Oregon City, Oregon - week 38 - September 16 - September 22, 2019
Sometime in the Spring of 2019, Warren suggested we go to NYC because he'd found tickets for $250 RT, and we could stay with Joan and Terry for free. Why not???
Wednesday - Bev took us to the airport for our 11am departure to New York City. Finally, after 5 long and boring hours we arrived Yes - the sun also sets on New York City.
Getting to the car rental place was not seamless. We had to go in, about, and round about to finally find Enterprise. But finally picked up a nice Nissan Pathfinder.
Thank goodness for the Google Maps app on our phone. After about an hour or so we reached Joan and Terry's. They have a cool old house - maybe 1930's, so it is older than ours and much more ornate. But the rooms are small and the doorways are narrow.
We stayed up and chatted with T & J until I could no longer keep my eyes open
If you want bagels in NYC, you go early in the morning when they are freshest - the shops open at 6 am. Warren went to the Ace bagel shop, operated by a Korean, and we had bagels!! If you buy a dozen, you get an extra three to make 15. We also bought two dozen (30) the morning before we left and took them home for souvenirs. They were all given away the day we returned.
This shop kinda looks like a Kazak shop....very small and narrow.
Thursday - we headed out early for lower Manhattan. We took the Long Island Railroad in to Penn Station - cost $11.00 per person
Right away we saw the Empire State Building off in the distance.
We went to the High Line which is a pedestrian park/walkway build up on an old elevated train line. It really is a lovely place to walk. The landscaping is beautifully done!
Fancy fancy apartments nearby
Warren's friend, Bobby, is a grad student in computer something, and we met up with him so he could show us around. NYU is an urban school, just like Portland State. Everything looked very similar except the buildings are bigger and there are more people. We wandered through Washington Square Park which would be like wandering through Pioneer Courthouse Square.
At noon-ish, the big question was, What should we have for lunch.
We wandered through the street celebration celebrating the Italian holiday of St Genormo. The food was tantalizing but there was no place to sit.
Surely there was a Chinese restaurant nearby (duh.....this in NYC), and after several miles of walking we found the Famous Sichuan restaurant. I don't know if it really was famous, but inside it was quiet and uncrowded, affordable, and we could sit down, and I could put my foot up on an adjacent chair.
I got a chicken something which was very tender and not spicy hot!!!
Just up the street was an ice cream place which looked really good.
And it was good, but not $6.95 (Oregon money) good.
Holland liked it!
After lunch we went to the World Trade Towers Memorial Park. I was the only one who wanted to go into the new building and go through the museum in the basement. (The other five people in the group went to Battery Park).
Where the two towers once stood, there are now two ginormous reflecting ponds. The footprint of each building was an acre in area. Each pond has a waterfall on each of the four sides, and at the bottom the water flows into a dark square hole. I really got the feeling that what was here - the building, the people, the business, the success, the everything - was really gone...gone away into the hole and now we can only remember it. The names of all the people who died here are engraved on the top of the wall which surrounds the pools.
Inside the building, the museum goes way down into the basement, and the walls are parts of the original foundation walls of the Twin Towers. They were built in the early 70's and were a remarkable architectural feat of the time. The area has all kinds of exhibits and explanations about everything. There is a picture of each of the victims mounted on various walls and a short bio....sad. This stairway is an original one from one of the buildings. There is a photograph of a fireman encouraging people to hurry down the stairs. He said, "Hurry, when you get to the bottom, run!"
When I became saturated with Twin Tower information, I emerged and called Warren, and we finally met up after he found me going the wrong way. We went to ride the Staten Island Ferry.
The ferry is free. There were about a billion people waiting to board, and I thought we'd never get on. There was no pushing or shoving, just people calmly moving forward. I was surprised at how orderly the crowd was.
Once we were on it became obvious that there was plenty of room and more to spare.
The ferry departs every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day. When you get to Staten Island, you have to get off, but you can turn around and get right back on a different ferry which is ready to leave.
The ferry is a perfect place to take pictures of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty.
Friday - we went to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Coney Island. In the evening we had a delicious steak dinner at T & J's. Cousin Ray was there too along with Joan's brother Bill. But I have no photos of the dinner.
It is a very beautiful and peaceful place amidst the hustle and bustle of a big city.
Then to Coney Island. I wanted to go there, really, just because I've seen it in movies (see, I'm no better than other tourist). Also, when we were living in New Jersey back in the late 60's, we never made it to Coney Island...mostly because cousin Terry said it was a crummy and dangerous place to go.
Now it is a beautiful touristy boardwalk with a big amusement park and a nice clean beach. It looks like the Black Sea resort area at Batumi, Georgia, but, i Georgia, the boardwalk is asphalt and stones make up the beach.
We were hungry and found Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs. I'd never heard of Nathan's until we were in Astana and, at the new train station, there was a Nathan's Famous Hot Dog cafe.
The amusement park was closed (I think because it was no longer summer vacation) but there were signs advertising Halloween activities in October.. The roller coaster, the Cyclone, is very famous and is made of wood. I think it is still functioning, but I wouldn't go on it, even if it were open.
The beach was gorgeous with all sorts of people with all sorts of body types enjoying the sun. There were swimmers too.
This looks like when Whitney and Holland were on the beach at the Caspian Sea.
This sunbather is tanning all sides.
Saturday - this was our last day. To start the day we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge.....looking for the guy who was trying to sell it. The day was clear, the weather was perfect, and thousands of other tourists were doing the same thing as we were. The pictures don't show the crowds because I waited for a pause in the congestion. but really, we had to weave back and forth amongst the people and watch out for the bikes in the bike lane.
Here you can see the World Trade Center Tower right at Whitney's head
Then to Central Park. Back in the late 60's we never went to Central Park...because it was winter and ....freezing outside. Also, I think it may have been a bit sketchy. But now it is really nice - clean, crowded, noisy, spacious, crowded. This was a perfect Saturday for a walk in the park, and billions of New Yorkers were doing that. Incredible people- all sorts of languages, and clothing, and hair. New York is definitely more weird than Portland...Portland shouldn't even try. I thought Central Park was a big flat park, but it's like going to McIver Park - there are fields, and tunnels, and mounds of rocks, everything....and lots of people.
We had been given the special mission to go to to the Levain Bakery and get cookies for Bev and Jessica.
We got six chocolate walnut cookies. They smelled good and tasted better.
Even Dad got involved in the fun.
After a long involved trip back to Little Neck - we had to take the subway back to Brooklyn, pick up the car, and then drove to T & J's.. Cousin Ray met up with us and treated us at a local pizza place
Sunday we got up at 4 am and only had one incident with an irate driver who didn't like the way Warren was driving. But we got to JFK safely and had to bear the unendurable security clearance area. It was awful - the most awful security check I've ever been through - even worse than Istanbul. There was an automated button where one could register their experience - good, moderate, bad. I think I pushed "bad" about two dozen times while I was waiting. Dad did too. But we finally made it on to the plane. Food was marginal. But Holland was perfect and really presented well to the flight attendants.
Jessica picked us up.
We divided up and delivered bagels, and are wondering what our next adventure will be.
