Today we left our hotel in Franklin and set off for New York. There was a lot of traffic on the freeway but we had time and took it pretty easy. We stopped by the little port town of Mystic in Connecticut to make a break. We found parking in the town center and walked over the drawbridge, picking up coffee and cookies at a cafe by the bridge. The area around the bridge was nicely set up with benches and perfectly kept. We watched the bridge go up and boats passing through. Some people were fishing by the bridge.
Philip by the drawbridge in Mystic
After a rather long and tiresome drive we got to our hotel in Carlstadt. New Jersey. It was a strange area almost completely filled up by an enormous system of broad highways and a giant stadium. The hotel was rather nice and we decided to stay there for the rest of the day and take it easy. We had some laundry that needed to get done and we also wanted to use the gym. The boys embarked on a TV-marathon (somehow they only realized now, that we had cable TV, although I think we had the exact same thing at the previous hotel).
After the training, we went out for dinner. I asked at the reception and they recommended a restaurant called "Segovia's" ("an amazing Portuguese restaurant" they called it). I decided to give it a shot and we got free shuttle transportation there. The restaurant turned out the be extremely popular, crammed full, and with people waiting in the door to get a table. We were lucky to get a table because we were 5 in our party. People were dressed up for a night out on this Friday evening and we just came in our tourist uniform (shorts and T-shirt) but it was all right. We ordered our food and dropped our jaws when it was served. Each "portion" was a frying pan full of food. Enough to feed a family of four, seriously! I had paella and could only eat about one third of it. It was delicious, so the restaurant was a good tip. We carried home kilos of food in "doggy bags", deciding to have it for dinner the next day when we came home tired from New York.
Saturday 02.08.2014
After a big breakfast (in a very busy breakfast area) we used the hotel shuttle to get to the Secaucus train station in NJ. We got tickets and found the right platform. A very full train took us to Penn station on Manhattan, where we started our sight seeing. Finally finding our way out of the station to 7th Ave., we stood bewildered among skyscrapers in dirty and busy streets. We walked to the Empire State Building and I searched for WiFi on the way. On our further way we went in to the Grand Central Station. It is incredible! This is what a train station should look like. Everything in perfect condition and a very impressive architecture in classic style. The huge central hall with a blue starry sky was amazing.
In the very Grand Central Station
On Times Sq.
In Central Park we quickly spotted some big granite boulders, where kids of all ages were climbing around. It was irresistible for Michael and Philip who started climbing up and down, increasing the level of difficulty every time, until they took the steepest route. I couldn't resist it either. Michael was fantastic, he climbed as well, or better, than Philip and me.
Mai and Philip in Central Park
When we passed by the merry-go-round, where Mai had once gotten a ride, we had to let Michael try it. Mai took him and they got a long ride. We continued and came to a big open plaza with a fountain where some beefy black guys were doing a dance act which attracted a lot of spectators. We continued north to a big lake. I had planned to go all the way to Columbia University but we had walked for hours and still had a long way to go. So when we exited the park, we hailed a taxi and had it drive us to Columbia. We walked through the campus and looked at the pretty buildings in classic style.
Me in front of Columbia University, where I once worked in an NMR lab for a couple of days together with a friend.
We wanted to take the train back to Chinatown, planning to have lunch there. Ending up taking a taxi, we were taken for an interesting and speedy ride on the freeway, passing by the ferry to Staten Island and the Statue of Liberty. We were let off somewhere between Little Italy and Chinatown. Little Italy was full of restaurants and people looking for a place to eat. But we wanted to eat Chinese so we continued to Chinatown and ended up finding a Vietnamese restaurant. By this time, it was so late that the lunch had turned into dinner. It was an OK place where we got good value for money and good service from a staff of elderly Vietnamese people. Walking back with our stomachs full, we passed by a park which was full of Chinese people. Groups of old men sitting on park benches were playing music on instruments, young folks were playing basketball, training karate etc. An old woman was taking care of the flowerbeds. It all looked very nice, like they were one big family and the park was like a giant living room where they all met and spent their Saturday night.
Busy street in Little Italy (Michael getting a bit tired for once)
I wanted to see ground zero, which was not too far away. We had already walked a lot and Philip complained a bit. Surprisingly, Michael didn't complain at all. We came through the financial district, looking at the impressive skyscrapers. In the end, we found the ground zero monuments which I found brilliant: a giant square for each tower which came down, the squares being filled with water which ran down the sides of the walls and in the center a big well which seemed to drop indefinitely because you cant see the end, like an abyss.
The Ground Zero memorial
We took the metro back to Penn Station and after searching a bit we found the right platform for the New Jersey train back to Secaucus. The train was again crammed with people. Arriving back at the hotel we were completely wasted. We were full, so decided to save our huge doggy bags from Segovia's until lunch the next day.
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