New York, New York

Not the usual starting point for a Latin America trip… but the city that never sleeps was the perfect beginning for our adventure! We spent 4 nights catching up with friends, sampling (in some cases devouring) the local cuisine, being swept away in Broadway musical brilliance, and meandering across bridges and through the streets of New York City!

But no American visit is complete without some form of frustration with Passport Control. It took minutes before the lengthy queues and idle staff was enough to spark Roshni ‘consultant mode’ Patel, scouring the scene for inefficiencies – I guess you can take the girl out of Accenture…

Moving on from public sector incompetence, we got to our Brooklyn hotel and awoke the next morning to stunning views of the New York skyline.

Our view from the Brooklyn Hotel (Accenture perks paying off)

Day 1 started with a stroll to the shores of the East river, looking out at Brooklyn Bridge and the skyscrapers beyond. To everyone in New York this place is called Dumbo, for some reason Rosh preferred Gumbo – perhaps still thinking of the customs staff…

Gumbo (aka Dumbo)

We had some fantastic views ambling across the bridge, dodging the golf-buggy like police cars and giggling at the amateur photo shoots, featuring outlandish and slightly tragic poses.

Brooklyn Bridge, picture posing

We make it into Manhattan. Wandering past little Italy, through Chinatown and just as we pass some industrial warehouses – gentrification hits us like a red brick wall, only its less of a wall and more of a string of expensive coffee shops, vegan cafes and full of wannabe hipsters. Naturally, we sat down and tucked in.

Post hipster lunch – we made our way to Times Square, searching for on-the-day broadway tickets although then realising that Sunday (it was Friday) was a more appropriate day. Although the journey was not eventless.

Tucked away in Times Square lies the towering Marriott hotel, home of the 45 floor glass lift (it’s terrifying). Cal and wee bro Jimmy had gone up and down this lift twice before, on two separate occasions 12 years ago and 5 years ago. Not having stayed at the hotel, not sure how they stumbled across this rollercoaster nightmare. Anyway, we went up from floor 0 to 45, knees shaking, blank fearful expressions and Rosh looked at Cal like ‘why on earth have you taken me up this’. We took the stairs down.

In need of some comfort from the Marriott terrors – Cal tucked into two slices, each the size of Rosh’s face, of divine pizza delight. Some slight mishaps on the subway but we make it back to Brooklyn as the sun goes down. Jet lag kicks in, crash, bang, bed. Day 1 done.

Day 2 was moving day, from hotel to home (Samps’ home). We settled into Samps’ Brooklyn flat and after a quick debrief of day 1’s activities we set off for Sunset park where had beautiful views of the Manhattan skyline (no photo could do it justice).

En route to the city, Samps gave us his whistle stop history of NYC. Our tour guide for the day then guided us across the High Line (a disused train line above the streets turned into a public walkway/garden). Fuelled with cream cheese bagels we left the high line and wandered into the New York public library – fantastic architecture and full of 20 something’s studying or working (there was some smugness on our behalf).

View from the High Line

Enough culture for the day. Onto the night scene of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. We had a drink or two with Samps in a dive bar named Rock n Rola. Joined by some of Samps friends – we began a Brooklyn bar crawl, consuming the ‘local New Yorker experience’ and some more drinks…

Day 3 kicked off with another trip to Times Square and the hunt for theatre tickets. Fuelled by some pancakes and peanut butter jelly bagels (breakfast of the champions), we got tickets to see School Of Rock, a play akin to the movie and every bit as good, if not better! The guitars, the singing and we even snuck in one more bagel at the intermission! You can’t beat that. Post rocking, we were exhausted, the Big Apple had shattered us and we needed some chill time before our early morning flight southwards. New York, done.

Front rows seats for School of Rock!

Times Square (for the third day in a row!)

This blog has become some what of a conversational piece between us – and we have decided to include a couple of headliners/favourites/practical saviours at the end of every article, so here goes…

Song of the Blog: School of Rock, Stick it to the man! There’s no better way to start a year away from a corporate giant than, as the song goes, sticking it to the man!

Top of the Props: The Cube. This ones for the gadgets, gizmos and whatever else we packed away that helped us the most. The cube is essentially a multi socket plug, but with more devices than pairs of shoes on this trip, the power charger prepped us well for the 24hr journey to Argentina!

Restaurant to remember: The Butchers Daughter. We mentioned it above but this is place where gentrification delivered Rosh’s all time favourite sandwich – a vegan Rueben, filled with vegan cheese and supplemented with a Brazilian fruit smoothie – simply divine!

“The best sandwich of my life” Roshni Patel, 03/11/17

Next stop, Buenos Aires!

Love & hugs,

Cal & Rosh xxx