New York – Part A

 

Twenty-seven days ago the odyssey started in San Diego and after some five thousand, five hundred miles of cruising, seven ports of call and twenty-six hundred miles of airtime, we are back in Rancho Mirage. I apologize for the tardiness of this last blog but it seems we haven’t stopped since arriving in New York and traveling to RM.

So, let’s go back about a week and we find ourselves at 6:00 a.m., slightly sleepy-eyed, standing on the forward deck of the Symphony, cruising into New York, passing the Statue of Liberty and heading toward the skyline of Manhattan.

After a leisurely morning and then some lunch, we find ourselves doing what most New Yorkers do, stand on a street corner and try and hail a cab. What made it even more difficult was that some nut case drove his car on the sidewalk at Times Square, killing an eighteen-year-old girl and injuring a number of people. They sealed off 42nd street, which created a huge traffic problem. Finally, having achieved our goal by hailing a cab, we headed downtown to the Daryl Roth theatre on East 15th street to see if we could get tickets to a show called, “In and of Itself”. Doc Eason, a Magic Castle Magician who was one of the attractions on board our ship, recommended this show to us. He said it was one of the best illusions and magic shows he had ever seen. We were able to obtain two tickets, however by then it was only three o’clock and the show wasn’t until eight o’clock. This meant we had to kill five hours. We didn’t want to go back uptown to the ship and then return back here again, so we decided to wander around the downtown area.

Within a short period of time we found one of Ann’s favorite stores, ABC Carpets, the ‘anything and everything store’ of New York. I’m not sure why it is called ABC Carpets, though they do have a carpet store but it is across the street from the huge store that has everything, including two or three restaurants, one of which we partook of for an early dinner.

Eventually eight o’clock rolled around and we were off to the show, which was nothing short of fantastic and Derek DelGaudio proved himself very much a brilliant illusionist and magician. I would encourage you to Google “In and of Itself” and read about the show and if a New York visit is in the future, I would highly recommend the show.

After the show it was out into the New York night, hail a cab and back to the ship and prepare for a nine thirty a.m. debarkation.

It was the same thing in the morning; trying to get a cab, which is a problem around pier 90 because you are right on the Westside Highway and cabs won’t stop for you there. Finally, the Hodsdons and ourselves found two private cars and we headed for our Hilton Mid-town Hotel.

Once ensconced into our hotel and somewhat relaxed, we prepared for our evening at the One World Observatory and the World Trade Center. As we came down to the lobby we were pleased to see Martie and Leo Black, who came in from Baltimore to see all of us. So, at the appropriate time, the six of us ventured into the bowels of New York’s Subway system, known as the MTA, and headed downtown to our destination. There we met up with Ann and Barry along with Roland and Sally and made our way to the observation area. A few photos included from high in the sky.

Upon descending the heights of the Observatory, we set off on foot for a local restaurant that Barry had picked out for us, one that was “typical New York”. On entering the restaurant called, Odean, we were met with a cacophony of sounds, mostly patrons trying to talk over each other. Shortly after entering we were ushered to a table for ten where a talent for lip-reading came in very handy. That said, the food and the company were exceptional, so after dinner a quick ride uptown on the MTA brought us back to our hotel.

I promised this was the last blog, but since I’ve only covered Thursday and Friday, I’ll break the blog up into two parts and cover Saturday and Sunday in part B.

Till then