Nicole schreibt...

New York / Connecticut 2010

The call of Broadway was impossible to resist this years for reasons I will come to later and a trip in late September meant, I could finally include the Broadway Flea Market, a big charity thing I had wanted to visit for years. Plus, I finally had collected enough airmiles with dear old Lufthansa to warrant a freebie and I could pick my favorite flight straight from Düsseldorf to Newark airport. Since it got in at 2.40pm already, I figured I could for the first time see a show on Broadway on the first evening already. Especially since "American Idiot", the stage adaption of the successful album by punk band Green Day, which I so badly wanted to see, runs for only 90mins without an interval and is also supposed to be very loud, thus limiting the risk of a jetlag-induced sleep. Well the theory was nice anyway, sadly it the best-laid plans usually don't work as they should.
Manhattan Skyline

Trouble started on Düsseldorf Airport with the news that our plane wasn't working as it should and they'd need to fix stuff on the engine and run more tests. By the time we finally took off we were almost two hours late and my nerves were already a tad bit fried. Luckily we made up some time in the air and arrived in Newark at 3.45pm. And seat A did provide the grand panorama of Manhattan drifting by my window on the approach, just as I had hoped it would! Immigration didn't take unreasonably long and soon enough we were out to catch the coach to New York City. Supposedly there'd be a coach every 15mins but we had to wait more than half an hour for one to turn up. So by the time we were finally on the way into Manhattan, we got stuck in what must be the worst rush hour traffic in the world. Cue for more nailbiting. But somehow it just about went well and we were in our hotel room at 7pm - so with a fast walk across several avenues, I got to the theatre just in time to grab a snack and a drink and then be inside to see "American Idiot" punctually. Now I am not so sure anymore about catching a show on the first evening but hey, at least all went well (more about the shows I saw here).
Friday was supposed to begin with a trip up the Empire State Building - I had got the New York City Pass for a bargain and wanted to make most of it. But it was so foggy, they didn't even let people up. Macy's next door wasn't open yet either, so we went further downtown to take a closer look at Brooklyn Bridge and South Street Seaport as well as another visit to the Ground Zero site where the Freedom Tower is now rising into the New York air and then to Century 21, a highly recommended bargain department store where we spent more time than I feel like admitting here.

Loaded with bags it was better to return to the hotel to dump them there, then tackle the Empire State Building again. It took almost an hour in various lines to get up to the observation deck on 86th floor (I don't want to know what it's like on very busy days) but of course the fabulous view made it all pretty worthwhile (although I admit that it had always looked much bigger up there in various movies than the small walkway that's actually there). By the time we got out, it was already time to head up Broadway for a quick stop at the Drama Book Store, a bite at Starbucks and then the show for the evening, "In the Heights".

Even the Empire State Building is lit up to honor the Germans!

As if the musicals and the Broadway Flea Market weren't enough reason to be in New York that weekend, it was also the weekend of the annual Steuben Parade, when German-Americans celebrate their heritage and lots of groups come over from Germany (including a very noisy one I had the misfortune to share the flight to Newark with me, urgh). The Steuben in question was a Prussian general who came to George Washington's help during the independence war and helped him to whip his rag-tag gang of rebellious colonials into shape and turn them into a functioning army with the help of some good old Prussian discipline.
Conveniently we had planned to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 5th Avenue that morning, where the parade would pass by. After a stroll through Central Park we started our tour of the museum, then took a break when we heard the parade music outside. Of course the steps of the museum also provided the perfect viewing platform to watch things from. Among all the oompah-bands and folkloristic outfits from either "real" Germany or American groups with German heritage I was delighted to see that Cologne had sent their carnival "Prince" with his entourage as well!

Cologne's carnival prince goes New York!

It was all definitely fun to watch before returning into the museum for the second half of the tour. Although to be honest we did skip some parts since the museum isn't only freaking huge, it is also a rather strange jumble of anything from ancient Egypt through European paintings and exotic cultures from Oceania and Africa to Modern Arts.

Colonial room in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

And since time was short and we did want to take advantage of the City Pass, we headed on to the Guggenheim Museum afterwards, which I mostly wanted to see because of it's famous architecture. Which was just as well, since about two-thirds of the museum was closed off in preparation for some new big exhibition, leaving just one room with stuff to look at - an impressive collection of Picassos and some French impressionists (and I would have been rather peeved if I had paid the normal entry fee to the museum instead of getting in for "free" with the NYC Pass).
Going separate ways then I took the bus back to our hotel, and chilled for a while before it was time ato meet my New York friend Carol for dinner and another musical, the muchly hyped "Next to Normal", which was every bit as good as I had hoped.
44th Street is turned into a huge crowded flea market

44th Street is turned into a huge crowded flea market

I had been surprised when Carol said she'd be in Shubert Alley at 9am since the Flea Market wouldn't open until 10am - but when I got there at 9.30 it was already crowded with people. And just like any regular Flea Market, you just have to be there early to snap up some of the best bargains. I got a signed Playbill from "American Idiot" for $10 (those were gone within an hour) and a hoodie from "Legally Blonde", that had been worn on stage during the Broadway run plus some other fun bits and bobs. Pushing and shoving my way from table to table in the masses was pretty exhausting though and I was glad when we crashed into Junior's for a lunch break. I did try (without success) to get a lottery ticket for "American Idiot" and around 3pm finally called it a day on the flea market and returned to the hotel with my loot. It was definitely great fun and probably not my last visit there with all the special items on sale, used stuff that came very cheap (I picked up a CD for $1 and some play scripts for $1-2 too) and of course to feel part of the Broadway community for once.
After a break at the hotel and dropping my loot there, it was back to Times Square one last time, first for a lovely Thai dinner on 8th Avenue, where Hells Kitchen feels like miles away from the touristy mayhem just one avenue further east, and the last show, the 80's rock jukebox musical "Rock of Ages", which was great fun.

After three very warm and mostly sunny days, New York surprised me with a heavy downpour on Monday morning, but luckily I only had to made one dash down Lexington Avenue to Grand Central Station (not that the weather was better along the Connecticut coast). I took the Metro North train to Stamford since it made so much more sense for me to hook up with my buddy Peter outside Manhattan and not have him come and pick me up at the hotel in the mid of morning rush hour madness. All that went pretty well and we went on to New Haven, home of America's famous Yale University. It just seemed a good mid-way stop for our day and for lunch and while strolling around in the rain wasn't all that much fun, I was really impressed by the ancient colonial architecture of the university buildings and the whole majestic feel of the place.

After lunch we went on to our hotel, the gorgeous 18th century Captain Grant's Inn in Poquetanuck, a quaint little place by a cove that branches out from the Thames River (no no, not -that- Thames...) Taking a quick walk to get a better look at the water (and discovering a charming, yet sad, tiny cemetary from 18th century along the way) first, we then continued into our final destination, Mystic. Most people come to visit Mystic Seaport, the huge nautical museum (and on our agenda for the next day), but Mystic itself also claims a little bit of fame ever since the movie Mystic Pizza with a young Julia Roberts was released (and we saw some old women pose for photographs in front of the actual restaurant).

Mystic and neighbouring Stonington are picturesque little New England coastal towns, just as you'd imagine them, but on a rainy Monday evening off-season rather dead. So we got some take-out Italian dinner to take back to the hotel and after the crazy exciting days in Manhattan I actually welcomed an early night in.

Sadly the weather went from bad to worse on Tuesday - while it was still dry in the morning and we could enjoy the first part of the stroll around the historical maritime village of Mystic Seaport, it started to rain solidly around noon and didn't let up, so we could only dash between houses and ships and try to keep dry.

Still I loved the seaport and the Americans' way of bringing history alive in places like this or historic Williamstown in Virginia with all the old shops and people in historical outfits demonstrating old crafts. We climbed up and down several ancient ships from the heydays of New England's fishing and whaling days, visited exhibitions and spent more than half an hour in the village chapel listening to a young woman with a gorgeous voice singing seafarers' songs from bygone days.

Sadly the weather made it impossible to go ahead with the sunset cruise aboard a lovely old schooner we had planned, so instead we stopped by Ye Olde Mistick Village, an artificial little village full of cute shops with all sorts of touristy gadgetry, then returned to play house at the Inn again for the evening, preparing dinner and eating it on our own in the dining room before heading up to the room to spend a few hours with my new Broadway Quiz book. Still, despite the bad weather, I really enjoyed the short stay in Connecticut and seeing a bit of New England.

At least the sun was out again on my last day in the USA. We took the ferry from New London to Long Island and headed out to Montauk Point with its famous lighthouse at the very eastern tip of the island, where we had lunch and enjoyed the sunshine on a little walk along the beach. On the way back to New York we passed through the posh Hamptons, where rich New Yorkers and celebrities own country houses and come out in the weekends to play golf, fish and do whatever else it is that rich people do in the countryside. Even the gas was 50 cents more expensive here than anywhere else on Long Island! Finally we got to Queens and after one last dinner Peter dropped me off at JFK Airport to fly home.

And somehow this trip just felt way too short... so expect me back on that side of the pond soon enough :)