A week in New York

Back to Bermuda yesterday and it is with relief that I don’t have to travel again for about six weeks – home for the Bournemouth match in fact.

New York was fun. A flurry of midweek work meetings was sandwiched between two wonderful long weekends.

The first one was at friends in a lovely little town called Madison in New Jersey. We knew that by flying into JFK on a Friday that we could potentially run into nightmarish traffic. We hadn’t a clue. 

A two hour flight delay meant we landed at 2 .30pm and we then had the gruelling task of batting it from Queens into Lower Manhattan and through the Holland Tunnel to Jersey with bazillions of others the day the schools broke up. 

We spent five and a half hours in the car and by the time we got to our friends there was 45 miles on the clock and my daughter had learnt a whole new range of vocabulary! It was almost funny, no you’re right it wasn’t funny at all.

We had a great time at our friends house though, and drunk, ate and swam in their pool to our heart’s content. 

On Sunday we gave our rental car another test in fuel economy by driving (slowly in traffic) to Coney Island, which is at the southern tip of Brooklyn. 

Often referred to as New York’s Blackpool, that actually does Blackpool a disservice, but the three of us had a nice tacky couple of hours on the kiddie rides, walking the boardwalk and eating hot dogs. The world hot dog eating championship takes place in Coney Island on July 4th. I had one, might’ve been able to get a second down me, but the record? 68 in ten minutes.

We stayed up near Central Park for the week and although the Manhattan Children’s Museum was a disappointment, whilst I was working my girls reported back that Central Park Zoo, FAO Schwarz and Build-a-Bear were a lot more adorable. 

Despite President Obama holding me up, on Thursday night I met up with New York Addick, who was in NYC working for the week, for a few pints and a pile of sushi. It was a great catch up as we debated all things Charlton including the ownership. 

Then on Friday we drove to the barrier island of Long Beach on the southern tip of Long Island for the weekend. New Yorkers I know mostly turned their noses up at our selection of a weekend getaway but we knew we had a silly early flight from JFK back to Bermuda yesterday morning and Long Beach was only 25 minutes drive to the airport and we managed to find a decent hotel to base ourselves.

On the way to Long Beach Friday we made a stop at an indoor adventure playground about halfway on our journey in Plainview. These kind of places just don’t exist in Bermuda, which is to the detriment of all young kids on the island. Likewise we went to a petting zoo and animal farm yesterday called White Post Farm, which was a metropolis of stimulation for our 18-month old. The old goat who is tied up outside a neighbour’s house (no lie) just doesn’t do it, although our daughter insists we stop every time we go by!

Long Beach itself was certainly nothing to write home about. Just three quarters of an hour from Manhattan with an expansive sandy beach and a 2.2 mile long boardwalk (photo) I’m surprised it wasn’t more popular, but sadly the surrounding streets showed signs of neglect and fatigue. 

Our chosen hotel was like a jaguar stuck in a stock car race. It was fashionable and elegant and although well situated it appeared very out of place. Mind you our room was tiny and the service sloppy, at best. It would have been acceptable if it had just opened but The Allegria has been opened for two years.

I forgot to mention that I went on an evening cruise up and down the Hudson River with a client last Monday. The view of the Manhattan skyline is breathtaking. Coincidently I am on another client boat cruise tonight, this time on the flat, crystal clear waters surrounding Bermuda. A different panorama but equally as breathtaking.