NYC and Ocean City - Maryland

The Yankee Stadium tour was interesting for the boys, girls went shopping in Harlem.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it is bizarre being in the minority of white people in the district shopping area.

In and around our area on the Upper West side, most high rise apartment blocks are around 5 stories high. That is because anything 6 and above requires an elevator. Our last day in NYC saw us have a lazy time, wondering Central Park playgrounds and visiting Strawberry Fields, a

part of the park dedicated to John Lennon, so his Widow - Yoko Ono can look out of her penthouse window and view it. It got too cold at -1 degrees Celsius and we headed back to the apartment to watch the NFL games.

Our room consists of only 2 double beds, a TV and a basin. As we don’t have a fridge to keep our food and drinks cool, at minus 1 degrees Celsius, the window ledge did the job! The sun sets here at about 4.40pm. Snow began to fall at 5pm! Our doorman laughed because we hadn’t seen much snow before and built the kids a small snowman. The snow all turned to slush by morning. 

Up at 6am and onto our Greyhound bus out to Ocean City – Maryland. All buses equipped with wifi and charging stations, much to Makalea’s delight for 8 hours!! Our plan is to have 4 days of peace and quiet – off the grid to recover and recoup our finances after Manhattan, living on take out and snacks for the 6 days, we were looking forward to be able to cook.

Ocean City is an Atlantic coastal resort town – an absolute entertainment mecca in the Summer time.  Home to about 8,000 residence, this town swells to around 350,000 people on weekends in the Summer, hosting around 8 million visitors annually. 2 amusement parks line the Atlantic Boardwalk, which lasts for 37 blocks, copious mini golf centers, restaurants, bars and surf shops – all closed for the season! You could fire a cannon up these streets today in Winter and not hit anyone. The Connor’s thought they could walk a couple of blocks to find a Grocery Store and buy some food, but unfortunately 'no', 30 blocks later, we found the only Supermarket open in town in Winter. We do have ocean views from our apartment though and it is just beautiful.

We're back... New York December 2016

After saving up again for another 2 years, to be able to travel back to the U.S, our early morning start to the airport was not without it’s problems! 

Firstly a flat car battery, so had to make a mercy call to a good friend at 3am for a lift to the airport, followed by our 13 hours flight time of the poor kid behind us throwing up the entire way across the Pacific to Los Angeles. The 2nd flight across to New York the guy next to us decides to pass out cold! 

Anyhow moving on…….checked into our accommodation at our first stop New York City about 11pm local time, thankful we arrived safely and slept well!

Staying on Broadway, just 2 blocks from Central Park, on the Upper West Side, we spent the day wondering around. Totally enjoying not having to be anywhere in particular for work, appointments, school pick ups, sport drop offs….just us and no pressure to run to schedule!

The weather here was not dissimilar to a Ballarat day of about 8 degrees. Coats and scarves on and walked for about 7 hours around the park. Beautiful lakes, ponds that freeze over, park lands, bridges, sports grounds, playgrounds, Zoo and of course a skating rink. Not to mention the gorgeous ‘Bouthouse’ restaurant! Took loads of photo’s and have popped them on for you all to enjoy.

Day 2 – getting a bit colder now. Today saw us take on the Empire State Building. Went up to the observation deck to take some great photo’s over New York City. Then off to Madison Square Gardens for a tour. Home of the New York Knicks (Basketball) and the New York Rangers (Ice Hockey). Seats approx. 20,000 people. To create the ice hockey rink they only have enough time to freeze and melt the surface area once a year. When they have a concert or basketball game straight after a hockey game they just place the court straight over the top of the ice, taking only 3 hours to do so. Very interesting! At night we had tickets to the New York Islanders Vs St Louis Blues ice hockey game over in Brooklyn at the Barclay Centre.

Day 3 – Caffeine required! Grabbed our standard Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to start the day and off to catch our ‘Hop on hop off’ bus tour. 241 Starbucks coffee shops in New York but prefer the Dunkin’s coffee. However to our Tour Guide’s credit he took us to a Pastry Shop that he said had the ‘best’ coffee in New York City. Yes – he was right. It was comparable to a ‘good’ Melbourne coffee back home. So am happy now we have somewhere to go on the Upper West Side to have great coffee.

Covered the Harlem area this morning then back down to the Rockerfella Centre to see the infamous Christmas tree! Yes very beautiful but I was disappointed at how small the skate rink was, so chose not to skate here like I’d wanted to. Took the Ferry out on the Hudson River to see the Statue of Liberty and the amazing Manhattan Skyline. 

Very, very cold today. -1 degrees celcuis and I’d hate to think what the wind chill is. We have nearly all our clothes on today, thermals, t.shirts, jumpers/sweaters, coats, hats, scarves (and now gloves have been added to our collection)!! 

It gets dark about 4.30 – 5pm here, so headed to the Central Park Skate Rink to skate under lights on the Trump Rink. Amazing time, just beautiful. Then walked from 57^th Street back to 101^st Street to home.

Tomorrow see’s a day of shopping for the girls and a baseball field tour of the New York Yankee’s Stadium for the boys. 

San Francisco.

Our last visit here to San Francisco was some of our most memorable days on our 6 month USA trip. This time I'm sorry to say,we couldn't get out quick enough. How so much had changed in tourism in just 3 years!

This time all the renowned Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 area's were so overcrowded with tourists!!.. Yes I know we are tourists of sorts too, (we like to think of ourselves as almost locals though really). American tourism must be marketing the 3 x West Coast hot spots of Los Angeles, San Fran and Las Vegas, to the best of their ability to the Australian and English public as I think there were more Australian's here than what is left back home!

Alcatraz tours were booked out for 7 days in advance, so unfortunately we only got to see that from the outside.

We did however have an enjoyable day hiring bikes and riding across the Golden Gate bridge to the other side to what once was a lovely quiet little town of Sasalito, but unfortuanley in my eyes has again become such an over populated tourist mecca! 

To top off our 'not so' great trip to San Francisco our motel bathroom roof "caved" in with a water pipe burst from an upstairs room blocked toilet!!!

Anyhow, moving on..............................