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    • Day 44

      Departure Day

      June 9, 2022 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

      Stopped into the Brooklyn area for a coffee and traditional baked New York Cheese cake, stunning.
      Sue’s eyes show her delight in something she hasn’t had in over 40 years. I must admit it was fantastic.
      Now time to fuel up the car and make it to the airport, although it will be a long wait as our timing got us back here sooner than expected.
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    • Day 28

      Dominican Day Parade und Theater

      August 11, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

      Heute beginne ich den Tag entspannt etwas später und schaue mir einen Teil der Dominican Day Parade an.
      "The Dominican Day Parade is a joyful celebration of all things Dominican. Each year, we come together in New York City to honor our heritage and culture and to recognize the many accomplishments Dominicans have made in United States, and around the world." Ich schwinge die Hüften zu den lateinamerikanischen Rhythmen und suche mir dann mittags etwas zu essen.
      Danach geht es ins Theater zum Stück "Life sucks!". Ich habe es empfohlen bekommen und werde nicht enttäuscht: Ein Stück über den Sinn des Lebens, welche Rolle die eigene Verantwortung darin spielt und ob Life really sucks...!?
      Ich für meinen Teil kann das zu diesem Zeitpunkt klar und deutlich verneinen. 😊
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    • Day 29

      Roosevelt Island und Coney Island

      August 12, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

      Heute ist "Inseltag"... zuerst geht es mit der Seilbahn auf die kleine Insel Roosevelt Island. Der Weg mit der Seilbahn stellt mal wieder meine Höhenangst auf die Probe, aber die Fahrt dauert zum Glück nur 5 Minuten. 😅
      Auf der Insel gibt es nicht all zu viel zu sehen, den schön angelegten Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park lasse ich mir aber nicht entgehen. Danach geht es mit der Seilbahn zurück und mit der Metro eine Stunde lang nach Coney Island was gar keine echte Insel ist, sondern eher eine Halbinsel 😉). Dort befindet sich New Yorks beliebtester Strand mit Vergnügungspark gleich nebendran. 😁 Ich schaue mich neugierig um, schlendere durch die Attraktionen, genieße die Sonne am Strand und esse leckere Shrimps. 😋 Am späten Nachmittag geht es ermattet von Sonne und neuen Eindrücken zurück ins Hostel. Morgen geht es dann weiter nach Boston...
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    • Day 12

      Following the Great Lakes

      September 29, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

      We have a friend who owns a surf shop in California, well actually a few of them so he’s a rich bastard.
      He tells us he’s always glad when he returns from overseas because the US system “works” where other others don’t, especially in third world country.
      These are fighting words because we don’t agree on a lot of levels.
      One of those is: We’ve been following The Great Lakes, two so far, that’s Michigan and Erie and seeing we’ve been on Interstate Highways for most of the way across the country we’ve now chosen to drive the byways that run along the shore line, well almost do.

      America is the land of the free, that’s if you can afford somewhere big enough to run yourself stupid around claiming how free you are, for all others it’s “git offa my land or I’ll shoot ya”
      Public space is limited, communists have public land, here it’s all private including the beaches so for hundreds of miles along the shoreline of the lakes it’s built on with private houses all sporting a “keep off private property” sign. So we’ve just done the Great Lakes Road With Glimpses Drive.

      Note: A post called “Health Food Heaven” has been placed out of sequence. It should be before this one but has been put way back with the LA ones.
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    • Day 13

      Niagara Falls

      September 30, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

      You can travel with your best mate and be having a great time but then they go and spoil it on you.
      So it goes with old spoilsport Rhonda who couldn’t be talked into going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
      I think more people have survived the experience than not and actually the first person to ever do it and survive was a woman.
      None of these arguments could convince her to have a go so I missed out on getting a great YouTube clip and all going well it probably wouldn’t have ended up under the Failed Army listing.

      The problem with trying to describe North America is you can’t. There are information boards around the falls with quotes from all the old explorers who came from lands that had vast mountains, lakes and rivers themselves but then when they first set eyes on Niagara Falls and this continent they were lost for words saying nothing they have ever seen before could even compare with this.

      I’ve been to Niagara Falls a fair while ago and was extremely impressed (not strong enough adjective) so this trip diversion was for Rhonda, for her to see them too.
      I thought I remembered them clearly though memories can get a bit exaggerated over time but it’s the reverse in this case, I’d forgotten the incredible size of the falls and the noise they make and the mist they throw in the air and simply it’s hard to remember seeing that much water falling at one time, about 2,555,150 litres per second but those stats mean nothing unless you’re a numbers guy.

      The best view of the main falls, Horseshoe Falls is from the Canada side, this is where I first saw Niagara from so I wanted to cross over for that view but the border crossing over Rainbow Bridge was banked up for miles, it would have taken too long to get through customs and then we had to return so we settled for viewing from the US side.
      This was good because we got to see Horseshoe, American and Bridal Veil Falls up close and at a few places you stand right by the drop over the edge, not only a brilliant view down but also not a bad barrel launching spot either. So this makes me think, do you think she would fall for “hey Rhonda I dropped my wallet in this barrel, could you get it out for me please” and then “whoops... sorry I just knocked it in the water!”
      Keep watching YouTube for the answer.
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    • Day 17

      NYC #3 Manhattan

      October 4, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

      It stormed overnight and rained during the day as is proven here in this skyscraper photo we took to start off the blog.
      We’ve been using the New York Subway to get around and despite its reputation we feel it’s safer because you avoid any heavy objects or light aircraft that may fall from the tall buildings.

      It seems New York is still very nervous about falling buildings, security is everywhere and severe. For instance getting onto the Statue of Liberty ferry you go through airport type security to get onboard. Then when you are on Liberty Island you go through the same thing again, then when you enter the statute pedestal you can’t take the bags that have already been x-rayed twice, you have to put them in a locker.

      Police are everywhere in the streets and in huge numbers.
      Other official security people are everywhere too, all heavily armed. I don’t think New Yorkers or Americans will get over the Twin Towers for a long time and it was eerie first arriving here because... anyone who saw live coverage of the planes flying into the World Trade Centre as we did will remember you could also hear he sound of the jets as it happened.
      So we were looking out over Manhattan and it seems the flight path into New York City goes right over the Hudson River. In the afternoon this causes the suns angle to casts perfect shadows of the aircraft flashing across the face of the buildings, it uncannily appears they are crashing into them, this illusion is further created by the roar of their engines overhead.

      Terrorists, Gorgo or over sized apes haven’t kept the tourists away though, the lines to some galleries have proved that. We stood in a queue that was about a quarter of a kilometre long for the Metropolitan Museum of Art only to last five minutes inside. The only art we experienced was the art of packing as many people into a building as possible. The Guinness Book of Records should have been there or maybe a talent scout for a circus auditioning people for the clown car act, where about twenty crawl out of a mini minor unfortunately our experience wasn’t that funny.

      This was all good though, we just walked around the streets and through Central Park which gives a better feel of the city. We rode the subway and met many helpful people along with lunatics, weirdos, extroverts, introverts, religious fanatics and people damning the lord everywhere.

      The architecture was good to see especially smaller stuff like the old apartment buildings with the fire escapes on the outside.
      We had fire engines and police vehicles flashing past constantly with their sirens wailing, we heard cab drivers blasting horns and hurling abuse, we avoided everything from trucks and buses to skateboarders going through red lights when we were on the crossings, we saw sad homeless people pushing shopping carts full of their rubbish past multi million dollar apartments overlooking Central Park on Fifth Avenue.

      So we got exactly what we expected of a day out in this city and it was a surprisingly good experience except for the homeless, the beggars and the people trying to eke some sort of living out of a dog eat dog city.
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    • Day 17

      NYC #4 Central Park

      October 4, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

      I wanted to go to the Central Park Zoo but Rhonda said she had, had enough of exotic animals, she reckons every time you look up you see some creature swinging off a skyscraper so we settled for just walking around enjoying the beautiful park.
      As far as seeing critters go, the place is lousy with squirrels, cheeky little buggars too, they snatch the food right out of your mouth but the jokes on them, nuts last the winter, organic chicken sandwiches don’t.

      There are domestic critters here too. A huge thing in NewYork is dog walking, this is a profession catering for people who live in small apartments, work long hours so they have no time to exercise the mutt but still insist on having a fashion statement in the form of fur.
      There are basically two or three breeds that are on trend right now the trouble is they are quite different types and sizes.

      Central Park is the ideal place for a dog walker to exercise the dogs, they have one lead that divides into individual ones that attach to each dog. This makes a nice neat controllable device that works beautifully on paper. The problem is when an issue arises and this is usually started by the smallest and yappiest dog there is trouble.
      You watch a dog walker strolling through Central Park, walking under the trees or wandering by the lakes and you think, this is money for old rope. Then one of them gets a bit cranky or another would rather be sitting by the window, in the sun in its 14th floor Maddison Avenue apartment instead of being dragged around the park with a group of useless flea bags.
      This is the problem if there is trouble. When a group of dogs are tied together, others that were quite content and didn’t really want to get involved get caught up in the moment and then it’s on. Most don’t really know what they are fighting about but at this stage it doesn’t really matter they’re here they might as well have a go.
      From a distance, sitting on a park bench under a shady tree this looks pretty funny watching it all happening, seeing we have nothing else to do because the squirrels stole our lunch.

      It’s was almost as funny as some of the lines from the excellent buskers who work Central Park
      Some black guys were doing comedy and gymnastics. This will lose something in the translation but they were putting themselves and everyone else down.
      They were getting members of the audience to be involved in their act and it did look pretty dangerous so they warned that if the person moved they would die or worse turn black.

      When they asked for money, which they really deserved some people quickly turned to leave and so one of the performers started yelling out to them “hey don’t leave just like my father did, y’all come back and support your family” this was their style all through the routine, it was hilarious, but I know, you had to be there, their talent and timing even their voices pulled a lot of simple stuff off.
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    • Day 19

      NYC #7. Brooklyn Street Art

      October 6, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

      If you ever want to whinge about your lot in life, catch the subway train to Bushwick in Brooklyn and see how the other half live, that’s why I had to tell Rhonda, “today it’s a mystery tour”, if she knew where we were headed it would have ended up been a solo trip.

      After crossing the Williamsburg Bridge in to Brooklyn, New York becomes dirty, crumbling and depressing and the only activity there seems to be graffiting so there was barely one surface of the landscape that hadn’t been attacked with a spray can, the only place you couldn’t see any was where rubbish was covering it up.

      Sunday seems to be looney day on the subway, it’s not that you don’t get a fair share of them during the week but the weekend must be allocated as their special time and they make full use of that honour too.
      Everyone knows of the standard ranter and raver, the crazy ones you definitely don’t want to approach but there’s a quieter sub species that get around too. Their craziness seems to have turned more introspective though their dress sense give them away.

      There was Sir Lunatic who was a cross between an English Knight and Merlin the Magician, either this was his persona or he didn’t have the outfit to complete either character so a little mix and match was used to create his own unique one.
      The sword part of his outfit was pretty neat, he had the stabbing bit right but then the hilt was made from a crystal ball. The armour was a mixture of armour, magicians robes and court jesters gear. I gave him 10 out of 10, a very good effort or the day.

      Probably a runner up was a woman who had very thick, long hair. I don’t know how she did it but she grabbed a bunch of about 100 hairs and dyed them fluorescent green the next 100 dyed blond, the next 100 left natural brunette. She then braided them all together into s sort of dreadlock style.
      Set against her metallic gold shoes and metallic robe type things she wore, maybe she could give Sir Lunatic a run for his money on the winners score... oh yeah, in her hair she had stuck a mass of flowers so maybe the hair style was supposed to represent the earth or something cosmic like that.

      There were quite a few others who weren’t really trying they just muttered and gesticulated to themselves constantly, both the knight and flower power lady did that so if the others put a little more effort into their costumes that would have raised their personal score.

      A lot of places that were once grand and have now fallen to pieces seem to get reborn, gentrified as money comes back in and this is usually by hipsters pretending they are slumming it but they don’t want dirt and poverty, they want art.
      So what happens first is, artists who really are slumming it move in because they can’t afford anything better. A group of them form a collective then go crazy all over the neighbourhood because the place is such a dump the police and anyone else couldn’t care less.
      The street art they create gives the place a real “vibe”. Hipsters thrive on vibe, they feel they are now part of the “artistic scene” so that’s hip. But now they need hip restaurants and hip bars and all the rest. This is just starting to happen in Bushwick and maybe it will kill off what they came here for but at the moment the place is still lousy with great street art.
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    • Day 20

      NYC #9 Fairwell & Adieu NYC

      October 7, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

      Just had our last day of dodging dog walkers, red light runners, pan handlers, hustlers trying to sell you tickets to tourist attractions or sell you the actual attraction itself, though I did considered a pretty good offer on buying The Empire State Building, a real bargain for what they were asking.

      We missed our loonies today, there weren’t too many around, maybe because we didn’t ride the subway.
      I think they like it down there, the roar of the trains in the tunnels seem to set them off. They can yell inanities at the top of their voices and it doesn’t seem too out of place.

      The days of visiting the really famous tourist spots are over if you struggle with crowds.
      We tried lining up for a few of them then gave up and were all the better for it otherwise the only experience you remember is just how jostled you were.
      With the famous ones that you definitely have to see like the Statue of Liberty you just need to avoid the busy periods, earlier is good, it seems the world is full of lazy bastards who want to have a lie in.
      We know how they feel, it was hard for us to get up too but worth it because as we were leaving the crowds coming in were insane.

      What we mainly did instead was walk the city, catch the ferries and ride the subway with some sort of plan, usually this was disbanded because of all the other neat stuff we stumbled into.
      Today’s unintended discoveries were, A guy dragged a piano into Washington Square, his playing was brilliant. A guy dragged a trombone into Washington Square, well maybe he just carried it in but his playing was brilliant too.
      Finding off chance things like this as well as walking the Hudson River Park along the western shore of Manhattan, that was a good one, scenery fantastic, running into weird stuff 10 out of 10.
      The experiences go on and on but to save you from any boredom these few descriptions will do for now.
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    • Day 23

      13.Tag USA - Welcome to NYC?

      October 7, 2019 in the United States ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

      Heute starten wir unsere Reise nach „Big Apple“! Emily hatte uns am Vormittag mit nach Boston genommen zur Subway-Station „Wonderland“, von der wir weiter fuhren zu den Haltestellen der Fernbusse. Mittlerweile gibt es davon mehrere konkurrierende Unternehmen in den USA...die klassischen „Greyhound“-Busse, PeterPan, MegaBus und neuerdings auch unsere deutsche Flixbus-Linie. Da die Abfahrtsorte von letzterer aber super ungünstig sind (außerhalb, an der Autobahn), entschieden wir uns für den günstigen MegaBus. Die Fahrt dauerte von Boston nach NYC etwas über 4 1/2 Stunden für unter 20$ - genug Zeit um einfach mal zu entspannen nach den vielen Eindrücken der letzten Wochen.

      Wir saßen in der oberen Reihe eines Doppeldeckerbusses und hatten auch nach oben, dank Panoramadach, eine gute Aussicht. Die Einfahrt nach New York City (NYC) war schon etwas besonderes, als die ersten Hochhäuser auftauchten 😍. Wir konnten nur nicht zuordnen, welche Skyline zu welchem Ortsteil gehört... Vermutlich sahen wir als erstes die Wolkenkratzer von der Nachbarstadt New Yorks - Jersey City. Dort liegt auch unser Appartement (weil es von Manhattan nicht weit entfernt liegt und bezahlbar ist!).

      Leider war unser Start in New York mehr als chaotisch. Wir kamen gegen 17Uhr mitten in der Stadt an und versuchten einfach unser Glück mit der nächsten U-Bahn Station, die wir fanden. In NYC gibt es an den U-Bahnen kaum Ausschilderungen oder Übersichtspläne, und auch praktisch keine Aufzüge. Wir haben allein die erste Stunde in der Stadt gebraucht, um die richtige Fahrtrichtung herauszufinden...
      Als wir das Gleis zur Gegenrichtung wechseln wollten, musste wir wieder auf die Straße hoch und standen plötzlich trotzdem wieder an einem Gleis in derselben Fahrtrichtung 😑! Am Ende fuhren wir drei Stationen extra in die falsche Richtung, weil uns eine New Yorkerin gesagt hatte, das man dort innerhalb der Unterführung wechseln kann 😳😅! Aber wir hatten einfach keine Lust mehr mit dem schweren Gepäck Treppe rauf, Treppe runter zu laufen.

      Zusätzlich wollte ich ein Wochenticket am Automaten für die Metro ziehen, aber es gab einen technischen Fehler und meine Karte wurde nicht akzeptiert. Dann bezahlte ich nochmal in bar (Cash), aber das Geld wurde trotzdem auf meiner Karte abgebucht 🙄...ich hatte also doppelt bezahlt. Danach folgte eine für mich nervige und für Julia eher lustige Odyssee mit dem Service der NY Metro über eine Sprechsäule, die praktischerweise so angebracht war, das ich alle 60 Sekunden durch vorbeifahrende Züge absolut gar nix verstand... Das Ergebnis waren nur meine verlorenen Nerven. Am Ende erfuhr ich, dass das Geld einfach wieder auf die Karte zurückkommt. Viel Ärger um nichts 😱.

      Danach mussten wir einen Bus nach Jersey City erwischen und wurden leider von einer Service-Mitarbeiterin falsch beraten, da wir (gerade angekommen) an der Abfahrtsstelle erfuhren, dass man die Fahrscheine nicht im Bus, sondern nur am Schalter bekommt... also wieder einen langen Weg zurücklaufen mussten 😭.
      Irgendwie gelangten wir doch noch in den richtigen Bus und es fing nach unserem Ausstieg plötzlich an in Strömen zu regnen. Genauso wie in amerikanischen Filmen, wenn Wasser die Scheiben hinunterläuft. Ich war trotz meines Niagara-Capes komplett nass, als wir endlich unser Appartement erreichten.

      Das war unser erster Tag in NYC bzw. eigentlich in Jersey City...nervenaufreibend und nass 😅! Es kann nur besser werden 👍🏻.
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    You might also know this place by the following names:

    New York, NY, ኒው ዮርክ, Nueva York, Nīwe Eoforwīc, نيويورك, ܢܝܘ ܝܘܪܩ, ولاية نيويورك, New York suyu, Nyu-York, Нью-Йорк, Штат Нью-Ёрк, Ню Йорк, Niu York, নিউ ইয়র্ক, Nova York, Niū-iók-ciŭ, ᏄᏯᎩ, نیویۆرک, Çĕнĕ Йорк, Efrog Newydd, Νέα Υόρκη, Nov-Jorkio, New Yorgi osariik, ایالت نیویورک, Nua-Eabhrac, Eabhraig Nuadh, Pyahu Iork, York Noa, Néu-yok-chû, Nuioka, ניו יורק, न्यूयॉर्क, Nou Yòk, Նյու Յորք, Nú Yọk, Tchiaq York, Nova-York, New York-fylki, ᓂᐅ ᐃᐅᕐᒃ, ニューヨーク州, niu, ნიუ-იორკის შტატი, Nyu york Shtati, ញូវយ៉ក, ನ್ಯೂ ಯಾರ್ಕ್, 뉴욕 주, Stat Evrek Nowydh, Novum Eboracum, Mueva York, Niorche, ລັດນີວຢອກ, نیویورک, Niujorko valstija, Ņujorka, Њујорк, ന്യൂയോർക്ക്, Нью-Йорк Муж Улс, न्यू यॉर्क, နယူးယောက်ပြည်နယ်, نیویورک ایالت, Yancuic York, न्यू योर्क, न्यु यर्क, Delstaten New York, New York State, Kin Yótʼááh Deezʼá Hahoodzo, Nòva York, ନିଉ ୟର୍କ, ਨਿਊ ਯਾਰਕ, Nju Yoorg, न्हु यर्क, Nowy Jork, نیو یارک, نيويارک, Nova Iorque, न्यू यार्क्, Нью Йорк, نيو يارڪ, Niojuorks, නිව්යෝක්, நியூ யோர்க் மாநிலம், న్యూయార్క్ రాష్ట్రం, Ню-Йорк, รัฐนิวยอร์ก, Nýu-Ýork ştaty, Nyuyork Shitati, نیویارک, Nyu York, Tiểu bang New York, 纽约州, Шин Йорк, ניו יארק, Ìpínlẹ̀ New York, 紐約州, New York Isifunda

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