Category Archives: travel

city, travel, USA

NYC catch-up

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Happy Birthday Dave (it’s still the fifteenth here) – maybe the card arrived. Now that I’m sitting on a bus driving through New Jersey, I have a chance to catch up with the previous four days in NYC. As I got progressively more tired after each >12 hour day, I slept better & better at the hostel. It was nice to get in to a little routine – out the door by about half past eight, up 9th a couple of blocks for my standard bowl of hot cereal (porridge) with raisins & three pieces of cinnamon toast (I only realsied on about the third or fourth morning just how much sugar was on there – no wonder it tasted so good) & then off sightseeing.

Saturday I hopped on the uptown hop-on, hop-off bus to take a look at Harlem & Central Park. It was also a day of museums – first was the Natural History one. It was OK, but since I’d been to the fantastic San Diego Zoo & Sea World, all the stuffed animals didn’t really do a whole lot for me. Mind you, these bears were a little bigger than the one we saw when we were camping at Big Meadow.

The highlight of the museum was the mineral & gem display – I’m not much of a rock person, but colours were so brilliant & the structures so intricate it was hard not to be amazed.

After hopping on & off a couple of times, the Museum of New York was quite interesting, as it of course explained the history of New York. Following that I avoided the bus & strolled down Central Park admiring all the green & space & avoiding all those out riding, jogging or pushing strollers

– I managed to not walk past the Guggenheim. I think the building was the most spectacular part of the complex – there was a large architectural exhibit & while it started out interesting, there are only so many unrealised ideas, plans & models one can look at.

The art was pretty good, but as you couldn’t take photos, it can’t have been fantastic as I can’t remember anything specifically (or I am a Luddite).

Escaping the Guggenheim it was getting late in the afternoon, but riding past the Metropolitan Museum of Art I saw that it was open to nine o’clock that night. Why not? Backtracking through the park I snuck in for what I expected would be another hour or two. How wrong was I? The place was huge & full of heaps of really cool stuff. I started out spending quite a bit of time looking at a lot of the Greek, Roman & Etruscan statues & artefacts. Then there was a lot of Eygptian exhibits, included reconstructed tombs that had somehow made their way from Eygpt to NYC. The old American furniture & art display was good, as was all the weaponary & suits of armour. I was trying to make my way around the maze in some sort of orderly fashion, but the way it worked out I had to semi-rush around what was my favourite part of the museum – the European sculptures, portraits & paintings. I have seen enough “Portrait of a man” & “Portrait of a woman” signs to last me a little while. There was plenty of religious works displayed, as well as all the portraits – but I think my favourites were the landscapes that had people doing things, as opposed to sitting, posing for a painting. One such painting of a village fair in France had me staring at it for ages – the detail was great.

After the Met closed, it was time for the long walk back to the hostel. As it was Saturday night, there were plenty of people about (but that really goes for almost any time of the day in NYC). I spied a big Apple sign above a stairwell, so I crossed the road & headed in to the basement – my first Apple store.

Say what you will about Apple & their products (personally I quite like my MacBook), their marketing sure is something. It was ten o’clock on a Saturday night & the place was teeming with people. There is of course all the products & accessories shelved in a normal store, but there were benches & benches of every Apple product with scores, if not a couple of hundred, people trying them out. I had a brief play on a MacBook Pro, but as I already know what they are about, mostly contented myself with wandering, looking at the store that never closes & all the people packed inside it.

This was about an eighth of the store

Back home eventually to rest my weary legs.

The bus pulled in a few hours ago – it’s nice to be back in Doylestown & have a nice big afternoon nap (when in Rome…). We (the four Lindes & I) are off upstate for a nice long weekend in the Poconos – which promises to be a lot less hectic than NYC & a lot cooler, should be great. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up on the rest of the NYC stories & add some Poconos stories.

city, national park, travel, USA

First NYC day

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A quick email blog from New York City – I’m exhausted – pictures may follow some time next week. NYC is fantastic – I arrived late this morning on a bus from Doylestown (still can’t believe how green & wooded Pennsylvania & New Jersey are). Quickly found my hostel (only a couple of blocks from bus terminal) & stowing my gear, it was a short walk to Times Square. As it was my first day in NYC, I had to do the traditional foreigner thing & see the Statue of Liberty & the Ellis Island Immigration Center – pretty good, thankfully the long queues moved quickly. Before leaving Doylestown I forked out for a New York City pass – it pretty much lets me in to more attractions than I can get to in six days for one flat fee. I think I’ve already recovered half the value of it in twelve hours. The rest of the day was spent on the open-topped double-deckers being camera happy tourist. I have been most impressed by the architecture & design (& size) of many of the buildings. Apart from all the normal NYC things, I’ve already seen a live film set on the sidewalk of 6th Avenue, a mugger getting seized by a cop in a mufti-car (don’t worry, I was safely on the top of the bus) & a SWAT team just generally hanging on the sidewalk. Anywho, I’m a bit tired, so will see if I can get some sleep before another all go day tomorrow.

Actually the internet is working a bit better so I could put some photos up – but looking at the hundred or so I took today – they are all pretty standard. So I’ll put a couple up of me ruining the foreground.

Oh, I just got an email from a paralegal – they’re talking about booking flights for me to go back & testify in San Diego; so that cross country jaunt is looking more likely. Unless the date changes…

friends, travel, USA

Golf anyone?

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A lazy start to the day yesterday – for some reason, I’m sleeping a lot, which is quite nice in some ways, but a slight waste in others. Jessica & the kids & I ran a couple of errands in town (the smallest Post Office I’ve ever seen at the college Doug teaches at & bought my bus tickets to NYC – less than forty dollars return, bargain) & then headed out to Lake Galena. Galena is a small lake not from town & there were plenty of kids out learning to sail very small yachts with varying degrees of success, many people making use of the path that goes all around the lake – we took a short stroll down to a rather rickety pier & looked at the ducks (not my normal sightseeing, but Katarina seemed to enjoy it & I got my fingers almost pulled off – a small price to pay for not having to rescue a two year old from the lake). Current favourite sayings are “watchoo doin?” and “huh?” repeated frequently; this is an improvement over the first day or two’s shyness.

Mid-afternoon, Doug & I headed off half an hour north to the 2009 US Women’s Open. Doug is a professor in turf management (from what I can work out, mostly on golf courses) & as a result he & a lot of his students & graduates have volunteered for the week working on the grounds (mowing, rolling, watering, replacing divots, grooming & so on). It was the last practice day before the four day tournament starts on Thursday. While Doug went off to a meeting I wandered around a few holes on the front nine, checked out the practice green & driving range. There was plenty to look at & it was intriguing to see all the things that go on behind the scenes at a major that are not seen on the television. I’m pretty sure I have never seen so many golf carts (at least a few hundred) in one day. I met up with Doug on the back nine – our (his, really) job was to follow the last players around & remove the tee markers & flags. It was a pretty easy job – we cruised around in a cart pulling markers & flags occasionally & spent the rest of the time taking photos, chatting to groundsmen & climbing camera towers (not sure if that was allowed – one was particularly tall & seemed rather rickety). A good afternoon doing something quite different to what I usually do on holiday. Doug has just headed out for the first day’s play.

Arriving home from the golf, my package of bike goodies had arrived. My bike is now usuable with a new chain on it & new grips & my new shoes fit well. Still need to get my brakes sorted (probably bled) & I’d like to clean & grease the freewheel. I think I might just roll in to town & have a little explore.

city, history, national park, travel, USA

West to East

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So on arrival back to San Diego, I found that the juveniles had got a plea bargain & pled guilty to chasing me with the baton & stealing my money (a much lesser charge than bashing Andrea’s face & attacking the other guy). I needn’t have arrived home a day earlier, rats. But it didn’t matter too much as I had the next leg of the journey to prepare for. The next few days were pretty cruisy doing mundane stuff – haircut, posting maps, return of rental car (over 3000 miles in eighteen days), pack up bike, order a whole heap of bike stuff to meet me in Pennsylvania (things I’d been putting off replacing until I got to the cheaper shops of USA – shoes, Camelbak, chain, tyre, grips, small tools & so on; I think I saved about thirty to forty percent) – & also took the Turners out for a large authentic Mexican meal & spent a bit more time down at the Cass Bar.

The day before I left San Diego was the final pack & also a little thing called Independence Day. As my bike was packed up & the car was returned I didn’t have too many means (except a long walk) to go & check out the crazy crowds down at the beach – but I didn’t have the inclination to be swamped by people either. Beverley & Chris put on a BBQ for about ten people – great food & red, blue & white cup cakes & also root beer floats for a bit of tradition. From the deck, we could watch about ten different fireworks displays down towards San Diego & Ocean Beach. I’ve seen some pretty big & impressive fireworks before (Sydney, New Year’s 2000 springs to mind); but I haven’t seen so many displays in such a short period of time before. Lots of big explosions & also some pretty cool shapes made by the pyrotechnicians; the only drawback of being able to see so many displays at once was that the distance somewhat muted the bangs & one couldn’t feel the wave reverberate through one’s body. To bed relatively early (11.30) to get up again in five hours…

Beverley & her friend Bronwyn kindly got up & took me up to LAX, I tried to stay awake. Uneventful check-in, even though my bike was oversize; on the flight to Philly I enjoyed looking down at all the canyons & then peeking down to the cropping plains as we got further east – the plains, or what I could see of them, were greener than I could see (& obviously a lot greener than the environment I’d been used to over the previous four weeks). Approaching over Pennsylvania, I could begin to see a few more details – a nuke plant, a few quarries, a lot of golf courses & once again, generally a lot of trees & woods. Then down over the Delaware River to land more than half an hour early, bags straight off the carosuel & Jessica waiting right outside – smooth. Jessica & Doug (American friends I meet in Palmerston North in 2004 while they were on sabbatical) live in a small town thirty or so miles north of Philly – we had to pick up their two kids (2 & a bit years & 5 months) from Jessica’s sister’s place on the way home. Once off the freeways & driving down what the English would call B-roads in to small subdivisions I was impressed again by all the trees & lush green grass (apparently June provided a lot of unseasonal rain for the area). Clearly a lot more water available for growing things here than in California. The house that Jessica’s sister & family live in, while also I would say is a typical American house – it was completely different from the Turners’ in San Diego. For the climate I suppose – steeper roof, two storied, huge basement, large garage, lush lawn, Stars & Stripes flying, & strangely (to me) no fences or hedges between neighbouring houses (I would soon get used to seeing a lot of this) – hard to describe just how familiar (too any movies & TV programs) it seemed. After spaghetti & meatballs & letting the kids run around the soccer field chasing balls it was off to my home for the next few weeks.

Doylestown is a very quaint little town with a lot of old row houses & has a nice town feel to it (as opposed to a series of subdivisions with a strip mall plonked somewhere near by) & some nice skinny streets. D & J live not far from town in another very nice leafy area. Saw another fireworks display (postponed from last week) & in to bed after a long day of travelling (lost three hours along the way, but getting up at 4.30 I wasn’t too fussed). Monday was a recovery day & a orientation around Doylestown – drive around, check out the college Doug is a professor at, meet a few people, assemble most of bike (still waiting on package to arrive with the chain) & plan a few things. I’m off to New York City on Friday for five nights – can’t wait.

Tuesday (today) was up too early, despite the alarm not going off, & on the train in to central Philly (the express takes about seventy minutes). Today was to satisfy my history bent walking around the Independence National Park – lots of historic buildings to do with the drafting, signing & proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, rooms that housed Congress & the Senate once upon a time & being the Monty Python fanatic that I am – how could I not visit the Liberty Bell? Although, when visiting the bell, Sousa’s tune was playing – so the whole place seemed a bit silly after that! A great day wandering around (a lot – sore feet again) looking at all sorts of all things & enjoying the parks & very pleasant weather.

Some trivial, & some not so, differences from CA I’ve noticed so far – the traffic lights have yellow housings, there are far fewer SUVs & pickups and the predominant minority has changed from Latino to African-American, unfortunately there are nowhere near as many mountain bikes on cars going to trails (although there is still the group in the city devoted to fixies). Home in time for dinner & fantastic dessert Jessica was trying out the recipe for – a sherbert & frozen cream-cheese mixture – how to describe taste? There wasn’t a whole lot left.

Except for the little mugging episode (which I escaped relatively unscathed), my time in California was fantastic – I did a lot of cool sightseeing things, but it was mostly made by all the various people I met. All the very generous mountain-bikers who took me places & showed me some great trails & scenery – but most of all the wonderful hospitality of the Turners in San Diego & getting to know them eighteen years after they left Papamoa & New Zealand. Thanks all.