14 April 2019

Jetlag - it’s the strangest thing. How one’s body just gets into a rhythm of when it should wake, eat and sleep. Today I woke at 4am to a quiet street - no honking or sirens. The City that never sleeps actually does have a little doze. I tried hard to go back to sleep, and after a little time in and out of snoozing I finally gave in at 5.30 and then Andrew woke up too.

We have a Starbucks opposite our hotel, so Andrew popped out to get coffee, whilst Oli and I planned our route for today. We have a bike tour planned around Central Park, a two hour guided ride.

We made our way to Penn Station. It is HUGE. A maze of corridors leading to tracks and Amtrak, Long Island Railroad and the Metro. Finally after asking lots of people, we found a helpful one who directed us to the Metro area and we, somehow, worked the ticket machine to get ourselves on the way. We took line 1 towards Columbus Circle. The subway is a little confusing in that the trains show the trains’ start and finishing destinations. I’m still not sure why you need to know where it came from, but I maintain that if we can navigate the London Underground, we can manage anything.

When we arrived at Colombus Circle, the weather was glorious. Blue skies and bright sunshine.

We walked the edge of Central Park (in the Upper West Side of Manhattan) and found our way to the bike shop. Thanks to jetlag, we were very early. We found a grocery store that had its own cafe. It was perfect. Andrew had a full breakfast (bacon, eggs, sausage) in a roll, I had french toast with bacon, and Oli had a grilled cheese sandwich. All with fresh juice and delicious coffee. Fully fed and watered we went back to the shop for our bikes. We met our guide Garrett and he went through a few rules, and then we (and 15 others) made our way to Central Park. It’s scary cycling up 5th Avenue with yellow taxis by your side, but it was quite a moment!

We entered the park near the horse and carriages.

We cycled around the perimeter of the park for a few minutes and once we had cleared some crowds, Garrett gave a brief history of the park. We didn’t know that it was completely man made. NY is basically granite. So they took granite and blew up sections of it with dynamite. It was designed and laid out in 1857. It has only one straight path (the Mall) because the park designers felt that walking straight means you only see one aspect of a view (like tunnel vision).

Next stop was the Bethesda Fountain. It a beautiful area, and a spectacular fountain, seen in many films - if you like Elf - you will know that Santa clipped one of the wings with his sleigh. Garrett gave us some time to walk around and take photos. He advised us that this is not the fountain from Friends.

Next stop the Jackie Kennedy Onassis reservoir. Jackie O had donated millions to the park over the years, and was a campaigner in saving many historical buildings in Manhattan and was often seen jogging in the park.

Our final stop was Strawberry Fields. Named after the famous Beatles song and dedicated by Yoko Ono to John Lennon after he was tragically shot dead outside his apartment block. The area is designed as a place of reflection and had originally had one plant species from every country in the world, as well as strawberries! The strawberries have all been eaten by the park squirrels now, but the flowers in the area were stunning. The centre piece of the park is a mosaic on the ground, where people stop for photos and lay flowers. I hope that in 100 years this area still touches people’s hearts in the way it does today. Long after John Lennon’s death, his musical impact is still not forgotten.

So, we were done - cycled back down 5th to the shop and said goodbye to Garrett. We had thoroughly enjoyed our trip.

We walked back to the park, bought a hot dog, chili dog and cheesy fries from the hot dog seller (the hot dog sellers pay 200k dollars a year for their pitch, so you can imagine the hot dogs cost us more than a dollar) and we sat in the beautiful park watching people enjoy their day. Families, joggers, skaters, couples in love all using this wonderful facility in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world.

We went walking towards a shop selling tech that Oli wanted to visit and spotted a softball game taking place, so we sat on the bleachers and watched for a while. No idea what was going on, but fun anyway.

We walked to the shop and to Oliver’s disappointment we found that the headphones he wanted were sold out in the whole of New York. We then walked back via the park to the Apple Store. We spotted some interesting sculptures on the way.

The Apple Store was packed! No way that anyone is saving their cents in NY!

We had a long walk and popped in and out of some shops, and finally found our way back to Grand Central, where we stopped for a cocktail. Then a walk via the beautiful Rockefeller Center to watch the skaters.

Totally exhausted, we walked to our restaurant, Bill’s Burgers and had a delicious meal and took the subway back to our room. All tucked up in bed by 9pm. Life in the fast lane for the Bryans!