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Left early this morning and headed out to the Reynold’s Boathouse. Dan’s in-laws were kind of enough to allow us to stay at their family retreat for a few days, so this post will last for a few days as it’s a bit of a ‘holiday’ retreat. The Reynold’s boathouse is a beautiful place, right next to a dock connecting to a huge river. It’s quite densely populated, with houses not less then 5 metres surrounding the house. Very clean and very organised, everything is in boxes and categorised. It has everything a holiday house should, including three large beer fridges. As expected, we ran out of beer on the second day and had to make a beer run.

Dan asked for some LS style spag bol (or as Amanda puts it - ghetto style spag bol) so we got the ingredients and cooked up a storm. Not bad with the local ingredients and I have to say I haven’t cooked for eight people before but it turned out quite scrumptious. Speaking of food we tried out smores, it’s a combination of graham biscuits, Hershey chocolate and marshmallows melted all together. We tried and tried again but in the end we were all unimpressed, a little to sugary tasting perhaps.

The boathouse is right on the edge of the thousand island area, where there are over 1,800 islands and lots of little alcoves. Lauren asked the question if thousand island dressing comes from here, and after a little asking it does! In the early 20th century, Sophia LaLonde of Clayton, N.Y., served the dressing at dinner for guests of her husband, who was a popular fishing guide. One of the dinner guests was leading actress May Irwin. It was Irwin who christened the dressing with the Thousand Island name, and the dressing was served by Irwin’s request at the Herald Hotel in Clayton. The actress also introduced the dressing to the wider world when she gave LaLonde’s recipe to the owner of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.

The local’s or holiday people are pretty ‘wholesome’ in the area. There was even a family of about twenty or so people singing ‘We are family!’ out loud and proud. Seeing so many happy families in the one place is pretty interesting, I can understand why families would want to spend their time here, it’s a very good family atmosphere.
The only unsavoury thing I’ve found is a huge dead carp near the dock (almost a metre in length) washed up. Not only is a big carp, but also a smelly carp which is not what you want. Dan picked it up with a pitchfork and dumped it next to some boat owned by people he despises. Their boat sure did smell.

Dan has shown us the past few days how to freak out on a three seater jetski with a floating biscuit. As hard as we tried, none of us could hold on to the biscuit for each of our trips. Dan was the only person with the papers to use the jetski, but some how I think he had a great deal of fun throwing us around. Greg would definitely have the prize for the loudest person on the water as he screamed like a piggy as he was being thrown around. There were some spectacular crashes and one of the fun things to try is to be thrown off and skip off the water for a bit, I think I flew twenty metres or so before I bit the dust. Lauren decided she’d keep her feet on the firm ground.

Had a nice camp fire where we chilled out some more and drank more and more beer. We even grabbed Greg’s three million candle torch and pointed it at people in the dark across the bay. Man that torch is really freaking powerful, I think some poor bystanders were temporarily blinded.

All in all it was a great little get a way and I’m very happy that we were able to spend this time with Daniel.

Within ten minutes of driving out of New York City we hit what I think represents the majority of the east coast of North America, green green green trees. It’s amazing just how green it is, especially coming from the west coast of North America which was dusty and rocky. I guess you could compare to south-east Australia to north-east Australia, but I haven’t seen much this green in Australia.

I had a little bit of forethought this morning and grabbed a map/guide to Syracuse at the wireless in Starbucks and to make things easier I thought I’d print it out. So I headed a few blocks away (one of the cool things of NY City, everything is close) and found a Kinko’s. After much head bashing and throwing stuff around, I managed to print out two pieces of paper for $1USD. In the end I gave up trying to print from my laptop to the internet and back to the Kinko’s, instead I copied a PDF of what I wanted printed onto a small usb stick that I keep in my wallet. It’s an 256mb Intelligent Stick 2.0, which admittadly pretty freaking small. So small in fact that the Kinko’s guy wouldn’t believe me it was a USB stick until I plugged it into my own powerbook. Anyhow, after all that mucking about I managed to leave the map on a table in Kinko’s (I did picked it up later).

We made it to Syracuse okay with the new Dodge Caravan. It’s little bit larger then our pervious Chevy, though it does have a nasty ding in the back of it that has people shaking heads when we drive by. When we did make it Syracuse it wasn’t all smooth; Dan had to come out and meet us to direct us back to his house. Without a local map, it’s kinda hard to navigate such a sparse town. In fact Syracuse is more of a bunch of small towns strung together with lots of open space, a much needed change from the hustle and bustle of NY City.

All in all, a nice easy day of travelling - time for some rest and for another trip tomorrow out to Daniel’s in-laws boathouse!

Another day another hundred dollars spent. Trying to find something cheap to do in New York City is difficult so we thought we’d go see the Statue of Liberty. On the way there we walked around the Wall St area and checked out the sites. The famous Wall St Bull representing the supposed constant uprising of the American economy was there, and we fought our way to get a nice happy snap with this huge bull that literally had balls of steel.

I thought everyone was getting into it, Greg wanted us to jump on it’s back and ride it but the NYPD had other ideas. Also checked out Battery Park as it’s very close to were the ferries depart for liberty island. I’m not sure what the history of Battery Park is but it has a few cool things, like a navy war memorial for all that perished in WW2, a castle that was built for protection that turned into a opera house and now a ticketing booth, and the most recent addition, a memorial for the WTC Twin Towers. It’s the metal globe that was between the towers, at least what’s rest of it - sought of mangled together.

I like how they made another statue out of the broken pieces, makes it more real I suppose. Other then a few other statues battery park was a mecca for various wares. Including genuine fake oaklies that some of the boys picked up, I think even Adam found a gift for his girlfriend.

The line up for the Statue of Liberty boat ride was over an hour long wait, plus another line up on liberty island to walk up the Lady of Liberty. You can’t walk up to the crown anymore since 9/11, at least until they increase their security measures. So with all the crowds and waiting we decided not to go on liberty island, instead take the sister ship on a more leisurely cruise around the bay and see the green girl from afar.
As we waited to board the ship there was a large vessel that passed fairly close by and made a bit of chop. Watching the previous passengers get thrown around on the boat and the boat being bashed against the dock was making us all a little apprehensive. I think there were a very Americans in line shouting for their money back, but there were no refunds and we eventually all got on the boat. Apart from that little mishap, the rest of the ride was the best $10USD I’ve spent so far. Our guide talked about all kinds of things about the city and it’s history, pointing out famous buildings and bridges and most importantly explaining why. Oh yes and of course quite a few facts of the lady of liberty,

We did closer then the photo suggests, it’s just that there was a rush to getting photo’s taken for everyone. It’s quite spectacular being on an island of it’s own viewing Manhattan and a few other burrows. Our guide even told us a few free things to do when we departed like checked out the Native American Museum which was full of weaving and things. Lauren and I checked out a little of china town which was full of asians, I was wondering where these guys were hiding. We saddled up and took the subway home, where the ticket machine let me in the subway and left Lauren outside. I think the swipe card reader was buggered as it was letting some people out and some people in. With a little panicking and a few choice words we both made it on the subway and headed for home. On to Syracuse tomorrow!

Note: Franger arrived in the city tonight from his extended stay in Vegas and managed to be scammed in the first ten minutes of arriving by jumping in a unmarked taxi cab and being charged $10USD more then he should of, but it’s all good cause he slept on our floor when he got to the motel room.

Woke up late this morning, probably a little too much walking around yesterday and jet lag on Lauren’s behalf. In an effort to beat the traffic we decided to check out the subway system and figure out how to skip walking miles on miles. The NYNY subway has 24 lines and is the most extensive underground rail system in the world, as a bonus when you wait for your train you can look up through steel grates at ladies skirts. Of course having people walk on top of you has its disadvantages like crap falling on you, but since everything else in the Subway system looks like it hasn’t been cleaned for years it’s okay.
The trains themselves are pretty clean, air-conditioned (thank god!) and come very frequently. In fact I think the longest time I’ve waited is ten minutes, usually three minutes is the normal wait time. Pretty impressed with the subway system overall, once you figure out your way and directions the rest is easy.

My lonely planet guide to NYNY was published in the year 2000 and hence has lots of detail on the World Trade Centre Two Towers (including that for $15 you can go to the observation deck!). The group decided we had to check out what’s been happening at ‘ground zero’ so we utilised the subway to reach our destination (Chambers St) and found our way to where the Two Towers were.

It’s no longer ground zero, it’s very much a construction site. There are fences covering all around the huge site with information about the tragedy and what’s happening now. You can’t really see it in this photo but in the top right hand side there is a slightly inspiring slogan on a building that was heavily damaged from the 9/11 attack.

They’ve done quite a bit of work; in the pit there is a new subway (the old one was crushed), new foundations and things like water and storm drains. The buildings around the site are being repaired still as well (seems that there was quite a bit of collateral damage).
There is a piece of the sphere that was in between the two towers that has been salvaged and is now located in battery park. It looks pretty cools, and is bits and pieces of the monument that survived put together. Will have to check that out tomorrow, as we decided to push on and check out a few other places in Manhattan.

In the afternoon we visited Times Square, which in my opinion is one of the coolest things in NYNY and full of advertisements!

Flashing things everywhere, almost like a more condensed version of Las Vegas except no casino’s. There are large companies everywhere with big shops of various wares. You could say it’s almost a shoppers heaven though Lauren hasn’t bought anything yet; she doesn’t liked to be rushed when shopping and everywhere is packed. Hopefully she’ll get used to it, in the meantime her purse will appreciate it.

We found numerous movie theatres, one theatre (AMC 25 Cinemas) had a whole floor of cinemas dedicated to Michael Moore’s latest film - Fahrenheit 9/11. Resting our feet a little we watched this blatant bash on George W. Bush and the American point of view of the Iraq war. I won’t comment too much on the movie as that would require another post - but I was overall content with our movie choice. Seeing the twin tower site before hand added quite a bit of impact (loved the start of 9/11 with the crash of the planes with a blank screen and audio only - quite dramatic). I was disappointed with the amount of time taken in the film to paint Bush as an imbecile and connected with the Bin Laden family. It all made sense though, in a Mooreish type of way - in the end I preferred Bowling for Columbine as it was more a critic on the American culture and less a manhunt. At the end of the film half the audience clapped in approval and I can understand why being in New York City.

Finished the day with a local food shop cooking us some authentic New York pizza, must have been almost a metre in width and very filling! Can’t wait till our adventures tomorrow!

First day of New York, New York and boy is it dirty. Everywhere you walk there is literally hundreds of years old stains and gum your walking on. In fact I learnt today that the island of Manhattan has increased in size of over 30% when the original Dutch settlers landed over four hundred years ago - mostly the landfill is from garbage.

Greg, Ben, Wilko, Lauren and myself went out to venture into the city of Manhattan and check out what it has to offer. Nothing too much in mind, just walk about and figure out what this place is all about. Early on in our extremely long walk today we took a brisk walk from 77th west through Central Park. Utterly huge and was a much needed breath of fresh air

We found some nice Australians (yes we seem to bump into them everywhere!) who took our photo for us next to a big fountain somewhere in Central Park. I say somewhere because we weren’t really tracking where we were going just cutting though and exploring the park as we went. Central Park is quite clean and opened to all walks of life. Having this huge chunk of trees and grass is in my opinion necessary for the people of Manhattan to have a sane life style in this world of concrete and steel.

Speaking of steel, our goal today was to check out The Empire State Building which we found out was quite tall. About 1400 feet including the radio tower at the top - which originally was designed to service zeppelin like aircraft but later discovered that it is too windy. The reason I know this is because I paid another $5 on top of my $10 ticket for a portable MP3 player which had the voice of Tony (supposedly a NYNY cab driver) that gave all kinds of crazy facts about the tower. Like it was built in 14 months (!) and that there were only five deaths in the construction of the skyscraper. I found all of this very interesting and a great way to divert my attention from the fact we were so far high in the air.

Though being high in the air has its advantages of overseeing how big really NYNY is. Tony told me quite a few different things about NYNY and the five burrows (an apt name for suburbs or mini-cities) and the past. Coming from Australia which comparatively make for quite a ‘wow’ factor.

I can understand why people say that NYNY is a tough place to live, it defiantly isn’t a friendly place to be in. Whilst the people are quite mellow and pleasant, there is a bit of a communication barrier between the immigrants and us; it makes for difficult conversation and ordering. I’ll try and just forget about the smells; it’s either rotten, wet, or car fumes.
Imagining how people raise families here is simply mind-boggling but I saw lots of kids and strollers of clearly locals at markets. No, no, not supermarkets as there is no where near enough room - old-skool markets that have quite a lot of gear packed in seemingly army like stacking.

NYNY has been interesting and something completely different then anything I’ve ever seen before in my ’sheltered’ life living in Australia. I always thought Sydney was bad but it’s density is nothing compared to Manhattan! I must admit I’m a little intimidated about it all and I’m not sure who I can trust here. Seeing NYPD cars being beaten up and in poor condition doesn’t really ensure confidence either about the safety here but I’m sure that it’s safe enough. After all, it supposedly is one of the most visited cities in the world!
So far I haven’t really figured out why though.

Lot’s of travelling today - especially for my girlfriend Lauren! She travelled half way across the world to meet me for the east coast part of this trip/tour and here’s a shot of her just as she got off the 12 hour flight from Sydney.

Only to immediately jump on another plane with me to New York - New York. There were a few issues getting her booked on the same flight as me, our travel agent had the brilliant idea of Lauren arriving at 12:00 and leaving to NYNY at 13:00 - it takes 45 minutes to check in on a -good- time! Lots of rushing and running and we get to the gate to find that the flight had been postponed till 14:45 - agh well, at least Lauren has had a little excitement in the States!

The 5 hour flight to NYNY was quick enough, Lauren and I caught up on various stuff and slept a little. When we finally did arrive in JFK airport we retrieved everyone’s bag and headed to a get a cab. After a little hustling and talking we were able to get a taxi able to fit 5 people with bags to manhattan. Lets just say that the cab driver was… game. I think he spent more time in between lanes then he did inside the lanes as he drove us - let alone spending the whole time on the mobile phone. Anyhow, we got the hotel fine at midnight and checked in. The room is nice and clean though a little on the small size, we have a suite with three beds (two queen and one single) and one shower/toilet. It’s pretty nice - though I hope the boys don’t play too many pranks as there is no door between bedrooms.

So we’re in NYNY and everyone is fine. I gotta admit looking outside looks pretty scary, it’s very dirty and grimy. We’ll see how we go tomorrow!