Week three in NYC! It’s been a strange combination of tourist activities and life admin tasks so far. For example, we caught the IKEA ferry (see pictures below) that leaves from Pier 11 in Manhattan and goes straight past the Statue of Liberty on it’s way to Red Hook. So we got our toilet brush along with our happy snaps – say cheese!
After our IKEA saga -which is way too traumatic to re-live and detail in a blog post- the start of the week featured a lot of arguments with IKEA products that would just not budge the way they were supposed too. It was an expensive week, purchasing a lot of necessities– a hairdryer, TV, coffee machine, wine racks etc etc… but we’re finally off the air mattress and onto a Leesa mattress – which arrived vacuum sealed in a tall rectangle box. Unfortunately, we missed the delivery, so we had to carry the 31kg box up the x4 flights of stairs. 😐 (Remember, these aren’t your ordinary stairs – these are your NYC pre-war stairs). At least we’re getting our workouts in.
We’re three blocks from Central Park and during the week we took an after dinner walk to Strawberry Fields. We saw the black and white IMAGINE mosaic and the bronze plaque that lists the more than 120 countries that planted flowers and donated money for the maintenance of the area. The experience was slightly tarnished by the drunk homeless people singing on the park benches… but we looked past that.
The next morning I returned to the park for my first run – it was absolutely stunning and I loved every minute of it. I didn’t really make it that far until I pulled over to take some photographs. I also had no idea where I was going, but luckily they close the park off from 10am to traffic so I just followed the running track along the road. I also kinda joined a tourist group for a while, listening in on what they had to say. Then I quite surprisingly found Belvedere Castle -it’s pretty impressive when you’re not expecting it!
Getting lost in NYC – many tell me it’s hard to do because of the grid and numbering system – yes yes yes I know. It’s easy, it’s easy. Friday – not so easy. I hopped off the subway at Times Square, changed trains to head to Union Square and I got there without a hitch – I was pretty impressed with myself – but then it all went downhill.
This is the route I was supposed to take:
This is the route I took:
To be fair – I was also looking for a Post Office (Found UPS, they were going to charge me $35 to send 2 letters, then she pointed me in the (WRONG) direction of a Post Shop – which ended up being on 4th and 11th – luckily, right next to where I had to be).
After walking for a solid hour, around and around – these blocks are like, really big – I could feel my makeup begin to slide off my face as I got hot and frustrated. Getting even more upset as it had to last all day & night – which it obviously wouldn’t – I slowed my pace. But as I slowed down, I started to get some unwanted attention. Cat calling (wolf whistling) is a big thing in NYC and I was not in the mood. I threw some pretty shady side eye at the old boys as they threw comments as I walked past. Cat calling is disgusting. It comes from old men, grandpas, NYPD police officers (out of NYPD cars?! 😐 ) security guards and oh my god it comes from construction sites. And they’re sneaky buggers. If they’re not whistling from above you on the construction site, they wait until that split second when you’re crossing shoulder to shoulder and they slip in a dirty comment right in your ear. Having a leaky face, they can see the disgust on my face as I roll my eyes.
After i’d finished with all the appointments for the day, I get a message from an old Melbourne pal whose in town. Week #3 visitor #3 – Callum! We head to The Brass Monkey and somehow Callum forgot to mention to me he’s on a bucks weekend… Congratulations Kris! We hung out for a while jumping from pub to pub until it was time to meet Remi in town for some rooftop drinks & networking.
Come Saturday it absolutely bucketed down, but it was a great excuse to spend it indoors at the American Museum of Natural History which was gorgeous!
Culture Adjustments
Cat calling. See above.
Everything here is backwards. You walk on the opposite side, drive on the opposite side, open doors inwards and flick light switches off to turn them on. I’m forever walking into doors but i’ve got the right hand side walk down pat.
All the ads for budget saver stores use African American talent and all the ads for expensive shops use white people 😐
Three weeks in and i’ve been yelled at twice – the first was the lady on the subway in week 1 (refer to blog post 1) and the second was in LOWE’S (our Bunnings equivalent). I walked past a lady in the isle (which had plenty of room) and she yelled after me, “the polite way would be to say EXCUSE ME” I didn’t notice that she was yelling at me so I kept walking, until I heard her say it again louder “the polite way would be to say EXCUSE ME!” but by that time I was half way down the isle so kept walking.
We saw our first bag snatcher incident, where it looked like a man ran up and tried to snatch the handbag of a woman outside Trader Joe’s (think Coles). She was screaming and screaming and would not let go and they were spinning in circles. She eventually got free but then he went after her again, by that time she had run into a group of people who helped protect her from this guy. Then when the guy knew he wasn’t going to get her bag, he just very casually strolled off.
Until next Sunday! xxx
Some saved Insta Stories xxx
The Little Aussie in the Big Apple
