Our Travels in a Nutshell: New York

Wednesday, July 2

After yesterday's late arrival, we literally unpacked the necessities and fell into bed. This morning we awoke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed ready to soak up New York's exciting atmosphere. The forecast was for 92F and possible thunderstorms later in the day. The sun was shining but there was a lot of cloud around - hard to know what to wear, especially in a big city. We unpacked, got ourselves sorted and decided to head out without any definite plans of things to do, places to see, etc. We have visited NY on quite a few occasions now so have seen most of the tourist sights. Both of us were happy to just amble along and see what was happening - what an indulgence!

As soon as we walked out of the lobby, we were hit with a blast of hot air. The temperature was rising as the clouds quickly disappeared. It was lovely to feel the sun's heat, especially after London, but as we walked we realized it was going to be a day for lots of stops and rehydration. We headed to Times Square to check on theatre ticket availability and from there to Grand Central Station. It took a while to get any distance at all because of the crowds plus we kept stopping to look in store windows. It was lovely and cool at Grand Central so we decided to stop for a quick lunch and enjoy the rest. What a fantastic place to people watch. The business people hurried along with a real sense of purpose, delivery guys struggled with large pallets on trolleys that reminded us of those in the supermarkets at home - they had minds of their own, tourists strolled along and stopped in the most inconvenient places for their photo opps, and the noise level was amazing. There were announcements about train services, waiters calling out orders to short order chefs, buskers doing their things, music playing and sirens and horns blaring out in the street. Then there were the aromas - freshly brewed coffee, fries, popcorn, fish - NY is a real assault on your senses.

Times Square

Al at Grand Central Station

Empire State Building

We continued walking along 5th Avenue, with all it's stores, down to 33rd Street, then along 34th Street to Macy's. Al was very successful with his clothes shopping at Macy's Sale and Noelle was just glad to be in a cool place. We checked out many of NY's iconic stores, took the usual photos, etc. and before we knew it, it was around 5.00 pm. As we headed "home", we passed the NY Library and noticed they had an "Independence Day" exhibition. As attending Macy's "4th of July Fireworks" was one of the reasons we had come here, we felt we should go in. The queue was quite long but seemed to be moving at a reasonable pace but it gave us a chance to read the Exhibition brochure. What was on display was a hand-written copy of Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence from 1776. Apparently after he had written the original draft, sections were deleted about slavery, etc., to appease the Southern States. Jefferson was so upset by this that he re-wrote the Declaration with all the sections included and underlined the really pertinent parts. Once he had done this, he forwarded the six handwritten drafts he had prepared to his friends and one of only two remaining copies is held by the NY Library. It was amazing to see such an important document in his own handwriting.

Draft copy of the Declaration of Independence handwritten by Thomas Jefferson

By the time we left the Library, it was beginning to rain so we hurried, rather than ambled, back to our hotel. The heavens really opened and the number of sirens and horns increased. We stayed put in our room until the rain cleared a bit then headed for one of our favorite NY institutions, Ellen's Stardust Diner. The Diner is the brainchild of Ellen van Strum and is to give hopeful Broadway stars a chance to be seen. The hopefuls work as waiters in the Diner and in between serving customers, sing or dance around the Diner or on its catwalk. The standard of performances varies from one hopeful to another but most are very good. The Diner's record of hopefuls being signed for Broadway shows is quite high. You get a sense of "ownership" of your table's waiter and, of course, applaud loudly when he/she performs. A bucket is passed around every couple of hours and customers are invited to "assist with payment of singing & dancing tuition" for the hopefuls. As usual, we had a fun time there and enjoyed a typical American diner meal. We waited for the rain to abate again before making a dash back to our hotel. A good day in NY!

Two s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-s !!