Oxford Café on Lexington and 52nd Street is one of the cafes I talked about last night. It has a ‘create your own’ salad and sandwich bar, pizza bar, dessert bar, which are basically all Louise’s favourite foods. So it was no surprise, that Louise said at lunch, "I can quite happily eat breakfast, lunch and dinner here for the rest of my life."
The Gray Line Tours hop on/hop off stop is one street away on Lexington and 49th Street. We caught the downtown route past the Empire State building, and the famous Flatiron building (pictured below). It was a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, and it was great on top of the open deck bus. The traffic is absolutely horrendous (pictured top right), and therefore I will never complain again about Sydney traffic. It literally takes ten minutes to go three blocks, so most New Yorkers catch the subway. Furthermore, to garage a car will cost between three hundred and fifty to four hundred dollars a month. If you could imagine rush hour in George Street, Sydney, multiple it by ten, and maintain that rush hour for 24 hours a day, you might get a picture of New York.
TRAVEL TIP: In New York the numbered cross streets, like 50th street start after Houston Street downtown, and the suburb of SOHO is an abbreviation for South of Houston. The avenues go north to south, like Park Avenue, Lexington Avenue.
The streets south of Houston Street are more haphazardly constructed, and the guide told us even native New Yorkers can get lost in Greenwich Village.
The World Trade Centre site is an eerie place it is a huge piece of space in the city with no buildings, just giant cranes, and the sound of construction. Opposite is St Paul’s Church, one of the nation’s oldest churches, where George Washington worshipped, which miracously survived the destruction, and was used as a place of refuge for the exhausted workers. What is amazing that every single building surrounding the World Trade Centre was damaged except St Paul’s (divine intervention?). Now, it is also a place of remembrance, with a number of shrines to the emergency services (pictured below).
On a lighter note on the next block is Century 21 a large discount shopping centre, where clothing is very cheap. I left Louise inside to engage in a shopping frenzy, and had a look around St Paul’s and the world trade site. When I returned Louise was dishevelled, and out of breath. The store's motto is "Fashion worth fighting", and this exactly what she had to do get the bargains. Picture the first day of stocktake sale at Myer, and you get the idea.
TRAVEL TIP: Don't get caught downtown in a thunder storm like we did without an umbrella.
Wet, cold, miserable it wasn't going to stop us continuing our tour (Pictured above- that's Louise on the right). Continuing past the financial district, and the famous Wall Street, we curved around past the waterfront (see this waterfall – pictured below). Past the United Nations and got off at our bus stop near our hotel and walked to Times Square. Louise was excited that she secured tickets to see Grease the musical on Saturday night from the theatre box office. Good seats too - four rows back from the stage. She tells me the winner of American Idol is in it.
After dinner, we thought we were safe, ( Actually I thought I was safe, Louise retained her poncho), but we got caught in another thunderstorm again on the walk home. I got totally soaked, Louise was bone dry. I know you always suspected Louise was the brains of our outfit.
The moral of this story is that New York weather is highly variable, so bring your umbrella, warm clothing, and cool clothing - actually just bring everything!
Tomorrow, the forecast is not too good - thunderstorms. So, what are we going to do? Yeah, that's right we're going on an open decked bus tour of uptown, Harlem, and Brooklyn.
If your gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough!
