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We wanted to be up and at 'em today... a full day in the city!! Started with the alarm ringing at 6.30am although both of us were already "compos mentis".. up, showered, tea and vegemite toast consumed and we're ready to take on New York City!!!
Wanting to do things slightly differently today we decided to walk to 33rd St ( as opposed to up to 42nd st and GCT, our "home" subway ) to catch the subway down to 23rd to check out Madison Square Park and the flatiron building, emerged from the subway and only headed in the wrong direction for about half a block this time!! There it is....the Flatiron building, most people will know this building when they see it... we just asked why ??? really... why??? look at the windows on the end and imagine what that would actually be like inside... one room across.. and then what happens??
We had some problems with the camera lens... all the shots were blurred... what the??? It was fine yesterday.. so put the other lens on and yeah... all good... hmmmmmm..... took photos in the subway that were just all blurry, deleted them but will definitely take more, we worked out later that the auto/manual focus button had been moved to M, yep, that'll do it! Ok so next stop is 14th st/union square... more squirrels playing in the bushes but you have to be quick, oops... missed it!!! I'm getting so good at coming up out of the subway and knowing which direction to head that I'm saying to Rodd... "pat me on the back"!!!!... soooo cool!!! It's just a matter of knowing the grids, Streets run east/west and ascending as you go "uptown", Avenues go north/south with 5th Ave the centre line.... 6th up is west side, 4th down is eastside... easy, until you get to the west village ( Greenwich ) that's a rabbit warren!!
So where were we?? ok at union square?? DSW was actually my focus here, we were here at about 9.30 and hey, guess what? doesn't open til 10!! Grrrrr...... checked out Forever 21, sorry Cass I just don't get it!!! Then we went and had a coffee somewhere, mainly because I was busting to go to the toilet and there just aren't any public toilets in NYC.... seriously it's a bit of an issue, I asked Bill, our greeter and even he said he has to map out where they are available, sometimes even you have to pay entry to a museum or something to access them... get it together NYC!!!!
Hmmm ok... no DSW, lets just get on the L crosstown subway to 8th Ave so we can walk the Highline, down the 2 levels of stairs, swipe the much used unlimited metrocard... yep all the signs say we're in the right place... L train going the other way comes and goes, sign says 8 mins till train comes for the L to 8th Ave... waiting, waiting... hmmm now it says "delay" ... really?? how long a delay?? We waited another 10 minutes with an ever growing crowd before the announcement came that there was maintenance and the train wasn't coming.... hmmmmmm what now??? You guessed it...walk!!!! Seriously, google this area.. 14th St to 8th Ave and then you're looking for Gansevoort St to get onto the Highline.
We actually found it without too much hassle and yes again stairs up to access the High Line. I can imagine in the season when everything is green and lush this is a gorgeous area, an escape from the city for many residents. Now however, much like Central Park, it's dead, bleak and barren. It took about half an hour to walk the length from Gansevoort to 30th, lovely views over Chelsea and the Meatpacking District.
Once again we were exhausted, over all the walking!!! Just a short walk down 30th we found Madison Square Garden where we had tickets for the Rangers v Flyers game ( ice hockey )... walked around the block to find somewhere for lunch before the game and ended up at the Irish Bar, very nice meal, but way too big, I only managed to eat half of mine. One thing here I'll say is it's really weird ordering off a menu here, they have appetizers and entrees, Entree being the main course, and all the portions are enormous!!
We were lucky with our timing for lunch cos just after we sat down a steady stream of people kept arriving and either having to wait 20-30 mins for a table or just left. The Bar was steadily filling up with Rangers fans, being a local team I guess is why the majority of people at the game were Rangers fans, all wearing their team colours ( jerseys, whatever ).
After lunch we just followed the red, white and blue as they surged towards and into Madison Square Garden. Considering the huge volume of people it's surprising how fast the lines moved, there's was lots of staff there showing us where to go, just as well cos we would have taken ages to find the right seats!! I bought our tickets from a website called Stubhub.com and there was no problem at any time with them, I would definitely recommend using this site. What a fabulous atmosphere inside... when the teams came on for the warm up the Rangers got lots of cheers and the Flyers were well and truly booed. the official announcer read out all the names of the Rangers team, welcomed them, praised them etc etc and absolutely no mention was given to their opponents. I found that totally bizarre and really bad sportsmanship, but hey, what do I know???
The game was fast paced and even though I had NO idea what was going on I thoroughly enjoyed it. When the Rangers got a goal in the first couple of minutes the crowd went wild!! Everyone stood up, and the words GOAL, GOAL, GOAL, HEY, HEY HEY come up on the overhead scoreboard and the whole crowd chants and sings the words, it's a pretty awesome sound hearing that many people all chanting the same thing, it's obviously a song they know cos they all sang along together! As the game progressed someone in the crowd would yell out "Let's go Rangers" and the whole arena would clap a little tune in unison. Hard to describe but was an amazing experience. When it was obvious the Flyers weren't going to win the chant changed to "you can't beat us" and "flyers suck"... Poor guys, I felt sorry for them
The other thing was the fights, two guys would just rip their gloves off and start punching the s#$t out of each other and the refs just let them go for a bit then when they think they can get in there without getting hit they break them up and take them to a "time out" box for 2 mins!!! Quite often a player would get body slammed against the perspex wall with a sickening thud, it was worse if they got slammed by 2 players from the opposing them at the same time. Tough guys!!
After that we were once again ready for a "nanna nap"!! The original plan was to go to a bar somewhere and watch the Super Bowl... a huge huge sporting deal as the Giants, a NY based team were playing but in the end the nanna nap won out... pathetic huh!?
Well I didn't really nap.. I was busy catching up on the blog.. man this is time consuming, maybe cos I ramble so much!! Speaking of which this is getting a little long so I'll wrap this up!!
We thought it would be nice to go to a stand up comedy club so I jumped on Google and checked out a few that I had already found in previous research but just wanted to confirm time, address and availability. I chose the Upright Citizens Brigade and it said they were sold out but Rodd reckoned if we went we'd probably get in... so off we set again, walk to GCT, shuttle to Times Square, jumped on the 1 to 23rd st, emerged on the street and after a quick look around headed in the right direction!!! Yay, only taken me 3 days!! There it is, right where I thought it would be... it looks a bit dodgy but in we went and no worries $10 pp please and we're in!
What a great night!! They really are very clever people but I'd warn some people may very well have been offended by the content, nothing, and I mean nothing, is off bounds for them!!!
After the show it was probably about 10 ish and we hadn't had dinner yet so I steered us to a place called "The Hogs Pit" that I had stumbled on in my research, it was only about 3 blocks from the theatre so easily walked to. I always love it when we're walking and I'm saying... just up here, it should be just up here... and I look and there it is!!! Now remember I said something about the Superbowl?? The place was packed...squeezy packed.. but I was needing the "restroom" and so we squeezed in, luckily the game finished about 5 minutes after we came in so in no time the crowds dispersed... we ordered "to go" as it was so late and headed out into the cold to get a taxi home.
Now you'd think in a city with 16,000 taxis you'd be able to just stick out a hand and get one... not this night, I guess with Superbowl just finished there were masses of people moving about the city.. we walked and tried but to no avail. Where we were was in a funny spot to just jump on the subway home but I decided to at least try to get as far uptown as we could by subway and then maybe there'd be a cab there, so we jumped on the subway and came up on 34th but way West when we needed to be 39th East.. but within a minute we managed to grab a cab.
Phew... huge day and another tomorrow!!! Congratulations if you made it this far, I do go on I know!!
- comments
Debra Hey Larn,Your best blog yet - felt like I was right there with you..... well once I stopped and googled to find out what DSW was! Weird about the public loos as from the sounds of things NYC is well up on the tourist comforts. Glad to hear you are both having such a great time and at least all that walking will be combatting all the large meals! x
mum Yes Larne, that was absolutely super..enjoyed every minute of it..the NY parks are beautiful, even if it IS winter. The Highline..interesting,,is it just for pedestrians as there didn't seem to be any cyclists. And the Ice Hockey match...mad! No doubt about thse Americans,,they're crazy! Your both look great, am especially happy Rodd looks so well. Yeh..always looks like there's thousands of taxis in NY,,from YOUR PHOTOS and when watching a movie set in NY...but NOT when you really NEED one eh? Looking forward to the next Blog! Love you...
Frank Michell C'mon Larnie....next installment please....by the way...did you read my e-mail re the United Airlines ticket ????....love your blogs....Dad
cafe_travel It probably doesn't make much sens on the inside but we do like this buidiinig. Seems quite funky....not practical I know but funky is good!
cafe_travel Love this!
cafe_travel Ooooo Chris will be abel to tell you what this is about...I think! We got scammed (kind of) one night by a homeless man who stopped us to tell us the story of these numbers and what they mean...then he made us pay for the info. But, it was interesting.
cafe_travel Wow t looks so different! It was very green and all in bloom when we walked along it ast year.
cafe_travel That looks like a very exciting game!
cafe_travel Fight, fight, fight!
Spaghetti This is a clock! Read the time from left to right. I think the right-to-left is a countdown to how much time is left in the day.
cafe_travel Ciao Liane, I believe I may take the award for best blog rambler. You're posts are fine, perfect length and they keep you interested.Great job! We've only ever been in NYC for baseball season but I bet the Ice Hockey would be amazing too. They're so loud at their sports games aren't they?! You didn't stop off anywhere in the meat packing district for a mea or a drink? That place has awesome bars and restaurants! I'm getting through your next few posts but if you haven't dined there yet go back!!