Bargains After Brooklyn
If we thought it was chilly yesterday then today was downright freezing. When we set off this morning it was a brisk SEVEN DEGREES! It did warm up later in the day to a balmy nine degrees! (that’s a meagre 46, for the farenheit-minded).
It was our last day in New York and after much procrastinating, we finally got to ride the subway. There’s almost a whole other city under New York City. The subway is vast and city-wide and residences have basements that can be accessed from the “sidewalk”. Everywhere you step, you see manholes, air vents and other avenues to the underground.
We attempted the simple task of buying ourselves some subway tickets to Brooklyn. The lady behind the high, thick perspex screen, with only a small hole for her microphone to fit through- her only connection to the outside world- certainly made the process a lot harder than it needed to be. It was like she was speaking a foreign language, though apparently she was speaking English. She spoke about a hundred miles an hour and spat out the names of all the lines and trains and connections we had to make, in a speed that would’ve made Alvin the Chipmunk’s eyes water. The only utterance that was at all discernible was what she finished with: ….”that’s A for APPLE”. We politely requested she repeat herself, which she proceeded to do three times, without slowing her pace one iota. Making it very clear her patience with us was eroding at a cracking pace, on her third time through she said “Now this is the LAST time I’ll say it!”
With no help from her, we eventually worked it out ourselves, managing to get off where we were supposed to and then back on the A for apple train. Miraculously, when we emerged from the under-New York-city-city, we were actually in Brooklyn. Miracles do happen.
Our first stop in Brooklyn was a cute little coffee shop called Cranberries where my request for a ‘coffee with milk” was actually granted with no questions asked. The coffee ordering process was a lot more complicated on the West Coast. We all had hot drinks to try to warm up a bit and had a lovely chat with the coffee shop owner. He offered to take a family photo of us, as long as we all smiled and said “Coola Bears” (the distant North American relative of the Koala perhaps?) We then set off on foot, in search of some historic brownstone buildings, just like the ones Big Bird and Maria used to hang out on in Sesame Street. We took the liberty of lounging on someone’s stoop for some happy snaps, hoping firstly, that no-one was home and secondly that no-one called the NYPD.
We had planned to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, back to Manhattan and as we stepped onto this historic wooden structure, it was a wee bit blowy up on deck. It was a beautiful walk across the all-timber walkway with breathtaking views back over the Manhattan skyline; the Statue Of Liberty standing proud and tall in the background. There were lots of other walkers and a few bikes but only a couple of joggers - very different to the Golden Gate which was jogger central. Sam was a legend and popped Maisy on his shoulders so we didn’t have to walk so slowly.
Now that most of our sight-seeing was done, we had some serious souvenir shopping to do. Hoping for some good bargains and some great NYC memorabilia, we attempted to hail a cab. This proved to be harder than you’d think, especially given the sheer number of horn-tooting, signature New York yellow cabs buzzing around the metropolis. We’d wave frantically from the side of the road, only to find, every taxi that passed was already full of passengers. Molly took it upon herself to be the family’s expert in securing us a ride, carefully honing her skills at spotting the elusive empty cab. With supreme confidence, she’d edge out into the traffic, arm held high, hailing cabs like a boss. It also has to be said that New York cabbies do all drive like maniacs. We have decided, in the interests of keeping our hearts in check, it’s probably wise to just chat amongst ourselves rather than pay too much attention to what’s going on on the road. The tv screens installed in the backseats are most certainly designed to distract passengers from the horn-tooting antics and craziness of the dare-devil drivers, in whom we are foolishly entrusting our lives.
The new Apple store up near Central Park was well worth a visit, despite the hordes of shoppers that joined us. (There must seriously have been a couple of thousand people in there!) FAO Schwartz and the three-storey lolly shop were also must-sees on our shopping adventure and we went to a bargain department store called Century 21 which was fantastic! (It’s New York’s best-kept secret apparently, so make sure you keep it quiet.) Though renowned for its bargains it will never be on the map for its customer service - staff, not only thin on the ground, but far more interested in chatting about their social lives that bothering with customers.
Tobes still had his Yankees jersey attached to his body today (I think it will have to be surgically removed) and it made him lots of friends in the city. All sorts of people, of all different shapes, sizes, ages, colours and backgrounds offered their pumping fists in a gesture of solidarity. One man, who was a walking encyclopedia of Yankees stats, chatted with the boys for about half an hour after Toby yelled out to him “the Yankees are gonna win tonight!”. He was a character and told them all sorts of colourful stories ranging from when he dug a hole and broke into the Yankee Stadium to see a game, to when his dad inadvertently threw out all his signed baseball cards. Devastating.
Tonight we fulfilled a promise to Toby and dined out in the “Mars 2121” restaurant on Broadway. It was like stepping onto the red planet for real and there were aliens roaming around giving all the kids high-fives (or high-threes because they were a bit digitally challenged). Maisy was convinced she’d left Earth and was having an authentic martian excursion. The waiter kept her wondering when he asked her what planet she was from. “Earth”, she replied in all seriousness. He did well to conceal a chuckle.
We are all packed up now and ready to head home. We have purchased an extra bag to hold all of our souvenirs but we are desperately hoping we don’t have another session of pulling out excess pounds when we get to the weigh-in at the airport! Hope we all get some sleep on the plane.
