And then I called my friend S. Who was kind enough to tell us where to drive. Which we did, met aforementioned S, and adjourned to a mall. Now why a mall? Because they have these hideous American monstrosities called ‘Food Courts’ . Of late, I have observed an outbreak of these things in Indian cities. Nothing depresses me more than sitting amidst a crowd of self delusional idiots eating generic crappy food and thinking that they are having a good time. But in the time honoured tradition of all self respecting Indian people stuffing our noses up the arse of US ‘culture’, we continue to go to such places instead of seeking out and making better alternatives. Anway, let me cut the scream short. So we got to the food court, found some generic Mexican food and were happy. It was still raining… please note.. hencerendering all attempts at normal tourist stuff impossible. Which was just fine for all of us. C loves window-shopping. K loves hanging out with C. I had a decade worth of catching up to do.
After S figured out that we had come to NY without a “plan”.. she freaked.. albeit mildly. Now I tried getting the point across that I am not really a ‘touristy’ tourist. That didn’t go down to well with her. So she plotted out an itinerary for us for Sunday. On that note, we left to that gawd-awful hostel. I could give you gory details of that place, but why make your day worse?
Sunday dawned. A beautiful day, the clouds having taken leave for a while. With a merry song on our lips we drove off. And ended up taking the wrong turn and into Holland tunnel. Which took us, after a 6$ toll.. to Manhattan…. That came as something of a surprise…. So we turned back and drove to Jersey City. Had breakfast at S’ place.. which is on the 27th floor, and hence afforded a very enjoyable view to us village people. Then hopped on the train to NY. Walked to Battery Park. Took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis island.
There was a really long line for the ferry at Battery Park. This bloke was playing the trumpet… and playing ‘what a wonderful world’ sooooo well. And this other bloke turned up and started playing the Indian national anthem when he saw us. He knows the national anthems of fifty countries.. and makes good use of it where he likely to have quite an international audience.
When we made it back after the ferry trip, S wanted to leave, so we said our emotional farewells and headed off to see the bull. This unusual sculpture greets visitors to the financial district. People tend to line up and take pics of each other grabbing the bull’s .. um family jewels. This brings luck, it says. I got a pic; which was somewhat different.
We spent a while walking downtown. The underground system is really rather complex.. and slightly intimidating. But it works, and this maxim holds true for what little of the city we saw. This is something I realized that I had been missing at AA, the pulse of a great city. AA is beautiful and has a very pretty downtown.. but the whole city has a population of 150000! Which, in my book makes it a.. neighbourhood.
We spent the evening loitering and being vaguely touristy around Times Square. K asked why Times Square was called the ‘centre of the Universe’. (Came from a huge advertisement hoarding). I told him that astrophysicists had calculated that based on the value of the Hubble constant and the Doppler shift of receding galaxies, the Big Bang had occurred at the exact spatial location of Times Square. Making it, of course, the centre of the Universe. He bought it, for a few minutes, at least.
The NY Police Dept. have these tiny three wheelers for negotiating heavy traffic. Reminds me of the autorickshaws back home. Also saw the Bubba Gump restaurant, one of the chain inspired by Forrest Gump. Yadda, yadda, yadda, but this is getting monotonous. And then we went to Madam Tussaud’s. Of course, we did the usual stuff of getting weird pics with all the celebs. The high point was when I got a pic with a statue of Woody Allen. K wanted the same, so I clicked him. And then he asked me, ‘so who was that person?
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