2015-07-26: New York Marathon

We have pre requisites for maintaining a healthy mind and body. We have subway cards. We shall tourist it up! We commenced our tourism by abstaining from the subway and instead grabbing a ferry across to Manhattan.

911 monument looking to Freedom Tower. I still think they should have just built new versions of the old ones and acted like nothing happened. That would piss the terrrrrists off more than anything else.

This is because checklist item #2 - Staten Island Ferry - is all about getting a view of the Status of Liberty as opposed to anything intrinsically cool about the ferry. Plus apparently the Staten Island ferry breaks down all the time. We have too much to see and do to risk getting stranded on the river. Seems a good justification anyway.

Statue makes it seem nicer than the reality.

At the ferry terminal there is a monument to the Polish army officers that were slaughtered in Katyn by the Russians in 1940. Ewa was surprised as the Poles didn't know about this massacre until the 90's. I was surprised because it hadn't been moved to make a 911 monument (Freedom tower is directly opposite - there is a 911 monument a few hundred metres down the pier). A local later told me that after 911 most New Yorkers wanted stability and familiarity and the idea of moving anything would have been anathema.

They are even black like the expensive non stick bun heaters

The ferry docks reminded me of those metal spikes that hotdog buns get heated on and I realised our tourist checklist was incomplete. New York is famous for street vendors selling hotdogs. We shall call that item #12 in our revised list. I now realise there is no food on the list. Lists can't unwieldy though.

And just like that another item checked off.

This was awesome. After half an hour we have checked off two tourist items. I think this is the fastest we have ever done anything. On this basis we could almost go home now and not have the worst checklist rating of a city we have done.

Little pocket parks are everywhere. Really pretty. Should be on someone's checklist but ours is full.

Manhattan is an island. In my mind it is quite a small island. There is a place that sells coffee with okay reviews. I want a coffee grinder. The address says upper west wide. I figure that must mean somewhere around the top of the island.

Has to be a Canadian invasion I figure. Would be on an architects checklist I guess.

Google says there is also a place at the bottom west of the island that sells coffee and machines. Unfortunately this place does not exist as far as we can tell.

Ewa loves the water towers. I think they are neat too.

If the island is small and we have already accomplished more than enough tourist items we can wander vaguely up the west side of the island and grab some coffee beans and a grinder.
Turns out the island is sort of bigger than I had imagined it. As the crow flies it a 10km walk.
Given our habit of seeing shiny things and wandering off to check them we took about 5 hours to cover the distance. That is an average of 2km an hour.

US Postal Service is obviously more dedicated than Australia Post

An interesting thing we noticed in our meandering is that Manhattan changes really quickly. 2 blocks of run down apartments with street level shops boarded up or selling tacky consumer crap will change to leafy streets with an obviously gay / artsy / rich feel to it.

I assume a suburb advertising Tom of Finland is a predominantly gay / artsy / rich suburb anyway.

2 blocks later it will be different again.

Places Review: Zabars

mapref
http://www.zabars.com/
+1 for it because it does exist. Unlike that stupid other place.
Big cheese selection and huge fresh roasted coffee range.

Upstairs has a wide range of cooking implements arrayed in that half arsed cram it all in and let the customers work it out manner that I like.

Cramped always a good sign

If we hadn't been tired and thirsty we would have spent a lot more time poking around in here.

Rating: 9/10 (I do not have space to carry much more stuff but was tempted by things)

In my mind Columbus avenue is a street full of bars. We were on Columbus. We found a bar.

They had Beer Pong. Has to be a party street.

My memory is therefore a good guide. Better than stupid google with that other coffee shop anyway