Well folks, this is probably our last blog from the current holiday. Boo hoo! I gave in on Thursday so Trish and I went shopping (again) up and down 5th, 6th and possibly 7th Avenue. I can't actually remember, so many shops so little interest...Trish however had a great time and found her shopping nirvana in a shoe shop that was having a stock clearance. Fortunately she was able to curtail her urges and bought only 2 pairs after I tactfully pointed out that we had a luggage weight limit to consider. We sat in the 80F heat in Bryant Park and watched the locals play pentanque (boule to us), strolled, ate at a classic diner where that ugly wench, Sarah Jessica Parker shot some TV series or other. (Lucy knows which one). In fact, we may have sat in exactly the same seat, but I did not sniff so cannot confirm.
To get over the stress of shopping (men ain't designed for that) we went back to the comfort and air-con of the hotel for a couple of hours snooze before heading off in to the night to see The Producers on Broadway. Very funny, fast show and thoroughly enjoyable. We began the show sat next to a rather portly American chap who, whilst very smartly dressed and well-spoken, seemed to be wearing eau de whiskey. In the first 10 minutes he kept laughing at the wrong bits and stayed silent during the hilarious parts. Halfway through the first act he got up to go (presumably) to the little boys room and completely missed the doorway, walking in to the framework, only to reappear 10 minutes later, sit down and fall asleep, snoring quietly.
Walking down Madison (As Kirsty MacColl sang) late at night was a bit creepy. There are some weird people here... such as me doing silly stuff in front ofthe flat-iron building.
Friday dawned, still sunny and therefore still bloody hot (90s) and we elected to take the subway to the American Natural History Museum. We were not sure what to expect but should have taken heed when the lady selling us tickets asked if we liked boring museums. She was not wrong. Badly planned with even worse signage meant we walked in circles quite a lot. We yawned our way through the life-size plastic whales/sharks in the oceanic section (saw real ones in Sydney), dozed through the volcano/geo-thermal exhibit (saw the real thing in New Zealand) and didn't ooh and aahh and the Pacific peoples bit 'cos, you guessed it, we met real ones. It made us realise how lucky we were to have done and seen so much.
Everywhere we went had an eating area, surely America's second favourite pastime after baseball and a museum shop. Trish bought me a real metallic green chafer bug encased in aspic or something...After taking about 15 minutes trying to find our way out we hit the heat again and took a stroll through Central Park. Strange park. Full of roads and houses. We ended the evening by going back to Broadway to see Spamalot. Ya gotta see this one! Extremely funny and well put together. The opening song was even about me, the title being 'I'm Not Dead Yet'. There was even a Mad Mike look alike who stole the show. Spamalot hits London in September. Get tickets.
On Saturday we headed out to Trish's old stomping ground of Port Washington, Long Island which is about 45 minutes outside NY by train. It has been 16 years since she was last there and she had butterflies as she worried if anybody still remembered her. They did and we had a really good day using the detecting of old friends as an excuse to trawl various Guinness serving bars and restaurants. On our return to hot, sweaty NY we went to a nice Irish pub for dinner (another old haunt of herself) and spent an enjoyable few hours discussing everything from Route 66 to America overseas with the locals. T'was nice to have an intellectual discussion after so many weeks, not that Trish and I don't, you understand but we have spent 3 months
in each others company.
Today (Sunday) is an easy day, again very hot and we had contemplated a walk downtown to Little Italy. We are still debating if it is too hot to walk so far...
We fly out of JFK tomorrow and land in Heathrow around 7am Tuesday and back to normality, whatever that is. We have had a great time and seen/done so many wonderful things it is hard to pick a favourite, so we wont'. Okay, we will: I liked NZ, Trish says whales and NZ.
See ya
P & T in NY (With K)
XXXX
3 comments:
Well of course NZ was the highlight look at the people who live there!!!. People like..... US!
hi how are you looking forward to seeing you has trish brought any shoes that she doesn't want for me? lol dad says hi and everyone else two hope your having a good time
Finally saw Mrs C snr today and wished her a happy birthday!
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