Wednesday 28 December 1983 – New
York City #2
We all got
off to sleep pretty well despite a variety of odd noises from pipes etc, and the
fact that we couldn’t get the blinds closed. We started stirring at about 07.30
but took a long time to get going.
I had to
change the flight bookings first, which took a lot longer than I thought it
would and then off we went. It was raining gently as we left the hotel and got
steadily harder. I dropped my film off for developing and then we set off for
59th and Bloomingdales where Rab wanted to get a very specific
lipstick.
It was just
after 12.00 when we had finished at Bloomingdales and as we hadn’t had
breakfast we decided to have brunch and popped into a coffee bar opposite the
store and had a typically American meal, which was very reasonable. Despite the
rain we decided to walk the three blocks to FA & O Schwartz and it was
coming down quite steadily by then. Matt had been looking forward to visiting
“the best toy shop in the world” but we were all disappointed at the paucity of
the goods. From there we tried to find the Star Wars shop in 6th Avenue, but failed to do
so despite the fact we had visited it previously.
We hailed a
cab and went up to the McGraw
Building on 47th
to see The New York Experience which had been highly recommended to us by the
Schafers. We decided not to go up to Times Square
for tickets today because I didn’t fancy standing in the teeming rain even
though it was a little warmer – scarcely Zero Centigrade! There was a lot of
traffic around and our cabbie said he had never seen it so bad. We thought this
was a bit of bull for the visitors, but the TV News has now confirmed that it
was the worst ‘gridlock’ for years. Two burst water mains in Herald Square were to blame.
We had to
stand in line for about twenty minutes before we got into the Theatre and we
enjoyed the show, although as Rab said it was not for those of a nervous
disposition, being very loud in parts. It lasted about an hour and then as the
rain seemed to be lifting we walked back to the hotel to dry off. Rab and Matt
watched TV for a while and I brought this journal up to date. Then we set off
for an evening meal. We didn’t want to go too far in view of the weather
conditions as we didn’t want to make our limited supply of clothing any more
wet than necessary.
We found a
nice little coffee bar up the road with very reasonable food, but the meal was
a disaster with a most depressing argument between my companions. Let’s hope it
has cleared the air.
No comments:
Post a Comment