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NYC Day 1: Travel and the High Line
Aug. 4th, 2018 11:30 pmUp just after midnight for the night time drive to Heathrow. The roads were clear and C made such good progress that we made it to Reading services with an hour and more to spare before we had drop off the car. Despite sleeping on the drive down, I was still tired and by the time we got to the departure lounge, it was all I could do to stay awake. As soon as we were all aboard — A got on early after being randomly selected for extra screening — I fell alseep, sleeping through the safety briefing, take-off, and the drinks round, only waking up up when the cabin crew asked me whether I'd ordered a vegetarian meal.
The food was pretty good, for plane food. I got a slightly odd mix of things for supper, including a gluten-free chocolate ganache, whereas the two coeliacs got a fruit salad — who knows why. A and I then went back to sleep for the rest of the flight, missing the round when the crew came round with magnums, but catching the last meal before landing.
Arriving around midday local time, we picked up our taxi and made our way from JFK to the hotel on the east side of Manhattan. The journey was as slow as journeys across New York normally are, but compounded by a number of streets being closed for a cycling event. We got to the hotel at around half-one and discovered that a tour of the high line park was due to depart at two — fortunately, it had been raining in the morning and the trip had been rescheduled — so we dropped our backs and returned to the lobby.
At two, Tina the tour guide set off, taking us on the metro down to the 14th and 8th Avenue, where we walked to the start of the park. The weather was sweltering — fortunately, we paused for cold drinks and ice cream halfway along — and the park was really amazing. Tina was excellent, full of interesting history, and she managed to keep us all together, despite the crowds and our best attempts to wander off.
We finished the tour in Hudson Yards — a hive of development — and then walked the ten or so blocks north to the hotel. After a quick pause to get showered and changed — painfully necessary, what with the high temperatures and oppressive humidity — and met up in the lobby for the hotel's social hour. We had a nice chat with the other guests and after asking the helpful staff for advice, decided to venture out for supper. After a couple of failures to find somewhere with a broad enough GF menu, we happened on Rancho Tequileria on the corner of West 50th and 9th, where they had a range of things on the menu.
After an long, tiring, but extremely enjoyable day, we returned to hotel and went to bed, hours and thousands of kilometres away from where we'd woken up at midnight.
The food was pretty good, for plane food. I got a slightly odd mix of things for supper, including a gluten-free chocolate ganache, whereas the two coeliacs got a fruit salad — who knows why. A and I then went back to sleep for the rest of the flight, missing the round when the crew came round with magnums, but catching the last meal before landing.
Arriving around midday local time, we picked up our taxi and made our way from JFK to the hotel on the east side of Manhattan. The journey was as slow as journeys across New York normally are, but compounded by a number of streets being closed for a cycling event. We got to the hotel at around half-one and discovered that a tour of the high line park was due to depart at two — fortunately, it had been raining in the morning and the trip had been rescheduled — so we dropped our backs and returned to the lobby.
At two, Tina the tour guide set off, taking us on the metro down to the 14th and 8th Avenue, where we walked to the start of the park. The weather was sweltering — fortunately, we paused for cold drinks and ice cream halfway along — and the park was really amazing. Tina was excellent, full of interesting history, and she managed to keep us all together, despite the crowds and our best attempts to wander off.
We finished the tour in Hudson Yards — a hive of development — and then walked the ten or so blocks north to the hotel. After a quick pause to get showered and changed — painfully necessary, what with the high temperatures and oppressive humidity — and met up in the lobby for the hotel's social hour. We had a nice chat with the other guests and after asking the helpful staff for advice, decided to venture out for supper. After a couple of failures to find somewhere with a broad enough GF menu, we happened on Rancho Tequileria on the corner of West 50th and 9th, where they had a range of things on the menu.
After an long, tiring, but extremely enjoyable day, we returned to hotel and went to bed, hours and thousands of kilometres away from where we'd woken up at midnight.
