David Currie

I’ve been getting horribly behind on writing blog posts so I’m going to make a concerted effort to catch up. On the plus side, it means that you’re likely to get just the edited highlights! The first couple of posts cover our Easter trip to the US. Christine has been on sabbatical this semester and we decided to combine her visit to some American colleagues with a holiday in New York and Washington DC.

Christine was already out in the US so I had the pleasure of escorting the children on their first transatlantic flight alone. As anticipated though, they were no bother, with the opportunity to spend quite so many hours sitting in front of a screen going down a treat. We could have done without the 75-minute delay on takeoff and Emma was less than impressed by airline food but otherwise, the journey was uneventful. We were flying into Newark which at least meant the journey to our hotel in Jersey City was fairly short and Christine was there waiting for us on arrival.

The next morning we went in search of breakfast and must have made a good choice given the length of the queue around the corner from the bagel shop. From there, it was a short journey on the PATH train (note to visitors that one ticket can be reused by up to four people) under the river to 33rd Street where we walked around mid-town Manhattan taking in Broadway, the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, the Chrysler Building, St Patricks Cathedral, the Rockefeller Building and finally Times Square. Particular highlights were the Macy’s Flower Show and the Lego Store.

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We were staying in a suite with a kitchen (something that was made affordable by staying outside of Manhattan) so at least when everyone woke early the following morning we didn’t have to wait for breakfast. Just to vary our transport options, we took the ferry today. This time we went up to 39th Street and spent the day at the Intrepid Museum of Air, Sea and Space (the NJ Transit discount made the price more reasonable). The museum has it all: it’s based on an aircraft carrier, has a submarine moored alongside, and has a space shuttle parked on the flight deck! We walked back along the High Line which, I have to say, wasn’t looking at its best at this time of year. It was a good excuse to have a nose at the Hudson Yards development though including the Vessel and the recently opened Shed.

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I felt sufficiently with-it the following morning to go for a run along the waterfront. To even up the science/arts balance we then headed to the Museum of Modern Art. The building was undergoing redevelopment but there was still plenty to see. We then hit Central Park where Christine ticked ‘going for a run’ off her to-do list.

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We couldn’t visit New York without going up a skyscraper and it might as well be the tallest: the One World Trade Center. Even having found a decent discount, it was still ridiculously expensive but on a clear day, there were excellent views to be had from the Observatory on the 100th floor. Perhaps as a consequence of the price, the queues were minimal. We wandered around the 9/11 memorial afterwards but declined to visit the museum which just seemed a little too ghoulish. Instead, we went for a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge.

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For our last full day, there was one obvious attraction still left to go: the Statue of Liberty. The last time I visited NYC as a tourist (over twenty years ago) I had just done the Staten Island ferry. Tickets for the climb to the crown sell out months in advance but getting a ticket to the island that included the museum and ascending as far as Liberty’s feet was easy enough. Unfortunately, the museum is about to relocate from the pedestal to a new building which meant the audio tour described lots of artifacts that had already been moved!

Next stop was the immigration museum on Ellis Island which has enough content in its own right to easily fill a day (including an exhibit by the Clan Currie Society!). The children were definitely beginning to flag a bit by the end though and didn’t appreciate the detour on the way back to the hotel to take in Wall Street.

The following morning, we packed our bags and took one last trip on the PATH train into Manhattan to Penn Station where we were to catch the Amtrak train to DC. It would probably have been cheaper to fly but, not-withstanding environmental concerns, we thought the train would be more fun. If we’d been more on the ball, we would have got one final advantage from our Jersey City accommodation and joined the train later at Newark Penn Station. All that remained though was to sit back in the enormous comfy seats and watch Philadelphia and Baltimore go past as we sped our way south.

To be continued…

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 26th, 2019 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Family, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.