New York Duo

5th of June:

After much trouble, going the wrong places and annoying people who might know where I should go (JFK is a navigational nightmare), I found the right arrival location, and after 5 small minutes the passengers started arriving. It took quite a while, but eventually Anne Sophie (my sister) walked out and a happy scene broke out. That put behind us, we sat down and each ate half of our Cuban sandwich and set off back to the hostel.

The ride is quite far, JFK is in the outer region of Queens and Harlem is quite far norh on Manhattan, it took nearly two hours to get back, where we checked in (I hadn't checked in earlier, as I didn't have enough money on me), dumped our stuff and caught the first train back into town. The first time you see Times Square is always the best, even though you have seen it plenty of times in movies and pictures, it is remarkable, even when having grown up in a western country with all the goods of capitalism, it is stunning... Piccadilly Circus can't prepare you for it.

Before going back to sleep, we visited some of the biggest stores there. The M&M worldstore where 22 different colours can be bought alongside any imaginable souvenir. The Virgin mega-megastore and numerous other places. Dinner was easily sorted; I ate a pizza slice, and my sister (henceforth known as AS) wasn't hungry. Not only is a Cuban sandwich very heavy, her flight was the first direct flight from Malaga to New York, so it was a celebratory flight with lots and lots of food (and champagne).

6th of June:

AS insisted on an early morning, "I don't want to waste time" she says... And then she walks at a pace that reminds me of a 112 year old crippled person hooked up to a life support system trying to run a marathon... THAT slow. But we took a metro back to Times Square, and I did something I hadn't succumbed to so far on my trip, something so low it had never even entered my mind... We bought tickets to a doubledecker city tour, ought a combo package, and took a downtown tour, with a hilarious guide, who was very articulate on took us on an amazing tour through the districts. Everything from Nolita and Little Italy (where Bobby Milk or by his better known name Robert De Niro grew up) to The Fashion District (where AS was bouncing in her seat) and the UN building. Along the way we also saw a scene from a movie being shot, where Sandra Bullock was out acting (or the closest she can come) alongside some other actor, known to Americans, but not outside.

After the tour we (AS) went shopping and I trudged along, into shops with all kinds of clothing (and some without), until I saw a cinema, where the two of us dropped in to see Zohan, a thoroughly enjoyable movie, although really overgeared and unrealistic, although that is the point.

We then took the Train to the South Ferry hoping to see the Statue of Liberty, but the last one sails at 16, and that time had long since passed, so we started walking back up north towards Manhattan and stopped at a bakery, where I had a genuine cinnamon roll (kanel snegl), which was very high quality, and wouldn't be a bad find in Denmark. We then continued on and I got to show Wall Street and ground zero to AS.

It had by this time gotten really late, and we decided to go a place recommended to me on Cuba, a place called "Frank's" on second avenue between 5th and 6th street, however the queue was horribly long (friday night). So instead we walked to the place I had eaten dinner the night I went to the Bell X1 concert, where I had a fabulous pizza cabonara (tomato sauce, cheese, bacon and egg) and AS enjoyed a simple salad (she wasn't hungry apparently).

On the way there we came past a video game store, selling just about everything from the first video game console ever, to the latest stuff. A giant collection of NES, SNES, PSX, PS2 and Dreamcast games (of old consoles), Commodores, different gameboys with games, Atari's etc.
It was a wonderful place, I would really wish there was something like that in Denmark.

7th of June:

First thing we wanted to do was go see MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), so we first dropped by fifth avenue (it's very close) and looked in some of the different stores, including a giant really cool looking Apple store, with as many people working there, as there were customers. It was followed by a visit to an Abercrombie & Fitch store, where at the front entrance there was a topless (male) model you could have pictures taken with, and every where inside the shop were other fully clothed models that kept saying "welcome".

AS went to see MoMA (I saw the reception) while I walked around the surrounding area looking at upscale New York, as well as same not so nice parts, had a quick stroll into Central Park, and then in no time the 2 hours were up (we had agreed to meet up again after 2 hours). AS is an art buff, but even she was a bit disappointed with MoMA, apparently she had hoped to see more Roy Lichtenstein.

Following up, we headed to the South Ferry again to try and go to the Statue of Liberty, only to discover that the combo bus-tour/boat ticket we had bought didn't cover this boat, but another one that we wouldn't be able to reach in time. So we decided to go and do the uptown tour to Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Harlem and generally anything north of 49th street. Getting off the subway walking the last part, we saw a police officer with a small bird on his shoulder, and I was about to ask if I could take a picture of it, when he himself suddenly discovered it and tried to get rid of it, using his hat to knock it off. All he succeded in was getting the bird into the hat, causing come confusion until finally it flew away.

We boarded the uptown bus tour, andit was just as good as the downtown tour; the guide was very kind and informative, and somehow had a passion for what he was doing. We saw the worlds largest cathedral, got sprayed from a firepost (someone had taken the cap off, and sprayed the bus), the building where John Lennon got shot and Yoko Ono lives today and the many hills of Manhattan.

Done with the tour, the same old question arose "now what?". So we grabbed a metro to Brooklyn Heights, grabbed a bit of lunch and an ice cream, saw the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, walked around in DUMBO, saw the tube to London, walked to the nearby parks and sat down watching some picture taking of a happy newly married couple. On the way back we saw the Jehovah's Witnesses Watchtower and walked back across the Brooklyn Bridge, which in this late day light was far more beautiful then when I had walked across it. Needless to say, I took a lot of pictures once again.

Back at our hostel, neither of us felt hungry for dinner, so both of us went to bed without.

8th of June:

This morning we went straight to South Ferry first thing, bought our tickets and joining the fast moving queue, and in not time we were sailing out towards the Statue of Liberty... It is quite small, far smaller than you imagined, although more or less everybody is disappointed with the size of The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen. It is beautiful none the less, and truly is a sight to behold, not just because of the skill in making it, but also what it stands for, and what is has stood for for so long, for all the immigrants coming to America. However we decided not to land on the island or Ellis Island, there isn't much to see and we didn't feel like it, so we just took a circuit and came back to Manhattan.

Ate breakfast/lunch and took the train up to Central park, trailing around there for quite a while before coming upon the Puerto Rico national day celebration, the second biggest parade in New York (surpassed by the Gay Pride parade). Never in my entire life have I seen so many people dressed up as "hood gangsters" or in tshirts proclaiming love towards Puerto Rico, and blocking up all of Fifth Avenue for an entire day (one of the biggest streets in New York) is by far overdoing it, nice for the Puerto Ricans, but a hassle for everyone else.

Having rounded round that, we took a train to the Museum of Natural History (the one from A Night At The Museum with Ben Stiller), and started out by watching a movie called "Cosmic Collisions" in IMAX format voiced by Robert Redford, it was informative but mostly just darn beautiful, showing huge collisions between Earth and a smaller planet (creating the moon), the Milky Way and the Androma galaxy crashing together and so on, and so forth.

Outside the cinema, AS and I walked around the museum till it closed at 17.45 (two hours later), and saw a life size model of a blue whale (needless to say it is FREAKING huge), endangered animals that have been stuffed and confiscated (such as a stuffed animal), a collection of giant worms, spiders and other huge disgusting animals and a lifesize model of a jellybox fish (worlds most poisonous being) amongst tons and tons of animals. I then huried up to the fourth floor to the dinosaur skeletons, their collection is enormous (I know the real ones aren't on display) and so were the dinosaurs, animals that big always intrigue me (likewise for the blue whale). Coming from a country where the most dangerous animal is a chicken (salmonella), seeing animals larger then a fox (or deer in protected areas) is very unusual, so jumping from cute fuzzy creatures to a giant carnivore like a T-rex or an even bigger Broncosaurus is mindnumbing. The museum also has a very good conservation department, outlining the effects of environmental destruction and what gone be done to help the planet, it houses a big exhibition on how the planet was created, from the beginning of the sun, to the formation of earth's rocks, the mountains, seas and current state of government; what interested me the most was the part of an extremely old ice core drilled up on Greenland.

When we left the Museum of Natural History we left for a slow trip to Piola the mastery pizzeria, where this time AS was up for a full pizza. I had the same Pizza Carbonara and AS had a pizza with rucola salad, mozzarella and tomatoes. Having eaten our most wondrous dinner (AS most of the time gaping at the TV behind me, an idea common in South America, the buzz draws you) we went for one of those "must" experiences in NY, a trip to the top of the Empire State Building. And although it is most common to do in daylight, we went up there in the dark, and had a gorgeous view. Suddenly there was thunder and lightning, without a tripod it is near impossible to capture, but what it meant was rain, and that we had to go inside until the bad weather had passed, and so we did. It was quite a while before we were let out again, but still the views were stunning, New York is always lit and it looks gorgeously so.

By the time we got out it was quite late (had to wait inside for 30 minutes, and sitting down wasn't allowed), but our plan had always been to go back to our hostel in Harlem and get a good nights sleep.
The pizzeria is Italian owned and most of the people who work there (waiters, chefs, all of them) are in fact Italian, so the European Championship in Football was a big deal, and they handed out scorecards so people  could keep track and everything. Being a pizzeria AS thought, that it was the European Championship in Pizza, and was keen to know how it worked. Looking around the room she saw football shirts for nearly all countries in the cup (Sweden missing) and must have assumed that they were for the chefs...
On the way back on the train, 3 people were sleeping (strangers to each other) leaning up against each other, two of them woke up, and the woman in the middle found a strangers head on her shoulder, and tried for quite some time to wake him up, as she was uncomfortable with it. In the end another man present grabbed his arm, and shook him awake.

9th of June:

At first we went to the Rockefeller Center and went to "The Top Of The Rock", as their observation deck is called, and the daylight view is stunning, but in a different way from the night view. But having the Empire State Building in the dayview, was very nice, and I was glad that we had done it in this way.

Afterwards we went to the New York Academy of Medicine, said to held a part of the first batch of penecilin made, George Washington's dentures and a pair of leper clappers (used by lepers to alarm a village of their arrival), but upon arriving we were told that why the place did indeed posses those, they are not on display, and can only be seen by appointment, if doing relevant research.

So we went down to Fifth Avenue and the SE (South East) corner of Central Park, where while AS did some Abercrombie & Fitch shopping (don't know if she entered other shops), I sat in Apple's flagship store and watched Steve Jobs unveiling the iPhone 3G live. I also entered a huge toystore next to it, where they had a wealth of collectors items and other cool items related to Harry Potter, Narnia, Lord of the Rings and other similarly themed movies (fantasy movies generally).

When AS came back we went to 14th street, where the great regal cinema is, we each bought a ticket, I a ticket to Iron Man at 7:10 and AS a ticket for What Happens in Vegas at 7:40. All of this was more than 2 hours away, so we sat down for some lunch, and afterwards I read in my book and wrote postcards while AS went shopping in Forever 21 (at the table next to me was a man who farted VERY loudly quite frequently, for a long long time). About 30 minutes before my movie was set to begin AS returned, we walked to a pharmacy for some movie sweets (outrageous price inside the cinema) and on the way back (she would go do some more shopping) I came past a teddy bear 'Domo Kun", which I bought without a moments hesitation. I met another person doing the same, who was seeing the same movie as me at the same time, so we talked all the way to the cinema, and during the commercials. The movie itself is a masterpiece of a superhero movie, it is wonderful, I really like all these movies I am watching.

When I went outside I only roamed for about 5 minutes before AS's movie was done and she came out, she had also really enjoyed her movie. None of us were hungry, so we want back to the hostel without dinner and slept.

10th of June:

AS was determined to do some shopping, we took a train to Macy's department store, but believe it or not, they didn't have what she wanted, so we walked to Times Square where AS did some shopping and I bought a pair of Levi's jeans (505). We also went into the giant Virgin store there and browsed a bit about. We ended up walking a very long way to a Ralph Lauren store, where AS wanted to buy a polo shirt for our mother.

We then wanted to go to the Bodies exhibition, took a train there, ate lunch and decided not to see the Exhibition, it might have been a lot, but fairly priced is not one of them. So instead we walked to Brooklyn, ate a wonderful ice cream, looked into the London tube and found a park, where we spent 2 hours doing nothing much, just lying down on the grass relaxing. About 10 meters from us, was a guy doing some sort of crazy Yoga (or something), moving into what I thought would be impossible postures.

For dinner we took the metro to Second Avenue and walked up to between 5th and 6th street, where we found Frank's, a place that had been recommended to me in Cuba by an American, and I dare say, that was one astonishingly good ravioli, there wasn't a lot of it (rather the opposite), but it tasted oh so yummy.
It was rather late when we were done, and none of us had packed, this was the last full day in NYC, so we headed home.

11th of June:

What happens when you are for once, not in a hurry to get out the door and seize the day? We stayed for quite some time at the hostel, but eventually checked out and left our bags there, and then headed for the glorious Central Park. We walked around for a very long time (even with a map, getting lost is a given), but eventually came upon our goal in the park, Strawberry Fields Memorial to John Lennon. It is a part of the park, but at the very memorial itself is a mosaic in the ground, a round circle with the word "IMAGINE" in the middle. Like the previous day in the park, we stayed for a while, relaxing on the grass, and watching Japanese people photograph every square-inch of the area.

One thing I had regretted not doing, was trying a Grimaldi's pizza, supposedly the best pizza in New York, both by word of mouth, and by the number of awards they have won. We took a train, and this time, there was no queue (last time we had tired, it had been horribly long) and we got seated straight away. The pizza was excellent, although not the best pizza I have ever had (oh sweet Puerto Natales), the place was fantastic though, "I'm gonna make you a pizza you can't refuse" poster, the Italian red/white tablecloths, the coal fired pizza oven, everything was just so authentic.

Afterwards we took a train to Union Square, where AS bought me a pair of Converse as a thank you for paying for her ticket to NY, and then we went back to the hostel, relaxed for half an hour or so, grabbed our bags and headed to the airport. First AS checked in in terminal 1, and then followed me to terminal 6, an entire terminal exclusive to JetBlue, quite stylish. But whereas AS's check-in had been extremely fast, mine took ages. It came through though of course, and we said goodbye to each other, although we would see each other again in 10 days.