Monday, July 6, 2009

Day Eight - New York

I made it downstairs on time for breakfast on this morning, much of a miracle as that may seem to you dear reader. There is an excuse for me not being the most punctual for breakfast while all of the hostellers from other "efficient" countries like Germany and notably Holland grab the freshest muffins. Picture a large apartment room with a kitchenette set up at one end and now put five bunk beds in there. I'm over by the window which is normally an asset in any room with so many sleeping bodies but not in this humidity really, it's actually like being closer to the source of heat (which it is come to think of it, I mean that extra few feet to the sun from the bed nearer the kitchenette makes all the difference really). Also I am on the top bunk which means that I have to climb a ladder and with there being only one bathroom/shower per floor I have to keep a keen eye trained on that door in order to leap out and get washed. Well not really; I do wash and yes I do keep a keen eye but I also play a game with myself called "let's wait and see how long you can wait before going in to the free bathroom before someone else decides to take it". Admittedly if that game is to sell it'll need a catchier title.

While eating breakfast we overhead two key words, 'free internet' emerging from the girl across the table we were sat at and immediatley I waded into her conversation in order to find out where tyhis free internet may be available. She explained in a nice and polite manner that Apple had a shop in NYC that had lots of Imacs and Ibooks and other products with the letter "I" before them. It won't be long before someone comes up with one called "iSh*t" I'm sure. Her directions were simple enough and were to lead us on a wild goose chase that, while not the wildest, certainly was the most sweltering I have ever experienced.

Following her directions, we walked all of the way down the West side of Central Park, along the border if you will, passing the apartment complex where John Lennon was shot leading to his death soon after. The day had started out as somewhat of a subway-free day due to the fact that we walked down Lenox Avenue and then all of the way to the Apple store eventually but while walking down Lenox I noticed a distinct change in its appearance from the day before. The streets were alive and bore a slight relation to the Coal Quay on a Saturday morning with people going by fairly busily and traders out with their stalls. The difference between this street trading and the other more conventional trading that takes place in, say, fifth avenue is quite startling but then again that is what makes NYC what it is. Also the difference in price would be quite spectacular also, after all the battle is between "Man in Harlem selling fruit" and "Gucci" et al (whoever they are).
At this stage, early as it was, we should have noticed that the heat would get to us and half way down the side of Central Park it did as we took two or three breaks along the way. It was difficult to even talk on this stretch, mainly due to the distance between the two of us as Donal was keeping a slightly quick pace while I was taking it at a stroll looking about for pictures. I wasn't the only one suffering from the heat though because a young couple walking ever so slightly ahead of me on the sidewalk (there we go again) seemed to be having a little spat from what I could tell. Upon pasisng them out I forgot about them but after catching up with Donal and then sitting on a bench, the couple walk past and stop quite near us. This spat was beginning to get interesting and it did as he walked across the road, she just stood glued to the floor and then without warning stormed off into the park.

Now the Apple store was suppossed to be at the end of this side of Central Park but it turns out that the kind lady had been mistaken for we had reached Columbus Circle but to no avail. We stared around at the TrumpTower (yeah another ugly one), some other buildings and a giant sign for CNN. Oh and the nice monument to Christopher, the man himself. At this point I was really just looking forward to being in an air conditioned store whether it contained internet access or not but I knew I had emails that had to be checked so I ploughed on with Donal who bumped into some Irish people on 59th Street which borders the south end of Central Park. Two horse and cart drivers (forgive me, I know I've got it wrong) one of whom had been doing this work since the mid eighties and only got talking to Donal after a group of Brits enquited about prices and Donal noticed the Irish accent. My camera was busy with me having it against me eye taking pictures all around me but I did find one thing fascinating. Here we were in a city of 8 million people and we not only run into an Irish man, because lets face it New York and all of the North Eatsern seaboard of the US is full of Irish, but brush past Mariah Carey. I'm being a little liberal with that term as she was perhaps across the street swarmed by minders and other people to the point where, when we reached the end of the street, some scrawny looking guy with some official bully tags around his neck was "recommending", yes "recommeding" as he said, that we not cross the street here but fruther down. If I was a US taxpayer (and if anyone from the IRS is reading, I am and I am fully compliant....for anyone else I am not), I would have recommended that he stop telling me where to go as my tax dollars would have paid for the road and the sidewalk and if I wanted to reach my hypothetical, perhaps invisible, car across the street by where Ms/Mrs Carey was, then I had a right to. And you know what, I would have had mroe respect had he simply said that no one was to cross the street, full stop. A crappy recommendation was half hearted and abnoxious though.

The recommendation didn't stop us from getting into what turned out to be a super cool Apple store although the predeicted lack of internet access was showing itself like a pimple on a nose. There was indeed access but it seemed half of New York also knew about it and were taking advantage. I didn't see it as the end of the world for I got to sit down and watch people queue up or set appointments to deal with guys with "alternative" hair do's that took hours to fix in place. The worked in sections called Genius Bar and other creatively titled places. All in all the place was excellent, lots of products and iut was underground with only a glass box and the Apple logo telling it apart from other builings on a ground level. The most amazing sight, for me, was an old lady in her seventies, being taught how to create the Apple equivalent of a Powerpoint presentation. I wonder will she also get an "alternative" hair do?

One task that really needed doing on the day was the change of our train tickets as we had decided two less nights in Hueston in favour of an extra night each in North Carolina and New Orleans was a better set up. For this to be done we made our way to Penn Station which as it turned out, was right under Madison Square Garden which is quite a large size itself. Upon desending the busy steps in the station you can see just how much of an airport this place is, the only difference being the lack of planes. Shops and places to eat are everywhere and that one worker at the information point who you never want to meet was also there, his contribution of an answer to a question requesting a place where we could change the ticket dates being met with the pushing of a small leaflet under the glass screen in front of him with a phone number. I already had that number but thanked him anyway and set off to line up to get the ticket details changed by a real person. This took a while and completely set aprt the plan for the day which was essentially to check out Greenwich Village but what happened was that we skipped dinner, I went to Dunkin Donuts and ate two doughnouts and drank a cup of coffee on the steps of the General Post Office while watching the world, and Crazy Lady, go by. Crazy Lady, a drummer apparently, pontificated her musings from the steps before moving on. Interesting lady but a little loud for my taste.

It was while Donal and I walked a bit to find a subway station that the sun caught my eyes as it set in a pretty orange sky over New Jersey in the west prompting me to suggest we go to the top of the Rockefeller Centre's GE Building to sample that view from over 800 feet up. You should google the Rockefeller Centre really, go on - it was built in the 1930s and seems to get a lot less attnetion than the Empire State Building but as a whole complex I think it beats it because it is a collection of fine buildings in an Art Deco style in a form that Le Corbusier, the French modernist architect of the 50s and 60s praised in his day. Well I praise it in this day. There is just so much attention to detail in every little bit of work done on the building from around the tree's to the lobbys to the ceilings and the diamond and glass encrusted walls in the lobby at the top floor. The view from the top was of course fantastic as the sun set and darkness came over the city. There isn't really any escaping the scale of New York, everything is huge from whatever angle you look at it from, but when you are up this high it really does push home the length and breadth of this city and this further compounded how far Donal and I had walked throughout the day. Lots and lots and there was only more to come.

2 comments:

  1. Wow, that Rockefeller centre sounds unreal. And yes, I did actually use google images! :P

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  2. Me too Me too! And those Apple places are class!

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