I have just headed down to San Diego from New York after spending a few days there. It was my first time in New York and I had a lot of fun there. Not quite as I expected, but that is hardly surprising considering it is one of those cities that is a little different to everyone who goes there, and considering that my preconceptions were borne out of Will & Grace, Friends, and the countless movies and other TV shows set in New York.
My first impression of New York was that it was amazing, awe-inspiring, but lacked the character that a city like London has. I feel that as efficient and easy as the grid system is as a method of city planning, it makes the whole place feel a lot more sterile, at least for an outsider. One street truly does look like all the rest, at least once you get uptown of 14th street. Even after spending a few days there I stand by that initial impression. It was an amazing place to visit, and I reckon that if you lived there and began to understand the dynamics of how it all worked that this would change, but from my very superficial visit I left feeling impressed, but not gob-smacked.
I cannot recommend the Pod Hotel on E51st St, between 2nd and 3rd Avenue, enough. Amazing location in Midtown Manhattan, with pretty reasonably priced rooms; @alexmuller and I shared a bunk room and the final bill was $660 for the two of us for four nights. The rooms have no en suite, and are fairly basic, but they are clean have a sink, and there is free wifi provided too. All in all it did exactly what we expected, and was exactly what we needed.
Following the advice of @therealdvorak, via No Agenda, we took the AirTrain to Jamaica Station, and then caught the E train subway to 53rd & Lexington. We bought an unlimited subway MetroCard on the first day and although a little pricey at $27, I felt it was well worth it. We walked a lot considering how close the Hotel was to most of the places we wanted to visit, but the luxury of being able to escape the downpours into the subway to get back to the hotel without worrying was very nice. This method of getting from the airport into the city was a lot quicker than a yellow cab, and was a lot cheaper too.
The subway was a mixed bag. The trains themselves are air-conditioned, which coming from London was a lovely change and considering that their lines are about as deep as the cut-and-cover lines in London really did make me wonder about why we haven’t seen that yet, at least on those lines. I was really quite shocked at how poorly the infrastructure was maintained. Every station we went into had rusted steel, a leaking roof, and looked so blackened as to suggest that there had been a recent fire. Also, in stark contrast to the trains, the stations were baking hot at this time of year. My only real complaint about the subway was the inability to change platform directions once within the barriers at a lot of stations. Many times we would dash into the nearest entrance without reading to avoid the rain, and only realise once we were on the train side of the barriers that we were in fact facing the wrong direction meaning we needed to go out and back onto the street. While for us with our unlimited tickets this wasn’t a major issue and only a minor inconvenience, but it is worth thinking about if you only have a normal ticket.
As well as the standard touristy attractions, I would highly recommend taking a tour bus, at least around Downtown Manhattan. While a little expensive you see an awful lot, learn a lot, and if the weather is nice then it is just a genuinely pleasant way to see the city. As I say, highly recommended.
New York was, for us at least, a very expensive place to visit and I have some major grievances about the american service charge and donations culture. While in the UK a tip is for service, and averages at around 10%, there it seemed to be more a fee for them serving the table, and expected regardless of the quality of service. The percentage was also double which meant some pretty outrageous charges for service. While they are still technically optional, we felt fairly unsure about how to act and pretty rude if we didn’t tip to the expected level. One other thing to be aware of is that in those states like New York which charge sales tax, often the menu prices are shown without this and so the bill ends up being a fair bit more than you expect. Coupled with tipping this can make meals pretty expensive. We did find an amazing little sushi restaurant – Matsu Sushi – a few blocks away on 52nd st and 1st avenue, which served very generous amounts of fish on their nigiri, offer a $23 all-you-can-eat sushi option, and a highly recommended $17 dinner bento box. Our best meal of the trip was undoubtedly a steak at Houstons on 3rd Avenue. While more expensive at around $32 each without drinks, the quality was second to none and even despite the lack of a bottle of red – the higher drinking age here saw to that – it was really very excellent.
All our flights this trip are with Delta, and they have been ok so far. The London flight was fine, but cramped, while the check in at JFK was absolute madness. @alexmuller was stood at the front of the queue for over 40 minutes without having his bag checked. Once we finally did clear the security we would have been almost too late for the flight, had it not been delayed for 40 minutes. That being said, the flight was fine, we had more room and everything arrived. Plus there was wifi on board, and those who follow me on twitter would have seen a few bursts of tweets going on about this. A great novelty, and at $8 for the flight it was pretty over-priced, but it is certainly the way of the future. I was getting a better bandwidth at 37,000 feet than I do in Oxshott, and at one point I had a skype conversation with @alexmuller. While admittedly he was in the next seat it was impressive that it would sustain the connection and it worked really very well.
Now I am chilling at a friend’s place in Coronado, California enjoying the beautiful weather. So far the USA has been really good fun so heres hoping it lasts!