Friday 30 December 1983 – Leaving New
York City
Another good
day today. Set our clock for an early start (at 07.00) so that Rab could wash
her hair but we didn’t get off much earlier thanks to Ira Joe and his friends.
The sun was shining beautifully and our room was hot as hell, so Rab and Matt
were all for leaving off some of their heavy gear. But Ira had said that it was
17°F in Central Park (We were not used to
converting Fahrenheit to Centigrade and didn’t realise that this made it about
-8 °C) When I nipped out to the Fox to drop off a film for developing I
found out just how cold it was – well below freezing.
So I
persuaded everyone to dress warmly and we set off, after making a hotel
reservation for San Diego
and leaving our bags to be picked up later. While we were waiting in the foyer,
an oddbod came up to us and tried to borrow a comb from us! When we refused he
went on to pester other people in the lobby. Matt suggested he may have been an
eccentric millionaire!. We were soon heading for Battery Park and the ferry to
the Statue of Liberty. Very nice cabbie and not too expensive, but we missed
the ferry by a couple of minutes and had to wait an hour for the next one.
There was a refreshment kiosk at the terminal so Matt and Rab had a hot dog and
a donut while I went on my walk.
 |
| Seeing ice like this was an unusual experience for us |
 |
| A man's home is his castle |
It really
was freezingly cold down by the river and I was fascinated to see large lumps
of ice floating around. There are some really impressive memorials down there
and also an old castle which, like Cape
Town Castle,
was never used to fight in anger. I was amused to see that a bum had made one
of the castle windows as his home and was ensconced there in his sleeping bag
away from the biting wind. (It was
unusual for us to see destitute people. Not that there were none in Zimbabwe,
but they were kept away from the city centre.)
The ferry
duly arrived and we got in line and then we were off. Matt and Rab stayed below
in the warmth of the cabin, but there were such magnificent views of Manhattan in the sunshine
that I stayed out on deck. It was perishingly cold there of course, so much so
that when I took my gloves off to change a lens it felt as if I had frostbite
and it took me a while to get my fingers working again.
 |
| On the freezing ferry |
Unfortunately
we could only stay an hour at the Statue as we had to catch the 15.30 bus back
to Ringwood. There is only one elevator up the Statue to the base, which is ten
stories high, so the line was quite a long one. I was tempted to walk right up to the crown – another twelve stages
– but in view of the shortage of time and the fact that the view from there is
said to be limited, I gave it a miss. Lovely views from the pedestal however –
plenty of helicopters and light aircraft buzzing around. It would have been a
terrific day for a helicopter flip today.
 |
| Upskirting Liberty |
We caught the
ferry back in good time and this time I too stayed below. A short walk through
the park – quite a few squirrels frolicking around and then another cab ride
back to Lexington Avenue, this time to Bloomingdales to see if we could find
Jack Klugman’s Korn Krib serving gourmet popcorn in twenty eight flavours. No
problem in getting to Lexington
but before looking for the popcorn we had a bite to eat in a very nice coffee
shop. I had souvlaki on pita – a new taste experience – and enjoyed it,
After lunch
we found the popcorn parlour with no trouble and bought what they called
“small” packets of watermelon, pina colada and apple for ourselves and a large
pizza flavour for the Schafers. Time was getting a bit short, so we hotfooted
it back to the hotel to pick up our bags, which we did without any problems
having bought a new wheeled flight bag as my old faithful blue bag was coming
apart at the seams under the weight of our books.
Out we went
to get a cab and that’s when our problems started. We were still there twenty
minutes later. All the efforts of the diminutive doorman, jumping up and down,
waving his arms, blowing his whistle were in vain. Only one cab stopped in this
time, asked where we were going and then drove off! Finally the doorman gave up
and I approached the somewhat surly driver of a cab parked up from the hotel
who was, so he said, waiting for a fare, why no one would pick us up. It turned
out that this was change over time and none of the drivers was interested in
anything but getting back to their garage and finishing their shift.
We were
getting a bit desperate because we had arranged with Nora for her to meet a
specific bus and we also wanted to avoid the rush hour (or commute as it is
known here). The bus we intended to catch only ran every hour, so if we missed
the intended one it would be very awkward. Finally an angel in a Cadillac
turned up – well, perhaps gnome might be a more accurate description. It was a
limo driver who pulled up next to us and, quite illegally, offered to take us
to the bus station for $10 – about four times the cab fare.
We didn’t
hesitate and piled in – Matt up front next to the driver. What a hairy drive it
was too, culminating in a U-tun at the bus station when we narrowly missed a
collision with a flying Datsun. We hurtled through the holiday crowds to the
platform where we thought the bus was leaving from but found we were at the
wrong place, at the top of an escalator with no obvious way down and with ten
minutes to go to take-off!
Dodging
busses we crossed over several lanes to the correct platform but found that for
some extraordinary reason there were two busses with the same number leaving
within minutes of each other but going to different destinations. Managed to
push our way through to the correct one with Rab leaping ahead to get tickets from
the driver. By the time I arrived, laden with the luggage, she was just
starting a terrific argument with the driver who insisted that the bus did not
go where she said she wanted to go and in any event he didn’t issue tickets
which we should have purchased in the concourse.
Tempers got
a little frayed before the language barriers were finally crossed and I must
say in defence of Rab that she was the innocent party. We bought our tickets
and boarded the bus with all our goods under the glares of the other passengers
and the muttered imprecations of the driver. (We have often said that this was the only time we ever encountered any
rudeness in all our trips to the USA – and who could blame the driver on New
Year’s Eve with snow being threatened trying to deal with a couple of really
dim aliens who couldn’t speak proper American English!)
From then on
the trip was uneventful although we were twenty minutes late in the end. Uli
was there to pick us up having knocked off early. We were given a very warm
welcome by all, including young Rocky. We had a very pleasant evening, just
chatting and having a few glasses of wine.
No comments:
Post a Comment