Last Day in the Big Apple

My last day in New York was a beautiful sunny spring morning, so I decided to spend it in Manhattan again, and explore the history of immigration here through Ellis Is. 

First I had to learn the language to tackle the train system here without a guide..........taking the MTA LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) to Penn Station, and then the AC or 1 Downtown....piece of cake!

I didn’t realize Penn Station was the conjunction of the NJT (New Jersey Transit) and AMTRAK as well as the LIRR. It is absolutely CAVERNOUS, taking up two entire blocks. I kid you not, there were even 2 lost, low flying and clearly terrified pigeons down there in the maze! I had to answer the call of nature, and it took several attempts for the Dunkin Donuts lady to understand I meant the baaithroom, and a few more for me to understand the directions. Heaven forbid if I didn’t speak English and was in dire need!! 

Found my way down to the World Trade Centre site, to check out the place after bin Laden’s demise. It’s kind of weird to see so many celebrating a death, but it’s interesting being so close to the raw emotion of those affected. New construction is well under way... New Yorkers won’t be kept down.

Hopped onto the ferry, past the old lady of liberty, still standing sentinel in all her splendour, to Ellis Island. The immigration building here, built in 1892, is really quite beautiful, tiled arched ceilings, light filtering through arched windows....The audio as you walk through, combined with the photographic display, is haunting, asking you to put yourself in the place of the thousands who passed through here, full of hope, of fear, of excitement.....and of desperation if they were rejected...

Up to 3,500 were processed a day, right up until the 1950’s, and 40% of the American population can trace their heritage through these gates to the American Dream.

Found time for a spot of shopping - it is a shopper’s dream, brand names everywhere, at ridiculous prices. Nice to have some new clothes after 4 months, to swan around London.  Cannot wait!

Vancouver Detour

The original plan was to meet Robbie Bowman in NYC and travel from Niagra Falls through the eastern states. Alas that plan couldn’t be... Robbie unable to travel after her kindy was devastated in the floods.

Impulsively, I hopped onto a plane to Vancouver and caught up with Wendy from the Antarctic trip. It was a good time to go therel - the town was buzzing with Ice Hockey finals playoff fever, the first time the Canuck’s have made it so far without folding....public buses, cars, shop assistants - all things and all sorts of people were decked out in Canuck’s colours..... it’s hard not to get caught up in it. and chant the ubiquitous ‘Go Canuck’s Go’, games every second night...

We hired a car for 4 days, zipped up to north Whistler and surrounds, Brandywine Falls and another (the name escapes me)....then a quick road trip down to Seattle, a spot of shopping in massive designer outlet, checking out the famous fish throwing at the Pike River markets (my tenant in New Farm did the motivational doc Fish inspired by this place) and hanging out in Wendy’s friend’s funky hostel, the rooms of which are all works of art from local artists.

We stopped too, at an historic little bayside trading town called La Conner.... just missed the tulip festival staged there, but hoed into clam chowder on the waterfront, and checked out an amazing exhibition in a quilt museum, housed appropriately in the towns historic old mansion..........

The whole place is picture book perfect, and the surrounding fields are full of wonderful crumbling old barns.... beautiful, a little ghostly under the stormy skies... reminders of a lifestyle long passed...

So... a week later and an overnight flight (getting too old for this no sleep caper, I’m back in New York with Geraldine for a couple of nights before another allnighter to London, and 2 weeks staying with Chris.

Life with Friends in NYC

I’ve been a little remiss in my blogging of late, chilling a lot, catching up with old friends....

Geraldine (a Dutch Aussie from melbourne) I’d not seen for about 20 yrs, so there was plenty of catching up and swapping stories. In that time she’d married an Irishman, surnamed OReilly, who washed dishes in an Irish pub in NYC as an immigrant and ended up owning a few himself....

It was great to share a little of her busy life in Port Washington.... 2 teenage kids, four dogs, 2 inside cats, 2 outside cats, a galah called Aussie and a cockateel add lots of life and colour...and there’s daughter Ashley’s beautiful (and huge) horse Orion, stabled 20 mins away, which has to be ridden and groomed and jumped most days. We shopped too for Ashley’s prom dress.... quintessential Long Island America...

On the Sunday caught up with Tuppy and Bob Nicholson, teachers from Brisbane who now consult in education in NYC. The city put on perfect sunshine for a stroll around Brooklyn Botanical Gardens for the gorgeous cherry blossom festival....lunch in Greenwich Village, a stroll through the shops, and a home cooked roast chicken in their Manhattan apartment overlooking the Circle Line ferries rounded out a perfect day...