What do you MEAN they're closed!!!
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2009
1
96
143
Trip End
Dec 31, 2009
Where I stayed
New York City, New York
Monday, August 24, 2009
So Sunday night, I took my first train in the USA ever from Saratoga to NYC Penn station. The train wasn't "bad", but it definitely wasn't all that great. And I even got the Business Class seat so I could have a table to myself to finish working on the design for a new project at work. The price wasn't that bad though, $77 for a one-way. That's less than the gas and tolls to get to the city, and one day of parking in Manhattan. The biggest problem was the schedule reliability. We left Saratoga 5 minutes late and we arrived in NYC 30min after our scheduled arrival. And we didn't even have it that bad. While I was in the station in Saratoga, the voice came over the speakers telling the Northbound passengers that their train was delayed by 1.5 hours! That's worse than the delays that the flights to NYC get!! Come on, what is going on to delay the trains that much?!? It's not traffic jams....it's not because there are unexpected trains jumping onto the track that the rail companies don't know about....and it's not because the weather is too bad to pull into the station. And then I was told that it's fairly normal for the regular Amtrak trains to run behind schedule like that. It makes not kind of sense whatsoever. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty certain that if the trains in the UK or France started to run 30 min behind schedule regularly, there'd be riots.
The hotel here is nice. I'm in the Hampton Inn right close to Penn Station, and about 16 blocks straight down the Avenue of the Americas from the Brazilian Consulate. The price isn't bad either, considering it's the middle of Manhattan. $200/night gets me a king-size bed with a view of the backside of an apartment building. The room is nice but it's half the size of the room I had at the Diplomat Motel in Elkhart on the ride out to Sturgis (Which cost $38/nt total). Location, location, location.
Now on to today... I got up bright and early to put a few more finishing touches on a design for a project at work... Made my way over to the Brazilian Consulate an hour before they open to non-Brazilians to get in line early (key for any dealings with anything to do with Brazil)... Security politely informs me that the consulate will be closed for the day... DO WHAT! I checked this last week and there was nothing on the website that said they would be closed. Why are they closed, there's no holidays (well, there's always a holiday in Bahia state)? Oh, it's because they're updating the computer system. Sunuvablotch. I swear that when I booked my train tickets last week I checked the website and there was no mention of a closing. But when I got back to the hotel (sad and dejected), there was a notice saying they were closed today. But I swear that it wasn't up there last week. I wonder if when they started the switchover this morning, the IT guy realized he hadn't put a notice up so threw one up on the website today??
So since I got a free day in NYC, I decided to make the most of it. I went all the way up to the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building (been saying Eiffel Tower all day though). I actually liked the 86th floor better though because you can actually go outside. It was a beautiful day for it though. Visibility was 10 miles. I think the pictures speak for themselves.
Then I made my way down to the financial district. Stopped and saw Ground Zero at the WTC. It's sobering to think that so much can be lost so quickly. I actually started to tear up thinking about all the men and women who died rushing into the towers to try to save the people inside. Good thing I was wearing mirrored sunglasses. To get a view down into the site, you can go to the 2nd floor of the Burger King on the corner. Or go to the 2nd floor of 2 Exchange Plaza (or Place). Also walked around and saw the Trinity Church, Wall Street, and some of Battery Park.
Then I decided I wanted to go out to Coney Island. I'd heard about it for years and wanted to see what it looks like in person. And it's really nothing to get too excited about. They do have a good looking beach. But the boardwalk isn't very well maintained and there are few shops and places to eat along the boardwalk. I didn't even bother going inside the little carnival area with rides. It was fun watching the fishers cast their nets into the water from the pier though.
And tonite I'm heading to dinner with Pete, a friend from college who's living in Manhattan and working for LimeWire now. Apparently the hotel here is in "Little Korea". And Korean sounds tasty for dinner to me so we'll find someplace around here.
Comments
Sweet...
I love the train, being late isn't so bad, just think of how much stress you saved by not driving.
Louise
Boa sorte
Brasil is the land of tomorrow...and always will be! Looking forward to today's episode to see if you get your visa.
Re: Boa sorte
Yep, the answer today was amanha