New York, New York
So, I've been in Boston for four weeks now and have yet to hit most of the major tourist attractions like Quincy Market, the North End, and the Boston Harbour. Therefore, the obvious thing for me to do last weekend would be... to go to New York City!
Well, in my defence, I have always wanted to go to New York City, inspired particularly recently by two different factors. First, I am a huge fan of (HIDE MY FACE IN SHAME) "The Apprentice", and as all you Apprentice fans out there know (there must be ONE of you at least), every episode of the show features a slow, low-swooping shot of the TrumpJet or the TrumpChopper skimming the majestic skyline of NYC. Second, I am a huge fan of building 3D puzzles in my spare time, and by far my proudest accomplishment (the piece de resistance of the 3D puzzle world) was my successful construction of the 3184-piece Lower Manhattan skyline. I attached a picture of it below (sadly, including two significant buildings which are no longer with us), beside the "real" skyline picture I took from the Staten Island Ferry.
(OK, imagine the green carpeting is not there. It is totally busting my proud comparison here).
So, after building Lower Manhattan building-by-building over four days, I almost felt like I'd been there even before I was actually there. However, being there was actually quite a lot better, thanks largely to my most excellent tour guide, Ashley, who is yet another great reason to visit NYC. I always thought I was a bit of a crazy tourist in terms of walking insane distances and seeing massive swaths of area in one day, with "Paris except the Louvre in one day" and the "Big Island Hawaii Circumferential Tour in one day" being perhaps my proudest accomplishments. However, Ashley took my craziness and jacked it up to a whole new level of insanity. In two days (12 hours on Saturday, six hours on Sunday), we somehow managed to walk 37 kilometres (at least according to Ashley's pedometer, which we tested skeptically after it showed a 27km travel distance on Saturday alone and found it to be in perfect working order) and see Grand Central Station, the UN, the Chrysler Building, Fifth Avenue, Rockerfeller Centre, Radio City Music Hall, Central Park, the American Museum of Natural History, Madison Square Garden, the Empire State Building, Soho, Greenwich Village, Washington Square Park, Union Square, Broadway, the Hello Deli, Times Square, City Hall, the Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, Staten Island, and the World Trade Centre site. Phew! Outside of severe problems getting up from the subway car on the way back out to Yonkers on Sunday afternoon (my aging aching bones...), a weekend of fantastic fun. Plus, after being surrounded by strangers here in Boston for the last month and constantly meeting new people, it was really great to reconnect with a good friend (something I definitely needed). I have always loved the quote Ashley appends on the bottom of her e-mails: "In places familiar, we find comfort; in people familiar, we find ourselves" - it is entirely true.
Stuff I found surprising/impressive about NYC: (1) It costs $30 to go to the top of the Empire State Building - needless to say, I will have to be content with looking over the top of my puzzle for the aerial view for the time being (2) the World Trade Centre site is shockingly small, although still quite poignant - I actually couldn't really bring myself to take a picture of it, thinking about how much the world has changed over the past five years based on what happened in that block. The new Freedom Tower (nickname: "Bigger! Better! Larger Target!") is now under construction, but it is still more than a construction site (3) Wall St. is more like a side street - nothing like the major avenue of American finance I was expecting (4) Central Park is like nothing I have ever seen, in an entirely good way. It's amazingly diverse in terms of geography and activities, is absolutely colossial, is eerily separated from the city (it's distinctly quieter in the park just 15 seconds away from the road) and is truly a destination - name a park in Canada (or Ontario anyway) where you would intentionally go to spend the whole day. It's also fun to people watch - random roller skater shows, random guys trying to show off for girls by playing shirtless Frisbee... kind of a big sociological experiment really (5) Times Square is a garish dump - a garish dump you must go to see if you're in NYC, but a garish dump nonetheless (6) New York is an amazing city of neighbourhoods - if you walk 10 minutes in any direction from where you are standing (and, believe me, we walked 10 minutes in EACH direction, so I know of what I speak), it's like you are in a totally different city with different architecture, different shops, different residents. It's almost like you are in about twenty different cities all in one day.
Anyway, as usual, I was obscenely trigger happy and have posted photos of highly varying quality here for your enjoyment if you so choose (Hawaii pictures are also in that folder if you're interested).
