US here we come

Can’t quite believe that we only have two days left in New York. Today is Saturday 17th, around 8.00 in the morning. We fly to San Francisco on Monday 19th. I’m sitting at the desk in our hotel room, in very dim light (Joey, Hannah and Joan are asleep) with a cofee by my side. I went down to the diner, conveniently located next to the hotel, for a takeaway coffee. (Cost a dollar).

Joan gave her presentation at the conference yesterday – it’s her story to tell. That night she also attended a burlesque show downtown in the Village. I opted to stay home – the wrestling (‘Smackdown’) was on TV and also I figured Joan would like to follow up her contacts with conference participants who had arranged to be at the show. It’s good to have moments of personal space when travelling as a family unit, though I must say it has, so far, gone much more smoothly than I anticipated. There have been occasional difficulties rather than regular dramas; overall, it’s gone well, especially given the close confines of our accommodation.

I took Joey and Hannah to the Madame Taussaud Wax Museum in Times Square yesterday. It is just amazing! So many life-like, life-sized, wax figures. Joey was ‘rapt to find one of Biggy Smalls, a famous rap artist. Unfortunately, Joan had the camera, as she thought she might photograph some of her conference proceedings. If the wax museum wasn’t so costly (about $90 for two adults and one child), I’d seriously consider going back, just to take photos of Joey and Hannah (and me) with some of our favourite (wax) celebrities. They had Rosa Parks, Ozzie Osbourne, Josephine Baker, Princess Diana, Janis Joplin, Charlie Chaplin, Bob Marley, Albert Einstein, and scores of others. (The above list is not in any order of importance – if it were, then Ozzie would clearly come after Einstein!) The museum covers three storeys and it’s a thrill entering each new room to discover who is represented there.

We’ve nutted out a rough plan for the weekend. Today we hope to go uptown to a flea market – Joey is really keen on this and is hoping to find some special CDs. Joan and I have booked ourselves in to a jazz venue for tonight, and also hope to see more of the uptown area, especially Harlem. I’m keen to see the Apollo Theatre, the venue that launched the careers of many black American legends, including Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Billie Holliday, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, etc.

We’ve done our best to involve Joey and Hannah in making decisions about things to do, and this has helped, I think – even though it is a big ‘ask’ on our part, given that they are only 14 and 12 respectively.

Hopefully, we’ll grab some time to sit down and think and talk about San Francisco. We’ll be there for three nights.

I’m feeling sad that our time in New York is coming to an end. Anyway, here are some random scenes from around our hotel on W42nd Street.

Barry

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 8:19 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.