A Giant Morning in New York

If you had the best part of 9 hours of spare time by yourself in New York City, what would you choose to do? To start my day off I went along to a Giant party.

I have to admit, much to Norngirls annoyance sometimes, I do like to wing it. Norngirl was going on a shopping/food spree and had meticulously planned her day alone for weeks before.

To be honest, I'd only ever planned to maybe think about planning it some more and yeah, I never quite got around to doing that planning - so all that I had decided for the day was that I wanted to go to a beach at some point. I was at the mercy of New York and whatever it wanted to show me.

It turns out that not planning is sometimes the best plan, for this morning was the morning of the 7th February 2012 and as luck would have it, this was the day the Vince Lombardi Trophy was coming to town with a million happy American Football fans. As I mentioned in my Monuments and Memorials at Night post, the New York Giants had just won the Super Bowl - the Champions League final of American Football and I happened to have nothing to do... the gods TV had spoken - I was going to the homecoming to see what all the fuss was about.

Before I gate crashed my first ticker tape parade, I had to get there. With plenty of time to spare, I decided to see a bit more of this bustling city and went for a walk... a 3 and 1/2 mile walk. Along the way I found out the gutting reality that the deli that served the best BLT sandwich I'd ever eaten had become some chain restaurant. I was displeased.

It's hard to feel disheartened for long in a city like New York though. Every street has the possibility to spring a surprise so I kept walking and before long I found myself at Washington Square with a mini-Arc de Triomphe.

I kept walking and the number of people wearing Giants shirts increased. Before I knew it I was in a sea of American Football fans being directed by police to walk down a street that led to Thomas Paine Park.

And that's where I stood for the next couple of hours with an ever increasingly excited crowd. It was all in good spirit though, the nutters climbing up the trees and being shouted at by the police were maybe taking things a bit far.

Though this guy needs an award for finding what must have been the most uncomfortable spot.

There were also some people were dressed up more for the occasion than others.

Not as far as the guy who decided to climb up to the window of the 1st floor of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation building and promptly fell the moment the people in the room opened the window. That got a big 'Oooooooo' followed by laughter. Some folks were determined to get a good view of the rest of us ants, going as far as perching precariously on the roof of their building.

Also out of the windows, some people threw their toilet roll, ran out then took to throwing kitchen roll... it didn't work so well and a short time before the real parade began, we had a parade of street cleaning vehicles clearing a path.

The fans around me were eager to see their heroes and eventually, in a very sporadic manner they came past us to the delight of the crowd and the people in the surrounding buildings.

Once the parade floats and trucks had passed us, people began to dissipate into the rest of the city. Overhearing conversations, some were heading to New Jersey to the stadium for more celebrations, others heading home or to a bar. Who was working that day?

Me, well I was heading to the beach, more on that in my next post but before I could get the subway there, I needed to find my way back. Easier said then done with literally a million people trying to vacate a small area of an densely populated island. I thought it best to just take in the atmosphere a bit to let things quieten down.

I've never seen this sort of thing on this scale. Sadly, Leeds haven't had any such success whilst I've been old enough to attend such events and Crusaders have had success but in a city something like 20 times smaller than New York and as one of 6 or more sides in the area, our fan base isn't quite a million strong for a weekday parade.

This parade was quite a sight in terms of people on the streets, the actual parade of a few bands and a few trucks was quite low key in comparison but I really got the feeling of what a proud and passionate bunch of supporters the New York Giants have.

Eventually, after following the path of least resistance (I was now totalling 5 miles walked for the day according to my route on Google Earth) I found my way to a subway station somewhere on 6th Avenue for a ride to Coney Island.

The Ride into Manhattan

The Washington to New York train journey was our first experience of Amtrak and I realise we were not on a packed commuter service but, dude!... seats bigger than Premium Economy on a plane, power sockets to charge stuff with by every seat and compared to UK prices, oddly reasonable for the distance.

I know, I'm easily impressed. Anyway, as Norngirl has already given a great review of our day - and quite frankly I don't think I can add anything more of any substance to it - I'm just going to provide a few extra photos from the day. Just a couple of the views out of windows as we covered the 225 miles of railroad and arrived in New York - sadly a lot of them didn't really come out well, so there aren't many - note to Amtrak - please wash your windows more often.

Philadelphia through the train window.

A sign that we'd reached Newark Penn Station

Back to the Big Apple - the Skyline of Manhattan and Jersey City appeared.

Admiring the one of the views from the hotel window before getting back out into the city that never sleeps.

The White House and Final Thoughts on Washington, D.C.

Our trip to Washington, D.C. was a short one. 1 full day and 2 half days and this was the last half a day, a Monday morning. We always find it tricky doing touristy things on days where we're travelling too, it has to be well co-ordinated and preferably something nearby. With that in mind we held off checking out of the room in order to take a walk to nosey at the White House and to grab some breakfast.

The White House was about a 15 minute walk from our hotel and even though the building itself turned out to be smaller than we'd imagined it to be, we could see it most of the way, such is the road layout of this purpose built capital city.

The walk took up past quite a few random buildings and the odd statue, things that aren't hard to find in D.C., for instance, this is a view from our hotel room window:

I was happy to find the National Geographic Society building because I have a chronic case of nerd.

We became slightly more pass-remarkable than usual as walked past a Church of Scientology, seriously like, as if the old religious institutions weren't bad enough. After that the White House was looking a bit nearer and within a minute we'd walked through Lafayette Park and joined a few other tourists in sticking our noses through the railings to get a better view of the place. Quite a grand little building, though much smaller than I'd imagined.

We didn't stay too long and headed slowly back, only yards away from the grounds of the White House sits Concepcion Picciotto's anti nuclear protest.

Back in Lafayette Park we took a closer look at the General Andrew Jackson's statue.

Norngirl, even without anything but her animal magnetism, managed to make a friend of a Squirrel in the park.

And there were plenty more looking on from the trees.

We then made our way back up another street and had some breakfast in a coffee shop before checking out of the hotel and finally finding a bus that came when we needed it which took us to Union Station.

Where we caught our train... destination, New York, New York.


Here are my final thoughts on Washington, D.C:

Basically I found it to be a strange city.

The place is seemingly purpose built for government and smooth running of a country but yet it seemed to us to be a capital that you'd not really want the rest of a country to be like because it's not really a city that functions like a regular city. Maybe that's the point?

On the whole it was a pleasant trip but I have to admit I left it slightly tainted with strong images in my mind of seeing a high proportion of homeless people. That and bus timetables that may as well have not existed.

Washington DC is a capital city that I found was lacking a heart and soul compared to most other capital cities I've visited. The culture is there in the form of museums and sports, but for me it seemed to lack a connection - something human and vibrant rather than oversized buildings with empty streets. Most cities I know come to life on a weekend but Washington was an exception.

The simplest way I can describe it is that Washington DC is just like one big front end 'anywhere in the world' government office building - a place that is pretty empty outside of office hours and seemingly there to be functional at minimal expense on the inside, yet on the outside extravagant and grand, styled enough to try and impress stakeholders when they visit.

There is enough there to see if you want to visit specific buildings, mainly the Smithsonian museums and see the monuments but I think if I lived there I'd get pretty bored and annoyed very quickly. It is somewhere I'd visit again for another couple of days but not somewhere I'd stay for a week or more. The northern parts of the city seemed the most 'alive' but there wasn't much to write home about. So yes, a strange city, I guess this is largely due to it's functionality but surely it can't be that tricky to try and bring some life into a capital city, planned for federal use or otherwise.

A place to visit but probably not to stay - though saying that, our hotel room was probably the best on our trip... go figure.

Monuments and Memorials at Night

On our second day in Washington DC we went on a tour called 'Monuments by Moonlight' that was run by Trollytours. It was maybe a bit pricey for us for a tour ($31.50 each even with the on-line reduced price) but in the end, with the luck of it being dry and having a clear night sky, it turned out to be worth it. The tour turned out to be pretty cool, there were very few of us on the tour on the night we took it (the night of the Superbowl). We took in a lot of the sights of Washington DC including a quick jaunt over the river into Arlington, Virginia to the Marine Corps War Memorial where we also got a great look back over the city.

I got a bit snap happy with my camera, here are some more of the photos I took of some of the more famous memorials and buildings that we saw:

The Capitol Building

The Jefferson Memorial

Martin Luther King Jr Memorial

The Washington Monument reflecting in the Tidal Basin

One of many water features at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

Part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

Abraham Lincoln Statue at the Lincoln Memorial

Carved Eagle at the Lincoln Memorial

Close up of the Abraham Lincoln Statue

Carved Words on the Wall of the Lincoln Memorial Building

Korean War Veterans Memorial - very eerie at night, these statues are bigger than your average human.

Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington

Marine Corps War Memorial - Up close

To finish off a nice ending to the day, our very informative driver was even kind enough to drop us home outside our hotel where we ordered in a late dinner of sandwiches from a diner.
Oh yeah, and if you're the only person in North America who didn't know, the New York Giants won the Superbowl - not that I care much about American Football (sorry!) but it was to prove helpful in filling some time the next Tuesday in New York.

Walking around Washington DC

After an evening of the unexpected on day 1 in Washington DC, day 2 of our visit started off the same way but ended nicely.

So following a good sleep in a bed that didn't bend my spine in strange places (unlike our one at home that does), I woke up as if I'd got up at lunchtime. My body clock likes going to this time zone, it's the only time I can get up at 7.30am and feel like I assume most 'morning' people do *shakes fist at morning people*.

With me wide strangely awake and a little hyper, and Norngirl not so much so (caffeine hadn't yet kicked in), we spent the next half an hour or more stood waiting on a bus. This was getting to be an all too familiar ordeal. Eventually it came and it took us within sight of the route it had taken the night before... only to then be caught in a one way system that circumvented the place we wanted to be. Realising this, we got off at the nearest available stop - by the agricultural department - we wanted to be outside the old Post Office, ah well. So we made our way across the mall and had a look at the Washington Monument.

We knew where we were going but stopped to check the sign for later to see which of the buildings was the museum we were going to. Before we'd chance, we were approached by a guy who was trying to sell free maps (one of which we already had) to tourists. This seemed to be a big thing in Washington DC, there were an awful lot of homeless people and it seems their main source of income is anyone who looks like a tourist. As bad as it feels to say no to someone trying their best to emotionally manipulate you into buying something you don't need nor want, we did say no thanks and got the 'ah you didn't do anything wrong' guilt spiel. I tend not to give money to homeless people. It might sound harsh but in the UK I put money into official charity boxes instead where it might be spent on food and shelter and not on the cigarettes and alcohol that plenty of homeless folks seem to have on their person. At least that way the money can be used constructively to help even if it doesn't address the immediate needs or wants of a person on that individual day.

All that aside, we made our way along the path past another homeless person who was wandering the lawn who shouted something at us, the other few tourists or another homeless guy that was indecipherable that didn't sound friendly. We quickly moved on to find our way to the Old Post Office.

We had planned to go up the tower to take a look but the place was deserted and by the time we found a sign stating which entrance to use, we were already running behind schedule so gave it a miss. Afterall, we didn't want to be towed for idling... in this usually warm winter it just wasn't cold enough for us to stay there for long.

Instead we walked past the FBI building where a very enthusiastic lady from out of state sung the praises of Washington and told us how she'd been up the old post office tower before... at least someone was having a good time in this city!

Next we found civilisation as we walked past Ford's Theatre. Norngirl was amazed that I didn't know the reference as to why it was an infamous location, ah well, I knew a matter of seconds afterwards that it was the theatre where Abe Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

The streets were still quiet but we soon discovered the population of Washington DC appeared to be having brunch. So we joined them and had brunch.

It was a quick brunch though for our itinerary had us down to be at the Verizon Centre to watch the Boston Bruins Vs Washington Capitals. I'll be putting together a separate post on our 3 hockey games from the trip (so I'll put a link here once I post it near the end) but for now, here is the cool inside of the Verizon Centre, a cool place to watch hockey!

Finally having found something happy to do we were in better spirits and walked down the hill to the mall where we saw a few more sights along the way.

Sights like this place that I can't find the name of and that I didn't know what I was looking at at the time...

And the Capitol Building... from this angle, nestled in a construction site.

Our destination was the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum, the one with this big piece of modern art outside it that reminded me of the road system in this city.

And here is me taking a photo of the national mall through the reflection of it in the windows of the museum.

The National Air and Space Museum was awesome, I especially liked the space exhibits. I could have stayed in there the best part of the day but we only had a couple of hours until it closed. From seeing yourself through a live thermal heat camera to a simulation of a NASA moon landing there was plenty to see and do.

There seems to be something about ice hockey and museums that makes for a fun day - like our awesome day in 2010.

After leaving the museum it was getting on a bit and the sun was starting to set.

The evenings entertainment for us was a monuments by moonlight trolley bus tour but to get to Union station we had 2 buses to catch - we waited for 5 minutes before opting to walk it to just catch the 2nd of the two buses and we walked up to Chinatown. Hard to miss Chinatown in Washington DC, the start of it looks like this:

In that time, our bus didn't pass us so it was a good choice. It wasn't such a good choice to leave that bus stop after 10 minutes and walk to the station. Our bus went past us about half way. Ah well, at least we knew we'd get there on time + the place looked pretty in the twilight of a cloudy dusk and into the dark of the late evening, so walking, although bad for Norngirls hip, was a nice way to see the city a bit more.

Anyway, before too long, there we were at Union Station and in time for our tour with time to grab some food in the station's food court.

Washington had grown on me a little but there was still much to see that day, albeit in the dark... on the Monuments By Moonlight Tour...