OMG. This is the amended version, the one with the title. I didn't realise I'd published it without any title at all :( If you've read it already, sorry, I wasn't trying to trick you. So, thanks to Billy Joel for the title.
So, we made it! Not to New York, that was never in doubt, into the apartment. There's a certain act of faith involved when you use AirBnB or HomeAway to book accommodation online. We had a key arrive in the mail for the apartment block back in July but I didn't get to test it until last evening.
When we reached the airport we had to phone the car company we had pre-booked to give them our exact location. The three clusters of phones that I could see near baggage claim were standing alone, strong and silent like ring-barked trees contrasting the movement and noise of the airport. Each of them had a yellow sticker, like the tape used to identify trees that are to be removed because they are dead or dying. All the public phones I could see were identified by a yellow sticker and were "no longer in service" awaiting removal. Easily resolved, use my mobile. A short time later we were standing outside waiting for our car watching the local police force move cars on who were not "loading or unloading passengers". I had a strange yearning to watch Flying High.
The car arrives, a Lincoln something-or-other with the biggest boot - I wonder if gangsters used cars like this - the boot was so deep you could easily fit three bodies in there, but I digress. Into the car and out onto the motorway - America might worship the car more than Australians, but freeways in both countries have given way to toll ways. I don't know how long the drive actually was - the trip to Manhattan itself didn't seem so long until we left the motorway - then it was like being at home again. The time was soaked up as we looked around trying to spot familiar landmarks, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building proved easy targets. Into the streets which were teeming with people - there's your first contrast to Dallas - this place is alive. And I love it already.
Finally we arrived at our destination, East Village, East 11th Street, in between Avenue B and Avenue C. Never again will I suggest the cartographers who named early Australia lacked imagination. We have arrived after a magical car trip. I hope I can locate some of the places we drove past, Lafeyette's in particular. Bags unloaded, standing on the pavement, get the key out and a local resident saw we struggling, stopped, went back and opened the door for us. Nice.
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| Jayne standing outside of the aparmtent - we did a lot of that |
We are on the first floor and the key was to the building, not the apartment. I left Jayne with the bags and went upstairs to open the apartment. The code we have doesn't work. I try again, this time holding the handle down, then up, then pressing a button that causes the panel to light up, but each time I push the last button, a red light comes on. I went back downstairs and calmly informed Jayne of our predicament (like that really happened). Ok. Be calm. I remembered there was a youtube clip of how to use the combination lock on the door. Get the phone out, type in the incredibly long address and "clip could not be found". Jayne goes upstairs and tries. No luck. Then I notice on the letterbox for the apartment next to ours is the name Chu. That is the last name of the apartment manager. Jayne knocks on the door. No-one is home. We re-examine the address for the youtube clip, maybe that is VV and not W, "clip could not be found".
Can you imagine our frustration? The love I felt in the car was gurgling down the drain like Janet Leigh's blood and I could soon become Norman Bates. We can't get in, we have nowhere to go because we don't really know where we are and we can't contact anyone. Back to the phone and old emails to find contact details for HomeAway. Onto their website, login, lots of pages of QnA, nobody wants to speak to a real person anymore, contact details - another email address. Finally, two phone numbers. The first is not connected, the second, it rings, it rings. I felt like Frankenstein at the moment his creation came alive, such excitement: it's alive - a glimmer of hope.
I swear I am talking to an automated voice, or the world has been overtaken by aliens while we were in transit. She recorded my details and verified who I was - I wasn't certain anymore, and then, and then she provides me Thomas' phone number. Hallelujah! I punch the numbers in, it rings and rings and rings and when I thought I was going to voicemail, Thomas answers. He seems surprised that we are having trouble, although it has happened before when the door has been incorrectly coded and gives me his code. Success! We are in! And the love returned, after we unpacked and sat for a while.
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| Look David, your spiritual heartland. |
It's an edgy little area, on the cusp between Alphabet City and East Village itself, where trendy restaurants and shops sit uneasily beside the longer term tenants. We went walking last night just to get some bearings. Within two buildings a couple of blocks down the other end of our street we had the contrast of a poetry reading in a basement and next door a couple of rasta boys on the street enjoyng a smoke. There are restaurants everywhere, from the typical New York walk-in for $1 a slice pizza to good local fare like ElevenB the Italian place we ate at, to a couple of relatively new looking, white linen table cloth establishments across the street.
Dinner was great. We went for a walk to relieve the stress of the day and to acquaint ourseleves with the neighbourhood we will call home for the next three weeks. There are plenty of options which ever way we walk and we found ElevenB by accident on way back from getting some groceries. Small, authentic looking local Italian. We dropped the groceries home and went straight back which was fortunate because they had two large parties booked in. We left before the second group of 15 had arrived. It was already extremely noisy, I don't how you would hear anyone who wasn't whispering-in-your-ear close. They had pizza - well they had ingredients, it was all create your own. I'll be back for that at some point, but tonight, I opted for lasagne and Jayne had meatball parmigiana served with zito and more sauce. A small, international wine range: Australia, Chile, USA, France.
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| They love flags in the US. |
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| See previous caption. |
The first night. Mythology tells us that the first night is always special. If we were honest, reality tells a different story - and so, reality wins here. There were only two issues and one of them didn't really worry me - the room could not be blacked out like a cave. The blinds on the windows are light and there is one space completely uncovered letting in light from the street. Somewhere around 2am Jayne resorted to eye covers that I had kept cunningly close for just this occurrence. The second issue? Sound from the street. It's like there is no barrier between us and as the waves of drunk twenty-somethings who began to flock back to their lodgings at 1:30am. We were privvy to every slurred word. My personal favourite was the young lady (?) who went down the street proclaiming to her gf and the world about how f...ing frustrated she was. She would then bang on a car or bin. Where were all the young men to help her with her frustration? If she'd stopped otside my window I could have given her some advice, like shut up, it's 3 in the morning. And so, it was a very disrupted night, the last interruption came around 5am, but I'm not sure if they were leaving or arriving home. Anway, Jayne sleeps still and it is 9:30am, so I am going to wake her before we completely invert our day and night time and become bats.
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| Just for you Del. |
Went uptown today to get used to the subway and go to Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral. Then we did a little shopping, mostly window shopping, ate a hot dog from a stand and couldn't find coffee anywhere. We then went down to Times Square and up to Grand Central Station to get a subway map. Then it was hometime for a rest.
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| St Patrick's Cathedral |
Question: On holidays I walk everywhere but I am rarely hungry. Why is it so?
Random stereotype: I've been wanting to talk about stereotypes, because at times, as I said previously, I feel like I'm trapped in a sitcom. There have been so many female characters with that whining, nasal voice that I always thought was just part of a character. Nope. Like all characterisation, it began in reality and I have heard that voice and heard that voice - even tonight in the Italian restaurant down the block. And believe me, that was a challenge, it was packed and like all good Italian restaurants, it was multo noisy - and I still heard the nasal whine.
While we are on the subject, we also nailed a standard stereotype of NYC the steam rising from a grate in the footpath. We have seen this so often on our first afternoon in New York we hardly seem to notice it.
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