New York, New York - Part III

Welcome to the third and last part of my New York City experience. And I promise, I´ll make it as quick as it went by, because I am not sure if it was the air, the tap water that I drank (oops!), the food, or a virus that I caught; but since I came back, my quiet life in the Midwest has been anything BUT quiet - and I can't wait to tell you what I have been up to (I got pretty much anything from giant ants to baseball to talk about, so I promise, it won't be boring!). But back on track: New York, New York, day 3, the final day.

By this time, I am afraid, NY chaos took over, and I realized on the subway that I had forgotten my camera. So I have exactly 0 pictures of this last day in New York which is extremely annoying, especially since I wanted to show you all Harlem. I remember, about 15 years ago, in my mind Harlem was probably the most dangerous place on earth (this is before 9/11, Syria and global warming ... yes, I am THAT old). It was definitely not a place for tourists. I am not sure if Harlem changed that much (I hear it DID change considerably though) or if my perception was only focused on one-sided media coverage, either way: the Harlem that I saw a few weeks ago, I love! It still doesn't strike me as a "white" neighborhood, but it was a friendly, vibrant neighborhood that reminded me a lot of South America. It was a completely different New York vibe that had nothing to do with what is going on in hip Brooklyn or chic Manhattan. First of all, it was noisy, in a very Latino way: people have conquered the streets in Harlem. This is where the locals hang out, dance, play music and chess, sell clothes/incense/pirate DVDs/food. This is also the place in New York where I have seen more cars than cabs, and 90% of them seem to be honking, which was actually very reminiscent of Lima, Peru to me. And this is also the place where old ladies ask you: "Quiere braidar su hair?" - which produced great nostalgia in me, and I was almost ready to say: Siii-po! (for all those who have never met a Chilean, this means: "Hell yeah!"). As far as food goes: If you like soul food, restaurants without AC blowing the next ice age at you, and Reggae music, this is your hood! Obviously, my snobbish guide book recommended the three most expensive restaurants in Harlem, which are right outside the metro station. This actually made me wonder if the author ever made it past that very street corner in Harlem ... but if you do walk a couple of blocks off 125th Street (the main drag in Harlem), you can find the most delicious soul food places, and actually pretty cheap, considering this is still NYC.
I am glad I got to see this site of the chameleon that is New York City, and I am already starting to plan what parts of the city I want to see next time!

A few final remarks:

- Take the Chinatown bus into the city: great prices, good drivers, comfortable seats (don´t believe people who want to tell you otherwise!)
- Was it just me, or do all males really look like hipsters?
- Make sure to get a guide book that has more than 10 pages total (!) on neighborhoods besides Manhattan
- If you're a tourist, New Yorkers are MUCH friendlier than their reputation
- Go, enjoy, immerse yourself in the craziness, leave, recuperate - and then go back!

The End

If you want to know how this saga started, check it out here: http://wanderstrudel.blogspot.com/2013/09/new-york-new-york-part-i.html

New York, New York - Part I

New York City is often called "the city that never sleeps". Well, I don't know about the city, but after coming back from a short trip from NYC, I can definitely say that it is the city where I never sleep. This was not my first trip into the Big Apple but each time the hustling and bustling has the same effect on me: it chews me up, throws me into its digestive system, spits acid on me and when there is nothing left to process, it spits me back out. I am constantly doING something: walking, looking, sightseeing, eating, drinking, going out, meeting up, it seems impossible to just sit and relax. And after the city is done with me, I always feel like I need at least one week to recover from it. 

When I came back after only 3 short days in NYC and tried to remember what I had done and seen there, it all seemed like a big blur and I seriously had to sit down and revise my pictures to remember what I had been up to. (By the way, I was shocked when I saw how few pictures I took, as I either forgot the camera or was so busy with taking in everything around me that I simply forgot to take pictures!). So this is my last New York City experience, according to my pictures:

New York City - Day 1: Manhattan

After riding all night on a Chinatown bus (faaar better than their reputation, if you overlook the Chinese driver who yelled at us in Chinese), we arrived early in the morning in NYC - ready to take over Manhattan!

The mighty steps of the stock exchange on Wall Street

Wherever there is a fountain and some trees in Manhattan, you can find a Jazz combo

Not sure how it happened, but I ended up in the middle of a street dance shows

Would you trust these guys? Well, I had to as they were about to jump over us (see video).

People, cabs, bikes, tandems and even father-son tandems - the city sure knows how to keep its people moving

Little Italy and ...

... its San Gennaro food festival - ñam ñam

So while you finally break down in Washington Square park, thinking you found a quiet spot...

you find yourself having front row seats to another (typical??) NYC spectacle: 

THE PIGEON PEOPLE

 What you can't see in these pictures, is that after walking around Manhattan for about 8 hours, we ended up going our for dinner in a Bavarian-style restaurant (where the sausages had very little to do with German "Würstchen" but since they were delicious anyway AND you could top them with about 20 different types of mustard - who cares??!!), and just when I thought that after one night on a Chinatown bus, one day in Manhattan, and one evening in Brooklyn, the day had been full enough, there was still this ooone bar that we had to hit up ... oh BOY - what a start! And this was just the first day ...

To be continued

How not to spend a day in Albany

Welcome to Albany, state capital of New York and booooring city

If it weren't for my very dear friend Karo, Albany, NY, definitely wouldn't have been included in our travel itinerary. But here we are and after two days of eating pizza and Ben & Jerry's and watching movies, we felt that there MUST be something more exciting to do in Albany. So we decided to rent a car, and drive up to the Catskills for a hiking and swimming day. Sounds like a fabulous idea, right? Wrong! This was the beginning of our 42-step misadventure in Albany...

1. Map out a perfect day in the Catskills and plan the logistics.

2. Find a car rental online.

3. Check the address on Google maps.

4. Realize that it is one of the few car rental places that is not located at the airport and make a reservation for an early pick-up.

5. Go out and buy groceries and then prepare sandwiches for the hike.

6. Get up early the next morning.

7. Decide that you will leave the food at home to pick it up later with the car.

8. Go to the bus stop.

9. Wait 30 minutes because the bus doesn't arrive on time.

10. Get off the bus and walk fast towards the car rental place because you are running a little late.

11. Start to sweat because it is getting hotter and hotter.

12. Craving coffee.

13. After 30 minutes walking, realizing that you started at house number 400, and now you are only at number 450. The address of the car rental place is 941.

14. Asking a fireman to look up the address on his iPhone.

15. Realizing that the car rental place is all the way up at the airport.

16. Deciding to try to hitch a ride.

17. Being frustrated because nobody wants to stop for us.

18. Stopping at a library and paying one dollar to check the bus schedules to the airport online.

19. Finding a bus stop close by and a bus that will leave in a couple of minutes.

20. Getting there when the bus has just left and the driver refuses to open the door for us.

21. Getting coffee.

22. Waiting for one hour until the next bus comes and being really really hungry.

23. Getting to the airport and finding out that we have to call the car rental to pick us up from the airport because they are even further away.

24. Reading the bus schedules and seeing that the last bus back to Albany leaves already at 8.30 PM. It is 1 PM now.

25. Arriving the car rental.

26. Learning that our reservation had been cancelled and that we have to pay more for a car now.

27. Asking the manager if we can get a ride back into town because otherwise we won't have enough time for our trip any more.

28. Getting a big, fat "no" for an answer.

29. Getting into a fight with the manager.

30. Leaving the car rental, frustrated and without a rental car.

31. Taking 2 more buses back to Albany.

32. Finding out that we could have gotten very cheap day bus passes instead of paying for every single ride.

33. Deciding to go to Troy to do at least something "exciting" and postponing breakfast/lunch until we get to this "really awesome Lebanese place" in Troy.

34. Starving.

35. Joking about the Lebanese restaurant being close.

36. Arriving at the Lebanese restaurant and seeing the big "Closed, we are on vacation" sign.

37. Invading a Greek restaurant in Troy at 4.30 PM.

38. Fighting over the Greek salad entree.

39. Eating the probably most delicious Greek food we have ever had. (The fact that we hadn't eaten anything all day might have had something to do with this assessment...)

40. Falling asleep in a park in Troy.

41. Heading back to Albany.

42. Finishing the day with pizza, Ben & Jerry's and a movie.

Conclusion: If you want to do something fun in Albany: Get pizza, buy ice cream, and watch a movie!

We want ice cream and pizza!