Time to say
goodbye to the Shore and head to our next destination New York! Exciting!
We’re
staying in Jersey City with a lady called Sharleen. When we arrive at her house
she is in the shower, she must have been in a rush to get to the door as she’s
wearing pants, an opened dressing gown and a blouse with one button shut over
the top of that, we don’t know where to look! Sharleen is lovely and gives us
lots of tips to get the best out of New York and after a quick cup of tea we
get on the bus.
Walking out of the bus station we’re overwhelmed, it’s madness!
So many cars beeping, people rushing about and huge glistening billboards
everywhere. Tricia and Katherine were adamant that we had to get a potato Knish
while we are in NY so we do as we’re told and stop at a bakery stall. While
ordering, a little old man comes over to the bakery and says “Excuse me, do you
have any chair-wee toin-ovohhs?”…can you work it out? We LOVE the New York
accent and Christine wants to spend the day following the old man around.
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| An Englishman in New York |
Instead we walk around Times Square and then aim for some peace in Central Park
which doesn’t happen because even that is packed full of people. We peek over
the wall to see the seals and goats in the zoo (We’re guessing that there are more animals in there than
that though).
It’s geeky time as we go to find film locations from Taxi
Driver. First we find the theatre where Travis watches naughty films and then
go to Columbus Circle which is a little area in a roundabout full of statues. The next stop is Grand Central Station which instantly reminds us of the scene from Madagascar. We spend about 5 hours trying to spot the "dirty square" on the ceiling which was left there to show how polluted the station used to get. It was the size of a post it note, no wonder it took us ages to find!
It’s getting late so we go back to Times Square to see what it’s like all lit up at night. On the way there is a lot of commotion and we’re pretty sure the President or his wife drove past us, It’s not been confirmed but we’re taking it anyway. Spotting the M&M shop we go inside for a bit of warmth. It’s huge with pretty much anything you could think of having a picture of an M&M on it. After watching a giant blue M&M do a little dance we go into Toys R Us to see if we can find a present for Katherine and it’s amazing! There’s a huge giant ferris wheel with cars designed like Little Tykes and My Little Pony. There’s a huge lego Hulk and Statue of Liberty as well as a huge moving and roaring dinosaur from Jurassic Park which is scaring all of the little kiddiwinks….and James. Home time!
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| Mr President?? |
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| Be mine? |
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| I only said Green wasn't his colour! |
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| Balloooowww!! |
We’re
looking forward to a nice breakfast as promised by Sharleen, however, the
sliced strawberries and sugar don’t really fill us up so we stop at a little
café in Lower Manhatten for a proper breakfast (What Americans do best) before
going to find the High Line which is an abandoned railway above the city that
has been turned into a park with lots of trees and flowers. It’s a nice change
from the mayhem of Times Square but it probably would have been a lot better
without the downpour of rain!
Next up it’s
more Taxi Driver location spotting on E18th Street where Sport the pimp hangs
out and Travis does all that shooting malarkey. We stop for a rest in a dingy
bar before walking over to Little Italy, eating pizza and watching the world go
by. We could stay here for the rest of the day, especially as Christine is in
love with the Italian-American accent but instead we buy a red velvet cannoli
and have a stroll through China Town.
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| Doing a Travis |
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| Pizza and People watching |
Arriving in
the financial district we see Wall Street, lots of tall buildings and a helluva
lot of people having their picture taken with a giant bronzed bull’s balls.
We make our
way to the ferry terminal and get the Staten Island ferry to catch a close up
of the Statue of Liberty (for all of the budget travellers this is the free way
to see the lovely lady!). The weather is rubbish today so by the time we go
past on the way back we can only see her skirt. The weather cancels our plans
of a helicopter ride or going up the Empire State building, it’s so foggy we
wouldn’t be able to see anything.
We walk back
through China Town and Little Italy and stumble across another film location,
the church from Mean Streets and Godfather II. We can’t go in because it’s too
late which is a shame, it’s been a while since we visited a church. We find a
bar to chill out in, it’s 10pm and we’re shattered! After a couple of beers our
legs are working again and we find our way home.
