Saturday, May 16, 2009

Big day in the Big Apple

Well, my repatriation is more or less complete. Martin and I spent yesterday
walking and eating our way through New York. The boat is anchored in a
little cove behind the statue of Liberty. The anchorage is a great find, and
we would never have heard of it except for the good crew of SV Sayonara.

The first night. Martin and I hit a Japanese restaurant that featured a lot
of rules on the menu, like "No fighting, having sex or throwing food in the
main dining room", "The restaurant cannot be held responsible for injury to
patrons due to fighting between other patrons" "Patrons that drink
excessively and vomit in the main dining room will be charged $25 for the
clean up and for the displeasure if the other patrons".

Yesterday, we had a walking and eating tour of the city, from Wall Street to
Broadway up near Lexington and back, favoring as many city parks as
possible. New York is really a pleasant place on a spring morning. We ate
Tex Mex, over the top chocolates from a specialty store, street vendor
candied nuts, and finished the evening by meeting his sister Mimi and her
friend Jackie for drinks and Tapas. We had a great time with those two. I
think that they were greatly amused by the story of the naked St Martin
giant, which I don't think I ever wrote up in the blog because it is just
too odd. Ask me about that one when we are face to face.

I made no bones about being a tourist, because that is exactly what I am. I
stopped in middle of the sidewalk to look up at the skyscrapers, took
pictures of fountains and sculptures and generally made a nuisance of myself
to those hustling to work. The New Yorkers were very friendly in spite of my
behavior. It seems to be a truism that anything you can get anywhere else,
you can get in New York (except a sweep of Baseball, Football and
Basketball champions...you get to go to Boston for that). The pastries here
are just as good as those in St Martin, except that those serving them
aren't speaking French. I am sure that if I look for reggae here, it will be
as good as what we found in the islands. It is a bittersweet realization.
Good in that any major metropolitan area in the US has so much to offer, and
bad that the work has become so small that adventure and discovery are
diminished.

Today I am headed back to the city, then East to Boston in a couple of days;
home by Memorial day with luck.

ttyl