It's Alan's blog day while Sarah's thoughts are in pink.
We had an opportunity to sleep in this morning which we gratefully did before rising at around 10am. Eventually we got ourselves moving as we were to spend the day touring the city on an open top double decker bus. First priority was to walk the 15 blocks north to the Gray Line tour visitor centre and redeem our vouchers, which took us about half an hour. There are 3 tour routes available and you can jump on and off the buses as often as you like as they come along every few minutes.
We chose to take the uptown tour first which was a two and a half to three hour loop and took us through such areas as The West Side, Central Park West, Harlem, Manhattan Valley, Spanish Harlem and Museum Mile. There's a tour guide on the bus who provides a constant commentary along the way pointing out absolutely everything there is to know. Practically every second building is famous for some reason or another, like movies or tv shows being filmed there, or someone famous owning it or living there, or just for being old or big. Also, they point out the home of every celebrity who has ever lived or lives in New York. There were no seats together when we got on because unthinking Americans chose to sit separately although travelling together. The woman I was sitting next to was travelling with two other women, one in front and one behind. Every time she wanted to talk to the woman behind she slid over and sat partly on my lap. Every time she wanted to take a photo, she leaned back on me. Every time she wanted to look the map, she hit me in the arm. Not once did she say sorry. Finally after almost two hours of this she said to me "oh am I taking up more than one seat". My response was "yes, only for about two hours". She then made some comment about my big arse. Yes, my butt is bigger than hers but I managed to keep mine on the one seat, unlike her. Thankfully we were able to move and sit together after that.
During the ride we passed by such places as Time Warner Towers, Trump International, The Museum of Natural History, The Apollo Theatre, Malcolm X St, Carnegie Hall, the projects in Harlem, The Guggenheim Museum, The Plaza Hotel, Cathedral of St John the Divine, The tomb of Ulysses S. Grant, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Soup Nazi kitchen from Seinfeld and of course Central Park. We stayed on for the entire loop as we decided not to get off at any of the stops along the way.
We returned to the crossover point for the downtown route and changed buses only for our new bus to turn a corner and immediately terminate so the driver could have lunch. So we got off, walked back around the corner and caught the next one only for the exact same thing to happen a second time. It would be really nice if they could tell you that they're about to terminate around the corner before you get on. Third time proved lucky as we walked to a different bus stop.
So onto the Downtown loop which was also about a 3 hour tour. During this one we passed through many areas including the fashion district, Greenwich Village, Soho, the theatre district, Little Italy, the lower east side, Chinatown, the financial district, Stuyvesant Town and the East Village. We saw Madison Square Garden, The Empire State Building, The Flatiron Building, Times Square, South St Seaport, Macys department store, the Staten Island Ferry terminal, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge, The United Nations, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Plaza and Rockefeller Centre.
We did get off at one point on this tour when we got down to Ground Zero. The bus doesn't drive past here and we wanted to have a look at it. It's very hard to see anything these days as it's a building site for the new Freedom Tower and pretty much covered from view but now and then there is a hole in the fence which you can look through. The hole was a good spot by me. Although they are rebuilding, there is still a lot of twisted metal on the site.
From there we walked down to Battery Park which is the very south tip of Manhattan Island. Usually the Statue of Liberty is easily seen from here but today it was almost invisible due to the haze. We chose not to take the ferry to the island since you can no longer go up inside it.
By the time we got back on the bus and finished the downtown loop it was 6pm so we were starving having had only an ice cream all day. We started wandering back toward our hotel but do you think we could find somewhere to eat? Of course not, there's only about 10,000 restaurants in Manhattan. It wasn't until we were back at 32nd street before we found a little Italian place that we thought looked nice. By this time I was sick and tired of being pushed, walked into and hit with boxes and handbags.
It's a huge city. An old city with so much history. Some of the older buildings are just stunning with their intricate stonework designs. There's a ludicrous amount of people crammed into an island 7 miles long and 1 mile wide. Space is such a premium. We don't understand why so many people are willing to pay millions of dollars to live here. But after being here a day and a half, we've both had more than enough of New York and are ready to never come back again. The people here are the most selfish, ignorant, self important collection of nastiness you could ever hope not to meet. Of course not all are like that, we've encountered the odd nice person here and there, but we seem to have an unfortunate habit of searching out and finding complete knobs!!! After 9/11 the people around here apparently changed for the better. 6 years on and it would appear things are back to the way they used to be.
Trivia for the day: When taking a tour bus around the city you are constantly reminded to never ever stand up while the bus is moving. If you do, you will more than likely end up with a traffic light where your head used to be as they hang very low. You also have to watch out for the trees. Some of the tree branches will also take off your head.
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