What better place to end a year of travel than the biggest and baddest city of them all? Exactly what we thought. So the 93rd flight of our sabbatical took us to the 28th and final destination of the list of 28: New York City.
Of course New York used to be called New Amsterdam until our Dutch ancestors decided to trade it for the South American country of Suriname in 1667. The trade of a lifetime. I guess it was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time.
Leave it up to us to go and visit NYC in the middle of a massive heat wave. Temperatures got up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit during our stay (not that it meant anything to us as it took us a full week to figure out that this actually translated to 38 degrees Celsius).
On Monday we rented a car for a day to go to an outlet village an hour or so north of New York called Woodbury Common. Endless streets full of outlet stores where people show up at 10:00 in the morning with empty suitcases in search of a bargain and leave at 17:00 fully satisfied with a piling suitcase in tow. No prizes for guessing whose idea this was.
They got the same guys who designed hell, have a go at this, and to be fair I think they did a fantastic job. I only think they were a little bit off with their slogan - "Premium Outlets" - I would have called it "Taking Hell to the Next Level - but for the rest, no complaints. When my time finally comes I expect to get a reduced sentence on the basis of what I went through on that day.
Other lessons learned in the Outlet Hell: don't just assume that if a fat guy wears a t-shirts with the text "I was in Miami bitch", it means he has a sense of humour. He won't. And he won't appreciate it when you tell him "Nice t-shirt bitch".
Anyway, Em loved every second of it and that's all that really matters isn't it?
Having decided to take a day off to recover from my disastrous shopping experience, I managed to get sunburnt in no time while chilling out at the Gansevoort Park Avenue's rooftop pool the next day. In the evening we had planned to go and meet our friends Sheetal and Lisa for dinner in Irvington, a 45-minute train ride from Grand Central. Always looking to impress, I decided to arrive fully prepared and as such Googled the little town. Wikipedia wasn't too flattering of Irvington and the "crack epidemic" coupled with "the highest crime rates in the State" got us slightly concerned. You can imagine the relief when we found out there are actually two Irvingtons close to NYC, one in the State of New Jersey and one in the State of New York. Fortunately for us, Sheetal and Lisa live in the Irvington in the State of New York and that Irvington was voted "The best place to live in the State” last year. A close escape on our part.
In Irvington we also had the pleasure of meeting Sheetal and Lisa's adorable 2 1/2 year old daughter Lucy. Lucy wasn't sure what to make of us initially and when we were all about to leave for dinner, she pointed her little finger at us and asked her mum: "What is happening with this one and this one?" Lucy was clearly still unsure whether she should take us along for dinner or ask her parents to lock us up in the basement. She finally agreed that it would probably be easiest for everyone involved if we would just join for dinner.
Having safely returned from Irvington - which is absolutely gorgeous by the way - we returned to what we do best: eating. Our favourite steakhouse in NYC is and remains Peter Luger in Brooklyn. You feel like you have just landed on the set of "The Sopranos". Established in 1887, it is now owned by two sisters in their seventies called Amy and Marilyn. Marilyn still checks the meat shipments herself in the morning each and every day. You won't encounter an easier menu than at Peter Luger. It consists of "Steak for One", "Steak for Two", "Steak for Three" or "Steak for Four". They toss in the patented Peter Luger steak sauce for free and we made sure to order one of the killer creamy spinaches on the side. If you manage, make sure to finish with the legendary cheesecake or pecan pie with whipped cream. Take wads of cash though, as this is a cash only place, the mob doesn't take plastic.
Other places we can recommend include The Striphouse in the West Village (don't expect naked ladies, do expect some fantastic steaks), La Esquina in Little Italy (a cabbie pit-stop turned taco stand, with a hidden, celebrity packed restaurant downstairs), Balthazar in Soho (for some French styled lunch and delicious profiteroles for dessert), Quality Meats close to Central Park (for some of the biggest steaks you have ever seen) and finally Sushi Yasuda in Midtown (for some ankimo (steamed monk-fish liver) or fugu kara-age (flash fried blowfish with ponzu sauce)).
One of the most bizarre shops we ever set foot in must have been The American Girl store on Fifth Avenue. I prefer to refer to it as "The Doll Freakshow" but that is just personal preference. Here you can buy a doll that actually looks like you (assuming you are a girl under the age of 10, otherwise it will get slightly complicated). They even have a "Doll Hairsalon" where you can get your doll a nice little haircut (at the bargain price of $20) or god forbid if your doll has fallen down the stairs you can take her to the "Doll Hospital". Dolls start at $100 and can go up to anything around $500. We found it all slightly unnerving, but it definitely was an eye-opener.
We also managed to squeeze in a Cirque de Soleil show on Broadway called Zarkana. There must have been some elaborate storyline about a quest to find some long lost love but somehow I always manage to completely lose track of these Cirque de Soleil plots within five minutes of sitting down. The show has some amazing acrobatics and somehow they always just make it to the other side. Pretty amazing entertainment.
We are probably the only people in the world who found MoMa pretty underwhelming. MoMa just didn't do it for us. We just didn't get it. The Alexander McQueen exhibition at the Metropolitan, however, was a completely different affair. Even I have to admit that McQueen clearly was a genius.
In between writing damning reviews of legendary museums, we also made some time to catch up with friends and family. We met Em's aunt Judy for dinner at Gotham Bar & Grill, had a drink with Paddy (aka P-Daddy (joke courtesy of Karla Bonatti)) in the Meatpacking district and had a coffee at Paulson & Co's offices with Lisa and Michael as part of our FFL extortion scam. We also squeezed in some touristy stuff, such as a visit to the Statue of Liberty /Ellis Island and a visit to the impressive 9/11 Preview Museum.
On the day the first ever Dutch-born baseball player made it into the Hall of Fame - Bert Blyleven, a pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, born in Zeist and infamous for his nasty curveball - we made the pilgrimage to the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.
Given the historic achievement, I think Bert deserves an honorary mention in this blog. USA Today had a great anecdote about Blyleven’s first steps into professional baseball: When Blyleven was first called up to the Twins as a 19-year old in 1970, he was instructed in a telegram to report immediately to manager Bill Rigney. So when Blyleven arrived at the team hotel in Boston at 02:00 in the morning, he went straight to Rigney's room to wake him up. Rigney, wanting to share Blyleven's naivety, told him, "I want you to go to all of your teammates' rooms now and tell them that you're here and get back to me." Blyleven reported back to Rigney at 03:30. When Rigney asked whether Blyleven said hello to everybody, Blyleven said, "I tried, but nobody was in yet."
Good old Suresh - who nowadays looks like a modern-day Tupac Shakur - managed to get us some tickets for the Yankees vs. Oakland Athletics game. I just find baseball fascinating, you've got one guy throwing a ball at someone standing 18 meters away at speeds of up to 150 km per hour in between frantically touching his ears, head and nose while a bunch of other guys just seem to stand around enjoying the sunshine. By the way I have no complaints about the batter, if somebody kept on throwing balls at those speeds at me, I would try to punch his lights out with a baseball bat as well. The MLB must also be the only league in the world were every team plays an astonishing 162 games a season. This game finished 7-5 in favour of the Yankees. Best name of the game was courtesy of the A's centerfielder, whose name was “Coco Crisp”. His parents must have had such a laugh when they came up with this. Probably also one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time.
We spent 10 days in the Big Apple and what a great city this is. I don't think we could have come up with a better place to end over a year of travel as this was also the last destination on our list of 28. What a blast we had, six continents, 28 countries, close to a hundred flights and a fortune down the drain. We traveled in style most of the time, roughed it some of the time. We got chased by dynamite throwing miners, jumped out of planes, learned how to ski, crashed sand-buggies, visited old friends and made new ones. We loved each and every minute of it. You thought it was all over, well, it is now.
Next blog: The List of 28: Our Slightly Trivial Travel Statistics
