New York days

Yesterday I went out to the US Open tennis in Queen’s. There is an odd felling seeing so many off the best players in the world in any sport (well it could be said that missing the Wellington/ Canterbury game I missed as many of the best people in their sport but this was a new and different sport) anyway I had tickets to see the number 4 & 5 in the women’s game (Elena Dementieva & Jelena Jankovic) against much lower ranked players. Both games went to 3 sets (at about 3 hours each) and the seed lost. Then there was also another very good Men’s game, so there was 3 great games which was defiantly a good day at the tennis.

Today I went out to Connie Island which is out in Brooklyn (and no not on an Island). It is the semi-ledigenary New York beach resort. It has a relatively wide long beach and it seams to have a large retiree population. So basically it is the New York version of Foxton Beach (this would mean that Levin would have a population of 11 Million which is so scary I will stop this metaphor right now). The best and most famous thing at Connie Island is the Cyclone roller-coaster, which is an 80 odd year old wooden coaster, this is often rated in the top 10 coasters by people who rate such thing, It was real bone-retelling and very cool, there are a couple of points where it really fells like there is no way you can be OK but of course for the few millionth time it dies all end well.

Five boroughs of fun

Today I managed to triple the number of boroughs in New York city I have been to (from 1 to 3). Firstly I walked down town and found Washington Square park, and totally against what I have been told my whole life I have to report there wasn’t any improvised singer/ songwriters there (sorry to report mum). I then saw a coffee shop that actually had an espresso machine. I thought that this place has been famous for coffee shops for better part of half a contrary so this should be good. What was I thinking it really seams that no American can make a decent cup of coffee (my theory is the beans where over roistered) I did see a cart today promising ‘the best coffee in town’ which is one of the least impressive boasts I have ever seen in this town.

I then walked over the Brooklyn bridge, this has to be one of the great symphonies of art and engineering in the world. It is quite simply the most stunning built structures I have ever seen. It did lead me an interesting question of all of the truly great buildings I have seen here in NY all of them were built between 1870 and 1940. So why is it that with all of the money and drive in this town has there not been anything great done in the last 70 years, other city around the world still seam able to do it but not this one. I don’t have the answers but I think this is a important question.

Brooklyn has a very different fell to Manhattan. Put simply it seams to be built around the car rather than mixed used, you come in and you have a whole series of 8 lane roads making it hard to get around.

They say (well someone ones said to me so ‘they’ must say) that “there are only two free things in New York, firstly the air you breath and secondly the Staten Island ferry.” (I hope they don’t say this to Donald Trump as I am sure he will try and change both of these things). The ferry is about a 20-30 minute ride south from the bottom of Manhattan out into the bay. It is one of the best rides you will ever see with the statue going past the skyline, but the locals really do seam not to notice. As for Staten Island itself, my lonely planet describes it as “A suburban appendage with an inferiority complex” it is sort of Hamilton on the Hudson (OK so it is not actually on the Hudson but don’t let facts get in the way of my metaphor) Basically it is close to the city with amazing views but really doesn’t look like a rich area, I am still not sure I get this city. Anyway it was a nice change to get out of the hectic hart of the city into something like a human sized area. Off to Queens tomorrow (to watch the tennis) so that will make it 4 from 5 boroughs which I am sure is much more than most people do in this town.

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

Today I went out to liberty and Elise islands. This is truly one of those must do before you die trips. The Americans really do not have any sense of irony here and that is really easy to come over to that way of thinking (although I did could heat the Simpsons going in my brain whenever they mention that famous verse, which was often). Anyway the view of lower Manhattan is truly exceptional and it was such a lovely day it would have been worth it just for the trip on the harbor. But there is such a lot more than that, it is one of those places you go that you know it is actually impossible to take a photo that no one has taken before, but even so you do feel the need to take lots and lots of photos (while I’m on this why do people need to take photos of themselves in front of the great views of the world come on people we know you where hear this is simply the photo equivalent of the ‘ I waz here’ scribbling on the wall)

I got to go up the statue which is a pinch yourselves type moment there are moments when you have seen something literally a million times and then you found yourself there, I must say in this case yes it does actually live up to the hype. The symbolism of the place might not be totally lived up to by America (or France for that matter) but at least it set such a high ideal which is better than not having them. Americans tend to think that they contain the biggest and the best of everything. They call this the most powerful symbol in the world, my first though was ‘come on’ then I thought this though and really not sure I can disagree.

You then take a boat over to Elise island, which is where most American immigrants arrived during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The most sticking thing here is the overriding belief in the American dream, that coming to America made life better for all from the problems from the old world. There was an acknowledgment of the trials of new immigrants including economic issues and the problems from people like the KKK. Even given this you really get the felling that these people were coming to a better life at least for their children. I have seen similar presentations in New Zealand and even Australia but the national confidence here is truly something to behold.

New York, from the ground and the air.

On Sunday I took the subway up to northern Manhattan, for those of you who know you NY geography you will know that is another name for the suburb of Harlem. Interesting this is not as bad a area as you might think, actually there is quite a nice community fell to it, people actually live on the street here which is all very nice, saying that I am not sure I would like to be there after dark, but that might just be me taking the media too seriously. I then went over to a place called Wards island which has a park with great views over Manhattan, it was a lovely Sunday afternoon so I have no idea why the place was almost empty but I wasn’t complaining, although the people I saw fishing in the East river were a little braver than I am. Anyway this was where one of the major American 7s rugby tournaments was being played. So this added two more firsts to my experiences, the first rugby tournament in North America and the first 7s tournament I have been to where they are not serving beer. What are they doing to our great game??? Anyway it was quite interesting to watch and I managed to stop myself correcting every tactical decision they were making, even if I should have……

On Monday I went over to a thing called the ‘high line’. This is an old raised railway though western New York that has been turned into a ‘green area’ they have planted some wild flowers, grasses etc. You realize quite how differently they relate to nature being in such a big city. Anyway it is a pleasant walk and actually quite a good way to get around. I then walked down to the Greenwich village, this is a little area that really doesn’t fell like NY, small winding tree lined streets with some even cobbled stoned. Most of the shops you see are really expensive restaurants, but I saw one book shop. It happened to have an sign for the paper back of one of the Sex and the City books, it really felt like in this exact spot this was gritty realism rather than the exploitive chick lit it would be a few blocks away, but this might just be me. The whole place screams money, it is the place where young upwardly mobile people with money have lived for century’s, today this means it is the only place I’ve been here where the US flag is less common than the rainbow flag. I then walked down though the abbreviation suburbs (SoHo tribeca etc) all of which have slightly different feelings even though only a real New Yorker could ever really tell you where they begin or end.

In the evening I went up to the Rockefeller centre and up to the observation deck. I got up there around 5:00pm and the views around New York are spectacular you can see for miles in all directions, all I can say is wow. Then the sun set and things got even better and then wow really isn’t enogth, this city at night is truly one of the sights you have to see. We have all seen the photos but it is simply impossible to explain what it fells like to see it for yourselves. Therefore I won’t try to explain it. I came back home via the madness that is Times Square which is just well mad I can really see why the New Yorkers all stair clear of this area and are totally dismissive of anyone who goes up there.

The future is unwritten…..?????

This morning I went to the NYC fan club of Liverpool FC, which strangely enough is a bar, and they had this mornings game on. Being a minor game here there was only about 400-500 people there in a bar the size of a small front room, so it was quite close. The mode change during the games were fun to watch. As the bar was on the lower east side I wondered around there after the game. This is the part of the city that poor immigrants have gone for hundreds of years (for those who have seen the truly bad ‘gangs of New York’ you will have some idea of how long.) These days this means East Asia, there are whole street where there are no English on any signs I could see. There seams to be a whole lot of churches and fortune tellers, which is an interesting comment about poor people taken out of their country. I walked from there to the financial district which is only about ½ an hour. On Wall street there is a very nice church and Morgan Stanley seams to be doing very well. An interesting comment about the masters of the universe…..

I then went off to an American football game, this is a pre-season game between the two NY team so there was about 60,000 people there this didn’t quite full up the stadium. This stadium is being pulled down at the end of this year to be replaced by a $US1.4 Billion stadium right next door, which is smaller but has more corporate facilities so should make more money (It is covered in corgiate iron and they have just put a train station right next to it, wow what an idea if only someone else had thought of this.) The game was actually quite interesting, this guys are amazing big and strong and can run very fast. The most bizarre thing was at half time there was a group of US shoulders just back from Iraq. Lets just say the whole ‘support the trops’ thing is VERY big here even in the liberal blue states up here in the north east. It was very noticeable that most of the crowd left at ¾ time, to try and avoider the traffic on there way home. By the end there wasn’t many more than a Hurricanes warm up game in Masterton, but even as New Jusry seams to be bad industrial areas and a swamp it isn’t that bad………. (sorry John 1)

Don’t give me Kul-cha…up front with the knobs

Got up this morning and it was raining in New York, not cold sort of mid to late 20s. So quite muggy. I thought ‘you know I hear NY has some quite good indoor things to do’. So I walked down time square and then up to central park (I know this is an odd thing to do to keep out of the rain but there you go). So I then whet up to the Guggenheim, but there was a madly long number of people waiting to get in so I gave that up for next week. So I walked around for a while (yes it was still raining) and I ended up by the East river (that’s the one that doesn’t have planes falling in to it all the time). I then saw the UN building so I went in for the tour.

Very interesting tour it was odd to see the general assembly room, thinking of all the history that has happened in that room, UN trivia questions 1: name the two ‘associate members’ of the UN who get to sit at the back and not vote. We then walked though displays on some of the major Un programs like the peace-keeping deployments, UNECF etc. UN question 2 name the last 4 colonial powers according to the UN?

Answer 1: Palestine and the Holey Sea (yes they sit them beside each other they must have so much to talk about)
Answer 2: France, US, USA & NZ

Tomorrow is a big sports day with breakfast watching a game with the NYC Liverpool FC fan club and an evening with two NY NFL clubs out in New Jersey

Jet lagged in the City that doesn’t sleep….. (well not actually but I am sure I will get a good night sleep tonight let’s put it that way)

So yes I have made it to NY, NY. It did take a while, for those of you playing at home it was 33 hours 2 minutes and 22.65 seconds door to door.

Amazingly I did manage to be OK for 3:50 leaving home on Thursday, but as it is still Thursday for me I don’t know how do tenses for this. This is the first day I have every had with two sunrises that I saw and two sunsets that I saw, I have been on the ground in 4 time zones so it is a bit of a strange thing for me.

The flight from Wellington was OK, a bit bumpy going out. When the turn left came you could pick well which people are used to flying out of Wellington.

Sydney Airport is as dull as ever, and as I didn’t bother going through customs and didn’t have any Aussie Cash I just sat an enjoyed the sun.

Then the 14 hour flight till they re-fueled in LAX. I am so glade I got the emergency exit row, made this a whole lot more bearable. So more or less just sit around watching movies with a bit of sleep, but I don’t think I got more than an hour in one go.

The flight lands to refuel at LAX, I didn’t see LA at all, amazing smog even Americans committed on how bad it was. Then a truly amazing experience to make thing sensible we went though customs and homeland security at LAX. The first step which I have never done in less than about 3 hours before I had completed in all of 10 minutes, not sure how they have changed things but all good. I then had a customs guy want to go though my bag, but I realized he had seen my hurricanes shirt and wanted to talk rugby (no I am not making that up).

Then back on the same plane for the flight to NY, I am so happy to be doing this legg in a 747-400 rather than in some 737 or similar, Not only are the conditions better, they actually give you food, but even better these things go higher and faster. We noticed when we were going over Arizona and about 10,000 feet below us we saw An American airways 737 (soory I have spent a lot of today looking at planes so I am noticing these things) and we simply flew streght pasted them, this leg is over 2 hours shorter then the last time I did coast to coast.

I then got a shuttle into town, the women sitting next to me and noticed my hurricanes shirt (again not making this up) she tells me that she is in town to play in the US all stars rugby 7s comp this weekend, so yes while you lot are watching the shield match I may well be watching rugby in Manhattan.

Anyway I fell the need for non-airline food so must go.