I had no problems sleeping on the 4 and a half hour flight to NYC. Our thinking was simple enough, we figured taking the red-eye and flying through the night would mean the kids would sleep on the plane, therefore saving us one nights accommodation. But in the main, this proved to be the case. However Tammy had been sick most of the day with a mild case of food poisoning, which aggravated her travel sickness. So the flight out was particularly rough for her as she threw up 3 times and for poor old Jodie who was attending to her.
Apparently she went through several sick bags and I was completely oblivious to it, as I didn’t wake up till 20mins to landing. JFK Airport in New York is huge and appears confusing. We had to catch a tram, or monorail, for about 25mins until we found the hire cars. WE arrived, loaded up the hire car, which unfortunately wasn’t a Honda Odyssey, but was a Dodge Grand Caravelle. I guess for the first time in my trip, I felt a little anxious as the intention was to leave the car at the airport, take overnight bags and catch the subway into Manhattan, but we made the decision that it would be better to drive in and I wasn’t really sure how I was going to go driving in all that New York traffic.
It proved to be not too bad in the end, and was incredible to think that I was driving down Broadway amongst a sea of yellow cabs and an ocean of people. It would appear the people of New York don’t really obey traffic signal, and as it was morning peak hour they had police at every major intersection even with traffic lights directing traffic. We drove to the hotel but check in wasn’t until 3pm, they allowed us to store our bags and directed us to a nearby parking station and then we set off for breakfast at the famous New Yorker Hotel. Wasn’t really sure how everybody was going to go today, as we were all very, very tired from the overnight flight. We all ate breakfast of various New York delicacies, Eggs Benedict, Pancakes and Club Sandwiches before we headed off for an open top bus tour of the city.
New York is a very hot city during summer. Because of all the high-rise buildings, you don’t get a lot of air movement. All the avenues on Manhattan run North to South and all the streets run east to West, our hotel was located in mid-town Manhattan in a suburb affectionately named Hell’s Kitchen. Every time we turned a corner and neared one of the rivers, we were entreated with a nice cool sea breeze. We took the open top bus tour to the Statten Island Ferry terminal. We got off and rode the ferry across to Statten Island. As Jodie and I had done this last year, we knew which side of the ferry to get onto, giving the kids prime viewing space to see the Statue of Liberty and take some great photos.
The ferry is free and one of the best ways to see the Statue of Liberty. When we returned to Manhattan, we walked up to Wall St. had our picture taken with the famous Bull. And then walked up to the, now world famous St Pauls Chapel, which is across the street from the World Trade Centre. They have a memorial built here now; we spent some time reading all about when happened in 9/11. It was really interesting to notice a lot of American tourists who were visiting Ground Zero for the first time and had tears streaming down their face as they read and looked at the pictures of the victims. It made me feel really appreciative that back in Australia we have not been the victims of a major terrorist attack like 9/11. We decided to jump on the Open Top Bus and complete the tour of downtown Manhattan. We got off and went for a walk through central park, and feeling quite tired we laid down on the grass in the shade and most of us slept for 20-30mins. We then got up, bought hotdogs from a hotdog vender in New York and went to the World’s Largest Toy Store. I then took the kids on their first Subway ride, Thomas was quite nervous and we rode the train for 4 stations, getting off near Madison Square Garden and walking down to our hotel. It was now about 4:30pm and we had the opportunity to rest before heading our t Mary Poppins.
The Hotel room was not what you would call massive; in fact the 2 double beds almost touched each other in the middle of the room. So needless to say, with 6 people and 13 pieces of luggage, we did not have a lot of room to spare. Everybody took n opportunity to sleep for an hour, except for me as we didn’t want to fall asleep during Mary Poppins. It was about 6 blocks to get to Broadway and 42nd St where the show is playing, so we allowed 30mins to walk to the theatre, pick up our tickets and went into the show. I must confess that Mary Poppins was Jodie’s idea and wish, and not something I wanted to do, but I was absolutely, presently surprised.
The theatre was still in its Victorian façade and made you feel apart of the stage and indeed apart of the show. It’s amazing the different staging and visual effect they use in live theatre now. Stages move up and down, scenery back and forth, rotate. But the most amazing effect of al was right at the end when Mary Poppins flies up off the stage and out into the audience, flying above the people in the stalls then above the people in our level in the mezzanine then above the people up top. The kids were humming and singing the songs from the musical for days afterwards.
We left the theatre and decided to take the kids for a walk though Times Square, this was an eye opening experience for a lot of the family as they had all sorts of buskers, performers and ordinary, every-day New Yorkers there. They had people dressed up in dodgy Disney characters, right down to the naked Cowboy in his jocks, playing his guitar on the street with his cowboy boots on. We went into the Disney store and then decided we would head back to the hotel. It’s approaching midnight now, which makes the 5th or 6th night in a row that we were getting to bed a midnight. But we were hungry; we decided to stop for some authentic New York pizza for diner at midnight. We then got back to the hotel and crashed out.
Apparently she went through several sick bags and I was completely oblivious to it, as I didn’t wake up till 20mins to landing. JFK Airport in New York is huge and appears confusing. We had to catch a tram, or monorail, for about 25mins until we found the hire cars. WE arrived, loaded up the hire car, which unfortunately wasn’t a Honda Odyssey, but was a Dodge Grand Caravelle. I guess for the first time in my trip, I felt a little anxious as the intention was to leave the car at the airport, take overnight bags and catch the subway into Manhattan, but we made the decision that it would be better to drive in and I wasn’t really sure how I was going to go driving in all that New York traffic.
It proved to be not too bad in the end, and was incredible to think that I was driving down Broadway amongst a sea of yellow cabs and an ocean of people. It would appear the people of New York don’t really obey traffic signal, and as it was morning peak hour they had police at every major intersection even with traffic lights directing traffic. We drove to the hotel but check in wasn’t until 3pm, they allowed us to store our bags and directed us to a nearby parking station and then we set off for breakfast at the famous New Yorker Hotel. Wasn’t really sure how everybody was going to go today, as we were all very, very tired from the overnight flight. We all ate breakfast of various New York delicacies, Eggs Benedict, Pancakes and Club Sandwiches before we headed off for an open top bus tour of the city.
New York is a very hot city during summer. Because of all the high-rise buildings, you don’t get a lot of air movement. All the avenues on Manhattan run North to South and all the streets run east to West, our hotel was located in mid-town Manhattan in a suburb affectionately named Hell’s Kitchen. Every time we turned a corner and neared one of the rivers, we were entreated with a nice cool sea breeze. We took the open top bus tour to the Statten Island Ferry terminal. We got off and rode the ferry across to Statten Island. As Jodie and I had done this last year, we knew which side of the ferry to get onto, giving the kids prime viewing space to see the Statue of Liberty and take some great photos.
The ferry is free and one of the best ways to see the Statue of Liberty. When we returned to Manhattan, we walked up to Wall St. had our picture taken with the famous Bull. And then walked up to the, now world famous St Pauls Chapel, which is across the street from the World Trade Centre. They have a memorial built here now; we spent some time reading all about when happened in 9/11. It was really interesting to notice a lot of American tourists who were visiting Ground Zero for the first time and had tears streaming down their face as they read and looked at the pictures of the victims. It made me feel really appreciative that back in Australia we have not been the victims of a major terrorist attack like 9/11. We decided to jump on the Open Top Bus and complete the tour of downtown Manhattan. We got off and went for a walk through central park, and feeling quite tired we laid down on the grass in the shade and most of us slept for 20-30mins. We then got up, bought hotdogs from a hotdog vender in New York and went to the World’s Largest Toy Store. I then took the kids on their first Subway ride, Thomas was quite nervous and we rode the train for 4 stations, getting off near Madison Square Garden and walking down to our hotel. It was now about 4:30pm and we had the opportunity to rest before heading our t Mary Poppins.
The Hotel room was not what you would call massive; in fact the 2 double beds almost touched each other in the middle of the room. So needless to say, with 6 people and 13 pieces of luggage, we did not have a lot of room to spare. Everybody took n opportunity to sleep for an hour, except for me as we didn’t want to fall asleep during Mary Poppins. It was about 6 blocks to get to Broadway and 42nd St where the show is playing, so we allowed 30mins to walk to the theatre, pick up our tickets and went into the show. I must confess that Mary Poppins was Jodie’s idea and wish, and not something I wanted to do, but I was absolutely, presently surprised.
The theatre was still in its Victorian façade and made you feel apart of the stage and indeed apart of the show. It’s amazing the different staging and visual effect they use in live theatre now. Stages move up and down, scenery back and forth, rotate. But the most amazing effect of al was right at the end when Mary Poppins flies up off the stage and out into the audience, flying above the people in the stalls then above the people in our level in the mezzanine then above the people up top. The kids were humming and singing the songs from the musical for days afterwards.
We left the theatre and decided to take the kids for a walk though Times Square, this was an eye opening experience for a lot of the family as they had all sorts of buskers, performers and ordinary, every-day New Yorkers there. They had people dressed up in dodgy Disney characters, right down to the naked Cowboy in his jocks, playing his guitar on the street with his cowboy boots on. We went into the Disney store and then decided we would head back to the hotel. It’s approaching midnight now, which makes the 5th or 6th night in a row that we were getting to bed a midnight. But we were hungry; we decided to stop for some authentic New York pizza for diner at midnight. We then got back to the hotel and crashed out.
           |     Worlds Largest Toy store        |
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