Whitman in the foyer (Barry)
Just had an amazing start to our first day in Manhattan. Joey and Hannah were fast asleep and so Joan and I decided to go down to the cafe next to the Travel Inn Hotel. Joan had arranged to meet her neice, Cathy, who has popped over from London. Anyway, it’s quite chilly here so we waited in the foyer of the hotel. It was crowded with a group of secondary school students and their teachers, who were on an educational tour of New York from Georgia. We stood back and listened as a couple of students stood up and read out some reports they’d be writing. Then, one of the teachers got up and, in a broad Southern accent, read an excerpt from Walt Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’. It’s the bit about life being a song, a tribute to the everyday people, the workers, the boatmen, the carpenters, etc. It was just great to hear Whitman read so well, in such an authentic American accent, albeit a Southern one. (Whitman was very much the Northerner).
I approached the teacher and told him how much I liked it, pointing out that I was not an American. He thanked me and then we started talking about Australia. He told me, with a perfectly straight face, that he was originally from Australia. I asked him where he was from, which part, and he said from “out the back”. I figured this was a strange way to say “outback” and then he started laughing.He was just stooging me! He was really born and bred Georgia. I thought his humour was very similar to what we in Australia would think of as Australian humour. Interesting, too, that he assumed I’d get the joke. I told him that, thus far, Americans seem to me to be like Australians’ cultural cousins.
We had breakfast with Joan’s neice – but I’m sure Joan will write at length about that, a very special experience for her and Cathy.
We’re just taking Joey and Hannah for breakfast now, in the cafe next door. A very typical NY cafe, by the way, quite 1950s in style. (When I say “typical”, I am basing it on what I have seen over the decades on television shows).
“I sing the body electric”,
Barry (with thanks to Walt)
Tags: Travel
canberrians
I’m enjoying this blog! You guys are doing a great job of sharing some of your experiences. I just wish I was there!
Very organised of you to keep posting so regularly as well!!
When I visited Manhattan for 2 weeks (over 10 years ago), I was surprised at how many people didn’t seem to have have the foggiest idea about Australia. (And that was NY – which is supposedly far more outward looking than the rest of the USA!) Once or twice we were congratulated on our good English (!) and some people assumed that we would be very familiar with crocodiles….
I think that since 9/11, Americans in general are probably far more aware of the outside world. The rapid pace of globalization and the internet must have made a difference as well.
Our two most interesting days in Manhattan were probably the day we spent in Harlem and a tour of a high school in the Bronx. The whole trip was interesting of course, but a lot of it seemed to pass in a sort of wild whirl…. we didn’t really have time to get rid of our jet lag and/or over the long flight before it was time to return home( we flew from Melbourne –> LA –> Manhattan (with only 2 hours in LA).
Kim (aged 8) and Robin (aged 12) loved the whole experience but were rather over excited and generally in a hyperactive state, a great deal of the time. Kim was obsessed with trying to get us to buy him various fashionable items of clothing (Raebocks etc) – and he had a long shopping list from various friends. When it came to shopping I was more interested in browsing the bookshops … so there was conflict from time to time.
We saw very few unaccompanied children on the streets of Manhattan. On several occasions we allowed Kim and Robin to take short excursions on their own. We were given a talking-to by a couple of ex-pat. friends who insisted that we had put them at risk. However it didn’t seem dangerous to me…
Hey Joan,
Sounds wonderful!