Our 5th Avenue...

Tuesday, September 24th.

Without a doubt there are some people who spend an entire lifetime in New York City and still do not see all there is to see and do all there is to do. We were trying to do it all in less than a week. Being a tourist is tough... :)

We didn't have a whole list of monuments and museums to see, however. We'd sort of done that thing in Washington D.C. In New York our objective was rather to just walk the streets of the city and be there and feel the atmosphere.

So on Tuesday morning we took the train down to the city again. Just as it had happened the day before we arrived at Beacon Station and found every last parking space taken. So instead of hunting around town for some faraway spot we just followed the tracks south to the next station to try our luck there. The parking lot at Cold Spring station was just as full, however. But there was 4-hour parking on Main St, from 9 to 5pm. We parked and left the car there shortly before 12 o'clock, knowing that it would be parked there illegaly for an hour late in the day. But we figured we'd chance it and just hope to not get a ticket.

Upon arrival in the city we walked from Grand Central Station to Central Park and took a walk in the southeastern corner of the park in order to experience that gigantic refuge first hand. The size of the park seems completely unrealistic on a map of Manhattan. But the maps don't lie. It is huge. It is only necessary to walk a few hundred yards into the park to forget entirely that one is in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world. We took a stroll down the path and passed musicians, artists, hot dog vendors and lots of ordinary New Yorkers (if that isn't a complete oxymoron...) taking a break from the bustling metropolis around them. We passed the zoo and stopped to take pictures with the statue of Hans Christian Andersen further into the park.

After our little stroll in the park we caught the yellow line on the Subway which ran across the river and into the borough of Queens. We got off randomly at Broadway (in Queens, which has nothing to do with Broadway in Manhattan) and found a great street filled with shops that fit our interests and budgets much better than many of the exclusive shopping streets on Manhattan.

In a bookstore along the street Dan stumbled upon a copy of William Least Heat-Moon's travelogue "Blue Highways" about his trip across the United States in the early 80's. Judging from the first few chapters it seems that his trip was more of an individual quest for spirituality and inward exploration but we found great amusement in the discovery that the vehicle he had chosen for his trip was a Ford Econoline Van -- the exact same van as our Club Wagon, except that our van was originally built as a passenger vehicle. And of the two books that he chose to bring along on his trip one was Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" which is also tucked away among the clutter in the back of our van! That hardly makes William a true kindred spirit of ours, but we had fun likening ourselves to him in some small way. Wonder what he would think of driving across the country with a couch..? :)

We continued up the street in search of a subway station that we never found. Instead we found a great little clothing store where Dan bought a new pair of pants. We then asked directions for a thrift shop and ended up on a 30-block trek all the way down to 14th street, passing buildings that looked more and more run down for every block we walked. And when we finally got to 14th street there was absolutely nothing there, save a little Mexican grocery store on the corner. We bought an ice cream from the guy who owned the shop and were dismayed to have him tell us that the Salvation Army store we were looking for was actually on 34th street, two blocks over from where we gotten the first directions!

We thought we'd walked far enough, though, so we asked the guy if it was possible to hail a cab down in that end of town (we hadn't seen any for a while). It wasn't, he said, but he offered to call for one. Of course that should have been cause for suspicion, but we accepted the offer and he called for a cab. We'd expected to finally get a ride in one of those legendary yellow NY cabs that are all over the city. But that wasn't going to happen. The cab that pulled up was a regular incognito Oldsmobile, no doubt driven by the shop-owner's cousin or brother. The only thing that made it remotely resemble a cab were the bursts of radio communication in Spanish from some hidden intercom system. But he got us where we wanted to go: the Salvation Army thrift store at 34th and Steinway.

It was already past 6pm when we got there, but even the thrift stores are open late in America, so we still had an hour to browse through the isles and isles of junk. But what junk it was! It was beyond doubt the best thrift store we'd seen so far. Neither of us made it through more than two isles, yet we both came out of there with a whole bag full "new" old shirts for our collection! :)

For our last evening in New York we decided to have a good dinner. We wanted to try some authentic New York food, and although we'd had some great NY-style pizza for lunch one day we really hadn't eaten at a deli yet. So for our final dinner in the city we went to Ben's Kosher Deli just south of Times Square. The name and the menu were that of a NY deli, but the prices and interior decorating were more like a real restaurant. Which made us think that we could get that nice restaurant experience for once, while at the same trying real deli food.

Since we have nothing to compare it to we can hardly judge the quality of the food as far as "deli food" goes. But we hope on behalf of all other delis that it was as below-average as we thought it must be. Their cole slaw was pretty good, but the chicken fingers were burnt to a blackened crisp, the corned beef and pastrami sandwich was dry as a day in the desert and the "freshly cut" french fries were limp and tasteless. We could have lived with the bland food, though, if we'd just had an otherwise pleasurable experience. But for some reason we were served by the most rude waitress ever employed by a restaurant. When she brought our food she barked out an "Enjoy!" with her thick German accent, as if giving an order. She never came back to hear if everything was ok, but instead repeatedly ignored our empty glasses (which, to quote the menu, were to contain "bottomless soft drinks") until we finally had to call her over and ask for a refill. Although she looked at us in disbelief she did refill our glasses, which, as it turned out, meant that we were billed for 4 soft drinks which we thought seemed an odd interpretation of "bottomless". In the middle of our meal she came with our bill and said "we close at 9, so here's your bill" and left again. We thought this exceptionally rude, especially since none of the other guests were brought their checks or told to leave.

We politely asked another waitress if it was alright if we stayed to finish our dinner. She told us to take all the time we wanted and enjoy our meal. This didn't stop our waitress from walking by again two minutes later, pointing at our table and saying "your check is there, we close at 9 o'clock". We couldn't believe it; the service at McDonald's is more courteous! Disgusted with her rude behaviour we decided to take our time to finish our food, although we'd lost all appetite. We left her one shiny penny as a tip, which was one penny more than she deserved, and then left.

We picked up dessert at McDonald's and enjoyed the polite service, or lack thereof, there. We ate our ice cream on the stairway in Grand Central Station and then took the train back to Cold Spring. And to our relief we found our car still on Main St, with no parking ticket in sight.

Although it was close to 1 o'clock we decided to drive on into the night towards Boston. Sometime after 4 o'clock we pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot next to a small group of RV's that were also camped out there and went to sleep for the night.