USA - The Big Apple

New York - The Big Apple. I've got the photo I wanted, That's it, all done. Next stop Connecticut!

Note all the barriers along the road

Seriously though - I'm here for 7 days so New York is of course the longest stopover on this trip. I'm planning 5 days in the city itself and 2 days out in the Hudson Valley and have various trips and tours booked for each day. I'm staying in Midtown just across from Grand Central Terminal (Station is not its correct name) so a guided tour of the station was the logical first thing to do.  On reflection I'm glad I was a visitor since conducting a guided tour in one of the world's busiest railway stations is a bit more tricky than a lighthouse!

After a subway ride to the bottom tip of Manhattan I then caught the Staten Island Ferry for what is one the the world's great freebies. The ferry journey is free of charge and provides great views of the New York skyline and the Statue of Liberty - I'm sure there are loads of great things to do on Staten Island but I will put my hands up and say I did what most tourists do and that is caught the next ferry back to Manhattan. And don't worry I am going to go to Liberty properly next week.

This is my first time in New York and the strangest thing about being a first timer here is that everything is familiar. We know the streets - Broadway, Lexington Ave, Madison Ave, Park Ave, 42nd Street. We know the buildings and we know odd little things about the city just through watching TV. We know that steam comes out of man holes in the street - this is due to a centralised heating system where steam is pumped to buildings in Lower Manhattan (a bit like Reykjavik really) - and we know that a lot of older apartment buildings have fire escapes on the outside.

In fact the only thing that is not the same as on Cagney & Lacy (remember them) are the cars - police cars and taxi's - they are a more modern now. Fire engines look the same though!

This evening I went to the Tenement Museum to an event entitled "Tastings at the Tenement". The tenements in the Lower East Side have over the years been home to many immigrants to New York, each bringing their own tastes and flavours with them. We therefore tasted a range of foods which have all come into the US from elsewhere but have impacted on American cuisine - all of course washed down with a glass of Californian wine.