Monday 16 October 2000

A four hour drive via Connecticut to Plattekill in rural New York state, about 70 miles due north of New York City. Lovely leafy campsite, easy internet access (hurrah) and free cable TV! Signed up for the next day's coach trip to NYC as an easy and useful introduction to the place.

Did a bit more on the web site, and managed to upload it without too much trauma; some of you may have spotted it already.

Tuesday 17 October 2000

Up at 6.30 am to catch the 7.15 coach to New York - about a 2½ hour trip as it hits the rush hour. This was the whirlwind tour of Manhattan: driven round most of the streets you hear about in films and musicals - 5th Avenue, 42nd Street, Wall Street, Madison Avenue etc. etc., ferry to Liberty Island and a quick trip up the Statue of Liberty ...

... Ellis Island (where the immigrants were processed) ...

... lunch at a deli, Fulton Fish Market, up the Empire State Building for great views of the city...

... more touring around, finishing in Times Square for a genuine tasteless overpriced hotdog ...

New York taxi drivers really are as rude as they're made out to be. They're also incredibly incompetent, as exemplified by the yellow cab we saw impaled on a bollard. Presumably he honked and swore at it, it refused to get out of the way, so he drove over it. A NY cab driver's badge is basically just a licence to be a macho a**hole.

Back at the campsite at around 7.00pm, shattered. Watched the locally broadcast movie ('Curly Sue') and fell asleep.

Wednesday 18 October 2000

Heavy rain all last night and today, so did laundry, postcards, email and shopping.

Thursday 19 October 2000

Caught the train into NYC for some more concentrated touristing. Not as easy as we'd hoped, as every parking space at or near the local station was taken, and we had to drive to the next one down the line. A nice journey into Grand Central Station down the Hudson river. David Copperfield was doing a free magic show in the station - something related to the election - but the crowds were about 200 deep so we gave it a miss. Very impressive architecture ...

Lunch followed by some culture at the Museum of Modern Art. The usual mixture of interesting items, pretentious nonsense and outright weirdness - my particular favourite was the inflatable reflecting bunny rabbit ...

Did the statutory drive through Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage ...

... and walked around the streets gawping. Had pretzels - can't really see what everyone sees in them as they're basically bread with a bit of salt on, but a few thousand people seem to make a living selling them to gullible tourists.

Enough of New York; on to Maryland tomorrow. We're missing out New Jersey completely, as nobody seems to have a good word to say for it, although I'm sure there must be some nice bits.