusual interest in said implement, although the rampant and overpowering stinginess of this particular species prevents him from actually purchasing one.


And finally, taken by concealed camera, we can see Midgetus OompaLoompaus. This photo was taken in the time honoured fashion of taking photos when you don't want the subject to know that they're being photographed, namely, hold the camera in your hand down near your thigh, walk past the subject while looking straight ahead, click the shutter when you think the subject is in frame, cough as the shutter goes off to mask the noise and then examine the results.

I thought it came out rather well.

Well, I'll leave it at that....oh wait. That's right, I promised.

For the past month, one of our problems that we have had to overcome is the question of keeping food cold. Obviously, we've been feeding ourselves from supermarkets, which is fine, except how do you keep that food cold. We were able to put food in the fridges at the motels we've been staying at, but keeping it cool inside a car during the day was the issue. Unwilling to lash out on an actual cooler that he would have to dispose of at the end of the trip (wastage is sacrilege, in his opinion), the old man put his creative genius to the test and came up with the following.


The premise is simple - one cardboard box inside another. A used milk bottle, full of water which we froze every night in the motel fridge acts as an ice block. A combination of air, plastic bags and crushed newspaper between the two boxes helps insulate the food, and paper bags laid over the top seal the opening. Simple, yet effective. Naturally, the old man has been pleased as punch, and insisted I include it in the blog, which I have done. Seriously, it worked very well.

No doubt mother is complaining about cheese being included in our diet (in Mum's view, anything with a number other than zero after the fat content is bad) but who cares.

So, provided I don't freeze to death tomorrow in the rain, I shall have an account of Ground Zero, how to make your fortune on Wall Street, how far you can lob a house brick from the Empire State Building and with any luck, pictures from an uncancelled harbour cruise.

Should be good.

Later all.