I arrived in new York about midday Tuesday and at 3pm was still trying to find my way to the hostel I was booked into in Brooklyn. The subway system here can’t hold a candle to that of London and its much dirtier and harder to navigate. Eventually we found our hostel, smack bang in the public housing area of Brooklyn, which suspiciously resembles the ghetto areas in a lot of movies I’ve seen. We didn’t do much that day as we were exhausted and we were too worried about trying to get back after dark in case we got shot or mugged so pretty much stayed put.
I found a website where we could by a New York Pass for $120USD each that gave us access to heaps of tourist sites for free and seeing as each site costs a fortune we were well and truly going to get our moneys worth out of it. I highly recommend it if anyone is going to New York anytime.
With a touch of jet lag, New York being 5 hours behind London, Luke and I were up at 5.30am and with not much else to do after a 6am breakfast at the hostel headed to the end of the street to our local Laundromat to do our washing; secure in the knowledge that the building is surrounded by razor wire should anyone try to infiltrate the serene washing environment.
For the better part of a century visitors to New York have headed straight to the Empire State Building for the ‘thrill of a lifetime’; the journey aloft to the Observatory 86 floors above 5th Avenue, so we thought we better do the same. Our pass gave us entry as well as a ticket to the ‘Skyride’ a 3D ride/video of the New York skyline. If you are going to New York do NOT pay for this ride, it was complete crap! At $36USD I think I would have cried if I had paid for it. From the Observatory the view of the city was fantastic, a breathtaking panorama across rooftops, avenues and byways of the New York metropolitan area.
From there we went to Madison Square Garden and did a behind the scenes All Access Tour of the famous arena, including the box seats, the smaller arenas and the NBA and NHL locker rooms. Once again we got a video as well, and in addition a meet and greet with one of the NBA cheerleaders (who Luke refused to get a photos with). Not a great tour and definitely not worth the $20USD it would have cost.
Heading back downtown we went to the Museum of Sex, which was an eye opener. Its mission is to ‘preserve and present the history, evolution and cultural significaance of human sexuality’ but the whole first floor was devoted to animal sex and masturbation, complete with videos that were quite educational! I had no idea what turtles get up to with a moment alone. The top floor was back to humans, with lots of exhibits and videos as well as pictures and interactive displays. Very informative…
Powering on we went to the NBC Studios and did a behind the scenes tour of the studios there, starting off with a lengthy video of course. I think every tour incorporates a video here. Given that I don’t even watch TV at home, let alone any American shows I didn’t really get excited about much of it but one studio we went to I did recognise the name of the show, Saturday Night Live. No photographs and no weapons allowed…
From there we went into the Rockefeller Centre, past the dazzling Swarovski crystal chandelier and into one of the glass ceiling shuttles to the top of the Rock for a 360 degree spectacular view of New York City that I thought beat the Empire State view hands down. Instead of wires around the viewing platforms they have glass panes so the view is uninterrupted and in addition there were far less people so much less crowded. That might be because its much more expensive to go up there than the Empire State…
In all the places we have been security is very very tight and the queues to get into places have been really long. Sometimes I think we spend more time waiting than at the actual sight! The subway is a lot dirtier than I expected, having come from the clean efficient London tube, but once we finally worked out how it went its pretty effective and much cheaper than the tube. A huge first full day in New York and I was sound asleep by 8pm!
