Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday 23, 24 & 25 June 2025
Monday - and summer
has arrived. It’s 35 C and feels like 41 C they say, and going over the back
lawn for a coffee, it sure feels hot. A planning day indoors today.
Tuesday and more of
the same. An update on Flashy’s research into famous American foods. He has now
had a waffle with Maple syrup and filter coffee for brunch and pancakes with
smoky bacon. A hot dog in NYC is next on the agenda and another (New York)
pizza is probably needed for research purposes and that goes pretty close to
sampling all the legendary American foods.
Wednesday was another
train ride into Manhattan. It was again very hot - and surprisingly, as it is the
height of summer, there were practically no tourists around. How do you know?
Anyone that has spent time in New York can recognise a New Yorker and anyone
that has ben in tourist cities can spot the tourist. Plus, the streets were
almost deserted. Central Park? Well, you could have fired a canon down the path
and be lucky to hit a squirrel.
Our plan was a bit
like Chicago. Revisit some of the places from our 2009 month of January in the Big
Apple.
Last time it was very
cold, it being winter but there were more people out and about then than today.
Our memory of the city is of tight spaces and skyscrapers. It seems smaller and
wider this time around.
Why? Well, we saw a
lot of NYC at night last time, which emphasises the well lit skyscrapers and of
course, no wide open blue skies. Also, there are many areas of Manhattan that
have five to 10 story buildings, wide, tree-lined streets and are essentially low
scale residential. They tend not to be the tourist places.
Our first stop was
332 E53rd Street. This is the apartment we stayed in for a month. Five stories
only and it’s still there. So too is the little laundry next door and Parnell’s
Irish Pub on the corner of 2nd Ave. Here we had a refreshing
Guinness and gin and tonic at 11.31 am, just as the doors opened. The staff
were impressed that we decided to revisit after 16 years.
Around the corner on
3rd to Essa Bagel. I think Lady P once lived here! A plain bagel, cream cheese,
onion, capers and smoked salmon ($21) purchased and we’re off to Central Park for a picnic lunch.
No ice skaters,
roller bladers, horse and carts this time. Lots of green open spaces, desperate
vendors and pedicab guys looking for non-existent business and one very hot squirrel
gasping for breath under the Elm tree. Flashy got a hot dog from a street
vendor. One bun that dissolved like a communion host, a sausage and “do you want
mustard or ketchup?” I’ll have both surely. Where’s the onions? Sauerkraut?
Green pickles? Very disappointing!
Wandering downtown on
Park, Madison and Fifth we observe a few more people and some tourists. Lady P
heads to Saks of Fifth Ave for an hour of looking/shopping and as much as
Flashy would have loved to be with her, he finds a nice airconditioned bar and
has a beer and a snack. By the time he’s onto the palate cleansing bourbon,
Lady P arrives and it’s time for another bar stop at the Marble Bar at MOMA.
Two delicious cocktails and $65 later, we head for home on our train. We get a
seat in the upstairs, air conditioned carriage. The rest pack in like sardines,
many standing for the hour commute to New Jersey, gradually filling off until
there’s only a hand full of us getting off in Morristown.
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