New York City is often described as ‘the city that never sleeps,’ whilst many who know me question if I ever ‘hit the sack’ too such are my random patterns of ’shut eye’. Well, people I can confirm that both New York and I have a common problem: we are both insomniac’s. New York has no excuses, but for my ‘problem’ over the last week or so I can blame airports. Having left Hawaii at 3 a.m. local time I arrived in New York, via a connecting flight in Los Angeles, at 9.30 a.m. the following day. A full 30 plus hours awake. I don’t sleep on planes, by the way. How anyone does is beyond me.

So on arrival I stay awake until 3.30 p.m. - not entirely of my own desire I might add since my room was not ready. After a few hours of pointlessness, a.k.a. sleep, I wake up at 2.30 a.m. and find a fellow insomniac, or in this case an Aussie with jet lag, named Keith. We play some pool and then decide to start our New York adventure in Times Square - at 3.30 a.m.

So off we trot for an action packed day around the very impressive Times Square, a peak down Wall Street, the home of the city’s financial hub, Ground Zero, which was the former home of the World Trade Centre’s, the Statue of Liberty via a ferry, Ellis Island via another ferry and then a short trek around the city snapping away at various skyscrapers, people eating bagels, the rich enjoying their lattes and the poor snacking on their McDonalds’ (the latter was us!).

Day 1 ended at 4 p.m. and it was bed, sadly.

Day 2 - a late rise today since we arrived in Times Square at 5 a.m. Tut tut. We get a coffee and doughnut to ease our pains with ourselves.

Today we decided to get a rather splendid view of New York from the very impressive Rockefeller Centre, the home of a variety of shops, cafes, restaurants, NBC television studios and the hugely posh Radio City theatre which houses the famous Rockets Show as well as many famous artists over the years ranging from Tina Turner, Elton John, the Rolling Stones and most recently Celine Dion. Wow. A great view from the top, a fantastic tour of both studios and a top lunch.

We then have our snaps taken outside Maddison Square Gardens and venture to the ‘real New York’ to the village district. More coffee is drunk before a particularly interesting visit to an exhibition all about the body. We decided to see what we were doing to ourselves and looking at various organs in their display cabinets made us decide that too much caffeine, doughnuts and lack of sleep was not a good idea. We head back to bed at 3.30 p.m.

Day 3: a lie in today. Times Square finally greets us at the absurdly late hour of 9.30 a.m. Shocking. Only science can solve our problems today so we head to the brilliant, and I mean brilliant, New York Science Hall museum in the Queens district. Of course, near by is the home of the US Open tennis so I get my snaps of the various stadium there and my mug shot with Feds, or to you, world number one player, Roger Federer. Wicked. That’s the Aussie Open and US Open in one year yet I still haven’t been to Wimbledon!

Now, on my other four days I did various walking trips enjoying the city and its many cafes. I even managed to get a nice bowl of chicken soap complete with matzo balls, a new nice smelling pair of trainers (wow!) and several games of pool to feed that addiction.

So, New York. For those that haven’t been there you probably just think of big buildings, ‘the big apple’, ‘the city that never sleeps’ and Sex and the City.

Well, you would be very well informed if you paid close attention to all four of those. New York is a big city. Composing of five boroughs: Manhattan, where I spent 95% of my time, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens.

Manhattan is the home of a majority of the tourist attractions and huge skyscrapers, whilst Bronz, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens are generally speaking the more lived in areas. All five boroughs are buzzing though, so do not be mistaken.

Now for its busyness, New York has this real calm, organised and efficient feel about it. Now, it is not quiet by any means but there is very little sign, if any in my opinion, of real aggression and the locals are so friendly and helpful to us tourists it is warming to the point of feeling like you actually belong.

The prices are great when you earn the English pound and the choice of shops for you ladies, bars for us men and cafes and restaurants for the both of us is endless. No matter of your age there is something for everyone in New York and that makes it such an appeal. You are never, ever bored. Whether it be 9 a.m. or 9.p.m., midnight or midday, something is happening.

One thing I deliberately left out of my assessment on purpose was Ground Zero. Now I mentioned it above but I firmly believe it deserves a section on its own.

Ground Zero, as I am sure you are all aware, is the site that remains following the September 11, 2001 terriorist attacks in Manhattan when on that morning, terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City, resulting in the collapse of both buildings soon afterwards and extensive damage to nearby buildings. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Washington. The fourth plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers and members of the flight crew on the fourth aircraft attempted to retake control of their plane.

Excluding the hijackers, 2,974 people died as an immediate result of the attacks with another 24 missing and presumed dead. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals from over 90 different countries, as well as the police and fire departments and additional rescue crew. In addition, the death of at least one person from lung disease was ruled by a medical examiner to be a result of exposure to dust from the World Trade Center’s collapse, as rescue and recovery workers were exposed to airborne contaminants following the World Trader Center’s collapse.

During our tour of the site we were told of the events by two local people. The first was a lady who worked for the Red Cross and the second was a young gentlemen who was working just 500 yards from the World Trade Centre’s on the morning of the attacks. Both accounts were very emotional but very informative and interesting, if that is the right word, to listen to.

New York has re-built itself. It has decided to pull together, stay strong and not let anyone disrupt the life they want to live in THEIR city. This attitude is so very evident. New Yorkers are very determined people, very happy and caring and incredibly welcoming to visitors who share the same principles as them.

This sums up my time in New York perfectly. Their attitude will stick with me for a very, very long time.

I am now in Toronto to pay a visit to Jenna, Caley and Matt - the three Canadians we all met in Vietnam 10 months ago (10, that is scary …) and possibly, Jason, who is around somewhere although I have no idea where. Here’s hopeing on the latter.

As much as I am missing family and friends from home, I really do not want this trip to end. I am going to enjoy every last minute of it. Another year, though, please would be most welcome!

Take care,

Insomniac aka SugarDaddy aka The Resident Journalist aka Not Wanting My Year of Fun To End

This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 3:58 pm and is filed under On the move, New York. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.