America 2015: Day Four (2 August 2015)

Some folks like to get away, take a holiday from the neighbourhood
Hop a flight to Miami Beach, or to Hollywood
But I'm taking a Greyhound, on the Hudson River Line
I'm in a New York state of mind

- Billy Joel

Sunday 2 August

Thanks to all the travel and all the airports of late, it feels like we’ve been away for days, but today is only our fourth day, and it started with only 3.5 hours’ sleep and a wake-up call that came way too early at 4:30am.

 

Early morning at Kansas City Airport

 

That early start thanks to American Airlines, who rescheduled our 10:00am flight to an 8:30am departure. So, the early wake-up came after not getting home from the Kenny Chesney concert – I’m still on a high from that, and probably will be for a while! – at 12:30am. Not fun. Not fun at all. Hasn’t been our week for planes, unfortunately.

The early flight from Kansas City dumped us in Chicago earlier, and we had nearly three hours in O’Hare Airport, waiting for our connecting flight to New York City. At least I got a chance to catch up on my book and some blogging. Still, I would’ve much preferred the ninety-minute sleep in.

It’s great to be back in New York City. It’s easily my favourite city in America, because it’s so vibrant, because there’s always something going on, and because it’s ever-changing. You can be away from here for a year or more, come back, and find that so much is different. It’s busy, crazy, chaotic, manic…and awesome. There seems to be a constant program of change in the Big Apple, which is pretty awesome for those of us who are return visitors, because there’s always something new to check out. New York is one of a kind.

We’ve got two days in the city so good they named it twice – New York, New York – and it’s something of a novelty walking the concrete canyons of Midtown Manhattan without needing a parka and warm boots. We’ve had better luck with weather than we’ve had with flights so far this trip, and the good weather seems destined to follow us to Chicago for this Saturday’s #LoveMeLonghini wedding. Hard to complain with blue skies and temperatures at or around thirty degrees celsius.

The city is completely different winter to summer, and because we’re staying in Midtown (at the Comfort Inn Chelsea) near the Flatiron Building, there’s a whole bunch of new places that I’ve heard about, but have never seen to this point – like the beautiful Madison Square Park, where Shake Shack is. If you’ve never had Shake Shack burgers, crinkle-cut fries and a thick-shake, put it on your NYC Bucket List right now. They’re amazing.

 

The Flatiron Building

 

One of the good things about coming back to America – and one of the reasons why I’ve been back so often – is the people. Generally, Americans are very friendly, and especially when they find out that you’re in Australian. People love Australians here, and it seems like everyone has some sort of Australian story.

A bunch of years ago, I decided to go to a TV show taping, and met Erol, who was the show’s audience coordinator. I got on so well with him that I went back for the entire week, and since then we’ve been good friends. We always catch up when I’m in New York, and this trip is no exception. Sunday evening, after walking through the always-manic Times Square, we took a train out to the suburbs, to Woodhaven, Queens, to meet Erol and his wife, Arbena, for dinner.

We ended up at the TGI Friday chain, where you can buy appetisers at $10 per appetiser and then they keep refilling them, time and time again, every time you ask them to, until you literally can’t eat any more. We initially ordered four plates, spent forty dollars, and ended up eating at least four times that much between our group. It’s insanely cheap, and I can’t, for the life of me, work out how they can make a profit from that. The food and drink were good, but not nearly as good as the company.

After dinner, we crammed into Erol’s Nissan and went back to his place for coffee and many more laughs while watching the end of the Mets game outdoors. It was such a beautiful night to be outside, and it was a shame when it got to eleven o’clock and our bodies reminded us that we’d been up for twenty straight hours. Thanks for a great night, guys! We didn’t even want to leave!

 

The Aussies and the Bal's

 

On the way out to Queens, we took an all-stations train, but got an express one back into Manhattan and made it back to the hotel at about 12:30am, Tuesday morning. I’m really ready for a big night’s sleep tonight!