Tuesday 7th July (continued)

Now beginning to see what everyone loves about New York, the hustle and bustle of the crowds, the noise, the architecture , the theatres the signage and Times Square which should be called Times Intersection. That it has a grandstand for people to sit in watching people watching other people is amazing. Who supplies the chairs and banana lounges?
Dined earlyish at a restaurant with a Hawaiian Theme which certainly did not have an anti discrimination policy when it came to waitresses. Bikinis with small scarves around the waist and high heels, not that I noticed. We find the labour system in the restaurants intriguing, a girl welcomes you and allocates a table, the waitress takes the order, some on else sets the table, a different person delivers the drinks and another sometimes the meal, someone else clears the table and at each level there is a supervisor. Tonight’s restaurant also had no less than four management people drifting around. Everyone asks if everything is OK. No wonder you have to tip so much, but the service level is so high.

Wednesday 8th July

Michele now loves New York! Today the weather is glorious, sunny and warm.

Rose earlier (rather than early) and took the subway to Battery Park to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Just as well as thousands of others had done likewise but we guess it is holiday season in America.

By the time we had walked around the statue, (did not bother to go up and anyway the queue was lengthy) and toured Ellis Island it was well after lunch time. You really do need to set aside a full day.

Geoff had always been interested in the Ellis Island story and took the audio tour whilst Michele, followed the exhibits. It is amazing that the US took so many displaced people for so long and coped with the influx, and to an extent still does. We are constantly amazed and intrigued by the racial mix, particularly here in New York.

Caught the Red Bus to Seaport South and walked around for a while in the sunshine. There must be one of these places in almost every modern city, the redeveloped, dock area, but most that have just that little bit of individuality and weather wise we picked the right afternoon to visit this one.

On the way home decided to go theatreing again and got tickets to see the 39 steps, a satirical (and slapstick) re-visit of the Hitchcock movie where four actors played 146 parts, well one played the principal role and three played all the rest. The play was very innovative and quick moving with the use of shadows to show people where they were none, there was even a shadow of Hitchcock in one scene. We had a good laugh which is what everyone needs to do. As we had had not had dinner that night Geoff went out and had something and Michele retired for the night.


Thursday 9 July

We were leaving New York this evening so started off not too late. We find that we don’t hurry in the mornings as once we go on our ramblings we are away and on the move the whole day, that is after we have done the blog, skyped Aerlyn and chatted about this and that, it’s not early anyway.
We headed off to visit the Guggenheim Museum on foot. It was a fair way and this very entrepreneurial young lad offered us a ride in his pedicab, so we did deal with him to take us through Central Park and then up to the Museum. The poor sod, peddling us two up all these hills, he must have been a fit, if he wasn’t before, he is now. Anyway, got to the Museum only to find it was closed Thursdays!!
It looks the most amazing building from the outside, shame we couldn’t see in it. So decided to walk back through Central Park, the people of New York are very lucky to have it. It is a huge place and it took us quite some time to wend our way back.