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It is Thursday evening, 10:15pm. I hurry home from my night class, I am already late. I do have just one hour then we want to leave Waterloo. Nothing is packed yet, so I just dump everything that looks like a weekend in New York into my bag. At 11pm I leave my unit with my roommate Richard (Canada) and we pick up Emma (Australia) and Pey (Singapore) and walk over to Sabine's apartment, where the minivan and Tim are waiting for us. Somehow it takes us another hour to get started. A nine hour drive lies ahead of us...
After two hours we reach the borderline to the US. We are asked to get out of the car and we are treated as if every single one of a is potential terrorist or worse. After we paid the $6 fee, our passports are checked and we are identified a non-terrorists we are allowed to go on. From now on the we make headway quite fast, we only stop for driver change and pee breaks.
New York City, we are coming!
After 900 km (we followed a computed route supposed to be about 800 km long) we reach the city limits. Still far away we can see the Manhattan skyline.
A maze out of streets leads gives us a hard time finding the right way.
Finally we get into Lincoln Tunnel which delivers us directly into the heart of Manhattan. We come back to the surface somewhere south of the 40th Street and after we passed Broadway we bear north on Avenue of the Americas.
We pass Trump Tower and have a scenic drive through Central Park, which is still like painted in fall colors. In contrary to the weather report which promised rain and clouds the sun is shining on us and the park around us. We leave Central Park on its north side, starting off on Lenox Avenue, where our hostel is located. We pass some blocks of Harlem houses then we find the right number. From its outside the house looks like good for nothing but a demolition job, but the inside is much better, but don't really expect a normal youth hostel standard.
The rooms are simple and equipped with self-made bunk beds, but clean and come with fresh bed sheets. The sanitary facilities are acceptable, too. The community dining room reminds me of an old town house as do the non-varnished wooden doors and the high ceilings. The view into the street shows house entrances as they are typical and well known by people who have seen the Bill Cosby Show.
We only stay for short just to put our stuff in our room, then we set off to explore the city by foot and subway.
We walk through Harlem looking for a grocery shop where we can get bread, sausages, cheese and apples for the day. It is the first time we can feel the difference in the currency, it really hurts. A (Starbucks-)coffee costs Sabine about $4, that's about CAN$ 6.60. Not that there is anything we can do about that. However our next aim is the southern tip of Manhattan and so we disappear in the subway. A day pass costs $4 and allows to go everywhere in the city. As we get back to the surface at South Ferry Station the Upper New York Bay spreads in front of us. The statue of liberty defies the waves on its island, ferries cross the bay all the time, uncountable helicopters shape a rich man's cab network.
A strong wind is blowing against us, but the sun-drenched bay invites us to have breakfast on its shore. From here we can see the Staten Island ferry approaching, out next destination. The ferry normally transports commuters for free. S we enter the ferry which passes the Statue of Liberty on its way to Staten Island.
As we enter the back ferry we can already guess, what we are going to see. On our way here we only had a look on the Statue and Staten Island, but now we see Manhattans skyline at its best.
Drenched in morning sunlight the skyscrapers line up, crowded and resting on a fragile looking underground. As we are back standing on firm ground we make out way back through Manhattan.
Our first discovery is a huge bull which is waiting for tourist keen on taking photos from every side. We can't resist either and so we fool around with the poor animal.
Our following trail leads us the World Trade Centre, which twin towers are an outstanding, characteristic feature of Manhattans skyline.
We play some hacki sack on the plaza in front of those. After that explore some more of those little side streets of lower Manhattan.
So we get to Brooklyn Bridge, in time it was built the longest steel bridge construction of the world. We try to find some stairs to get onto the bridge, but fruitless. As we just want to give up we find it. Nut now it is too late already, our plan is to watch the sunset from the top of Empire State Building and we have to hurry. Unfortunately other people have the same idea and so we manage to get onto the look-out platform 45 minutes later.
We just happen to see the last colorations of the nightly and cloud free sky. It is cold and an icy wind is blowing.
The view from up there is fantastic, clear sight all over Manhattan, millions of lights turn night to day.
After shooting many photos it comes to us that we are all pretty tired. We split up for having different things to eat and meet again afterwards. All together we stroll across Times Square.
Times Square is brightened up light as day by thousand of neon lights and video screens and thousands of people squeeze themselves through the streets passing microbreweries, cafes and shops. Some of the street musicians are surrounded by a bunch of people, others just play for themselves.
It is a colourful, frantic bustle, which makes us escape it and the cold by entering a cafe. We can't stay forever and have to back into the cold an hour later.
As we arrive in Harlem by subway we walk back to our hostel. Just across the street we make out a convenient store where we can buy some really cheap beer. For only $2.25 we get 42 ounces (~1.243 L) the right stuff to fall asleep afterwards.
We get up at 9am and have oatmeal with apples and bananas for breakfast again, additionally a hot chocolate. (O.k., even in the city we can't help but have our outdoor breakfast, o why not, it is just great ;-) ) Outside the sun is shining like in summer and we climb onto the fire ladder which is so typically for Harlem houses to brush our teeth. Tim is risking a lot to, to shoot Sabine and me...
That we aren't in the sun at all isn't that important, we have a great time.
This day we want to start with a walk and some hacki sack in Central Park. After that it is already time for lunch.
The weather is still not cloudy and rainy yet, but sunny and almost warm. In the southern part of the park an ice ring is set up for skating with the most luxury hotels in the background.
From here we stroll along 58th street to the east an then dive into the shops on Fifth Avenue.
In front of the plaza hotel a bunch of press guys and photographers is waiting. We inquire and are told that Michael Douglas and Katherine Ceta-Jones are said to stay in this hotel. We really don't want to wait for them, it could take hours. Some days later in the newspaper it is said that the two left a tip of $40,000, making additionally $260 for every employee. On Fifth Avenue exclusive shop line up and so we saunter from window to window.
After some us were shopping and visiting the Trump Tower we decide to leave this district and head for Greenwich Village. Over there quite different shops line up, the quarter is a meeting point for the gay scene. We are able to find a free table in a cafe and another time we escape the cold for an hour. At 5pm we take the subway back to Brooklyn Bridge, this time we get onto it an walk almost to the middle of it. At on of the pillars we take another break and have a snack where we munch the rest of our food.
The view from here is particularly good and we shoot many crazy pictures (which unfortunately turn out to be too dark) and climb on the steel girders ;-)
As we come back to the subway station we play some more hacki sack, but all of our attempts to earn some money fail pitiful ;-)) We decide to take the subway to Little Italy and have something to eat over there. China Town surrounding the Italian quarter greet us with exotic food and stands with pirate copies of CDs.
In Little Italy itself many small restaurants line up, most of them kind of cheap for New York, but expensive for us. We find one that turns out to be really nice and surprises with an Italian atmosphere. That it is worth it we are assured by a customer who is just leaving the restaurant and the line up for a table confirms that.
We have pasta, cheap and good. Following we drive back to Times Square once more, we somehow like the atmosphere. Richard, Emma, Pey and Tim want to explore some more shops, Sabine and I enter a microbreweries and have a hot chocolate and coffee.
We use the time to get to know the swearword culture better write the worst postcard New York has ever seen ;-))
As we meet the others half an hour later, we agree on head back to the hostel. Like the day before we get some bottle of that cheap beer and let the day come to an end. Sabine is presenting her new cloth for which we had to wait so long in front of H&M. For make it up again I am allowed to wear them for a short time, too ;-))
Today we get up semi-late ;-) and take some time for breakfast. We have different aims so we split up. Richard wants to explore New York on his own, Emma plans on going to Brooklyn for the day. So Tim, Pey, Sabine and I take the subway to Times Square to get tickets for a Broadway musical. Half way Sabine and I decide differently, we prefer to visit the National Museum for Natural History. Prior to that we plan on shooting some more photos in lower Manhattan which have been ruined by a wrongly inserted film role (some of which turn out quite interesting..). After our photo session we head north again. Unfortunately we enter an express train which first stops back in Harlem. In return on the way back we have a subway that stops everywhere. As we finally arrive at the museum we are pretty exhausted and take a break. We sit down in the museums restaurant and eat the stuff we brought along. There is no entrance fee for the exhibitions, only suggested prices.
The Museum is huge and it would take weeks to see everything. We spent some time in the hall of universe, before we turn to the North American mammals and woods.
We run around for about three hours, but after the first one my brain switches to dummy mode, too much information and too few sleep is a unfavourable combination.
As we meet the others at 6pm everybody has to tell a good story. Our stay in New York is almost over, we have planned to leave the city in the early evening. As we come back to the hostel we have a short snack, grab our stuff and get into the car. But another surprise is coming up. The battery is low, a light was switched on the last three days. We try to motivate people to help us, but either they don't have a booster cable or they are scared to stop. A car of NYPD stops, too, but they don't have the equipment to help us. I find a phone number on a membership card from the ADAC (General German Automobile Association) regarding the AAA-membership. As I call I hear a tape telling me in German that I call the wrong time, they are not in business, but when the office is occupied again ?! A call at the AAA isn't much more successful: normally as a ADAC-member I am a AAA/CAA-member as well automatically, but the person on the phone won't accept that my membership card does not have an expiration date. So they won't help me or charge me $25 + tax. At this point I want to thank the automobile associations for their non-bureaucratic help! However, after some time a car stops, the driver knows the owner of the hostel we stayed in and a German exchange student, too, who was living there. Beside that he has a brother living in Bochum. It's a small world... And the best is, he has a booster cable and so we can start at 8:30pm. We leave New York and after only 30 minutes we have left behind the confusing chaos of highways.
The following hours we drive back in the night, talking about this and that, some good music is keeping us awake.
At 4:00am we pass the borderline to Canada in Buffalo, as something changes at the landscape. Unbelievable, everything is covered in snow. And it is as if the Canadian weather was only waiting for us to break loose a snow storm that is going to follow us to Waterloo. We make headway only slowly, passing trucks cover our minivan with a shitload of snow. Somehow we miss the right exit and roam around for an hour. As Pey wakes up we only hear a sudden outcry! She has never seen a landscape completely covered in snow. Pretty tired we reach the Columbia Lake Townhouses at 8:00am.
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