Penn South Playground

New York, New York

It’s been more than 14 years since Vicki and I last visited New York. We had an amazing time on that trip - discovered one of the world’s great megacities, we got engaged, we visited Coney Island, which was closed. After what’s been a pretty tough year, I really wanted to get away for my birthday, and could think of no better place to head to than the Big Apple.

We’re staying at the same hotel we stayed in back in 2009 - Ace Hotel. Back then, it wasn’t even fully open. I’d spotted an online offer for a cheap room in Midtown, but the offer advised that the bar wasn’t open yet, there was no restaurant, breakfast would be a serve yourself affair in the one of the finished bedrooms. As a cost conscious traveller, the opportunity to grab a sub $100 room bang in the middle of Manhattan was too good to pass up. Things have moved on more than a little - Ace Hotel has thrived in the past decade, and our $100 per night budget from 2009 wouldn’t get us through the door these days. Really looking forward to seeing what the place is like in full flight.

There are other things we’ll do again. There’s a great ferry tour around Manhattan called the Circle Line, which is as good a way of getting your bearings in New York as I’ve come across. We’ll head back up the venerable Empire State Building to the 86th floor observation deck where we got engaged (or, as Vicki has already labelled it, “To return to the scene of the crime.”)

There are new experiences waiting for us as well. We barely spent any time in Brooklyn the last time we visited, and yet it has so much history and modern culture to offer. We’ll head up to Harlem, meander around the Upper West Side, and we’ll definitely visit the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, neither of which were completed the last time we were in town.

There are crazy good food options to try. New York is about as multi-cultural a city as I’ve visited - definitely the equal of London. We’re even going for a Sunday Roast. There are some awesome bars we want to hit, and a cool new wave of US wine culture that we want to surf.

More than anything though, we’re just happy to be travelling again.

Day 1
My alarm goes off slightly earlier than is strictly cool, and I’m immediately aware that it’s cold, windy and rainy. The week’s weather leading up to our departure has been atrocious. Storm force winds, torrential rain, floods, power cuts. The winds have happily died down, but the rains persist. Everything is pretty calm. Vicki’s work is not remotely as crazy as it has been at times over the past couple of years, and my work - well, let’s not get into that, as I've been advised throughout my life that it's not nice to brag.

Our driver arrives just before 08:00, and we’re pretty much ready to go. We say goodbye to our beautiful boys, and hit the road. The weather is appalling. We aquaplane through some pretty deep standing water on a couple of occasions. I’m very happy that our driver, Andy, has a Range Rover. Things start to brighten as we approach Heathrow.

The gods of air-miles have smiled on us. We’ve booked our entire trip with Virgin points, including an Upper Class seat on our way to New York. We breeze through the dedicated check in and security building. It takes exactly 26 minutes from leaving our car to settling in to a comfy chair in the Virgin Clubhouse, and deciding whether it’s Champagne or Prosecco, eggs on toast or a bacon roll. The team in the Clubhouse quickly recognise us for what we are - and bring us refills without being asked. Vicks wonders whether we’ll get cut-off at any point. I reply that, as with much in life, as long as you’re not behaving like a dick, you’ll probably be ok. There's even a little outdoor terrace on the roof of the lounge that offers an amazing view of Heathrow's west runway. We’re a little sad to leave our comfy cocoon, but it’s time to fly…

Virgin’s new Upper Class suite on the Airbus A350 is awesome. So comfortable, well thought out. Flight time is around 8 hours, and we spend this variously eating, sleeping and drinking. Both of us sleep so well in fact that we wake up with just 25 minutes to go until landing. JFK is one of those airports that can be a nightmare to navigate through. We’re stunned then, when we arrive to the immigration desks to find the hall completely empty. Couple of minutes later, and we’re waiting for our luggage. Couple of minutes after that, our bags are on the carousel. From plane to cab in less than 30 minutes has gotta be something of record…

Traffic is heavy into the city, but we’re soon heading towards the Midtown/Queens tunnel, with the iconic midtown skyline in front of us - the Empire State, the Rockefeller and Chrysler buildings are all illuminated against the sky’s inky backdrop. We check into the Ace Hotel, and quickly realise that we are probably too old, or not cool enough (or realistically, a bit of a combo of the two…) for this place. There’s a DJ kicking out chunky tribal house in the lobby bar, a healthy cacophony of chatter. We dump (technical term) our stuff into our room, and head out in search of sustenance. We happen upon a cool little restaurant called Bazar, that combines Spanish and Mexican influences with some more traditional American dishes. Delicious. Food takes us down though. We womble back to the hotel, determined to make it to 9pm before we sleep. We briefly think about stopping for a drink in the lobby bar, but realise this is unnecessary. We’re both asleep by 21:30.

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