NEW YORK, NEW YORK May 30th 2009

Sorry for the delay in postings guys, we have not had very good internet access where we have been and this is the first chance to get something done! So here goes.

We arrived in New York on the morning of the 30th May after another extremely early morning (Im not enjoying that part!). We were meet a lovely brother named Rudy at the JFK airport. Flying into NY city was amazing. It was a clear day and you could see for miles. Suddenly on the horizon Manhattan City began to arise. It got bigger and bigger as we drew closer although we were still literally miles away from it.

On the way to Rudys house we went to Cosco which is a type of wholesale store where you can buy anything you can think of. There were big screen TVs there were clothes and then there was a huge food area. That was where we were heading. The place is very similar to Gilmours in NZ but with more variety and its much, much bigger. We wandered around with our tiny sheltered NZ eyes wide open, our mouths even wider. On every bend there was a person offering free samples, to which we availed ourselves, no need for lunch that day! We filled our trolley with food to keep us going for the week so we wouldn’t need to buy too much in the city as it is very expensive in NY. Then home to Rudys we went.

Driving in NY and this was not right in the city it was in Queens, was an experience to say the least. People were tooting and weaving all over the road, dodging in and out of the traffic with not a care in the world for themselves or those around them, another eye opener. The roads in NY are terrible to drive on. Due to the snow in winter they have to use salt to melt the snow away, but a byproduct of doing this, is the salt eats the asphalt and the roads become full of pot holes and bumps making for a very uncomfortable drive as you try to avoid driving into a hole big enough to swallow the car, whilst trying not to drive in the other lane and hit someone, whilst trying to avoid the other cars doing the same! Hmmm, I was quite pleased we did not rent a car here! We did however make it home safe, phew!

The housing in Queens was also quite different to what we had experienced in NZ and in LA. Rather than each house having some space around it, they were so close you could stand with one arm out to your side and hit the house next door. Some of them did have backyards but they were not very big at all and rarely had grass, most people had covered them in concrete. Driving down the average street in this part of town, all the house are exactly the same design, only different colors. The streets are usually lined with trees which is quite nice and breaks the concrete jungle up a little. We didn’t really feel to safe pulling out our video camera and filming the houses as we didn’t want to run the risk someone would take offence and chase us up the road with a gun. We did get some footage but not that much, unfortunately. Apparently if you drive 30 mins from where we were staying you would see houses with huge yards and grass, etc, but it was really quite hard to believe when all you could see around you was house after house after house and then concrete, concrete, concrete.

Rudy lives in the house he grew up in, which was cool. He bought it from his mother, so its nice that its still in the family. The houses in this area are all three stories. They have a basement that is under ground, this had two bedrooms and a bathroom in it, then upstairs on the second floor, (from the street this is the ground floor) this had the kitchen, dinning and living room in it with a ranch slider leading out into the back yard. The top story of the house is rented out to a brother so we didn’t get to see that.

We had dinner with Rudy and his sister. Dave got to have his very first American hotdog and hamburger, he was a very happy boy! After eating dinner, Rudy asked us if we would like to go for a bike ride. We said yes, that sounds great. He said that we would drive into Brooklyn and leave the car there, then bike around a little. In my head, I thought that meant that there must be a park or something that you could ride around in, well that was not what happened at all!!!! A little something for you to wonder about. Our bike tour will be in the next edition, stay tuned!