The Purple Penguin

Got the train from Red Bank to Penn Station, New York. Pleasant trip that didn’t take too long, a bit under an hour and a half. Everything was going well until we tried to get a Metro card – it just wouldn’t take our cards. And it wants a zip code when using a credit card; being from out of town we don’t have a zip code. What a pain. The staff seemed to go out of their way to be unhelpful as well, just muttering ‘use the machine’ every time we tried to ask a question. We finally found a machine that accepted cash and got tickets.

Got lucky on the underground – it’s a bit confusing with local and express trains and no way to tell the difference if you don’t already know what you are doing. But we got the express and got off at 72nd Street, then got the local to 79th Street and learned that those blocks are very short. So the express to 72nd is quite close to the hotel (Belleclaire). We got to the hotel and got our room. Small but quite nice. We’ll see how quiet it is as our window looks out on the street!

Once checked in we walked down Broadway and found the Gershwin Theatre (we’re going there tomorrow to see Wicked) and Times Square. We then walked down 44th Street to 5th Avenue. Found Cartier and a lovely pair of earrings but Joe said he thought they were too long. He wouldn’t let me stay in Tiffany’s very long, claimed his feet were hurting. And there is no place to have breakfast at Tiffany’s! So then walked along Central Park and saw the entrance to the zoo. On the map there is a road that goes through the park near our hotel, so we went down that and managed to go through Central Park without ever seeing the park. There was no way to get into the park. Who knew it was designed by Belgians (or by the same people who designed the parks we couldn’t get out of in Brussels)!

Found an interesting little place to stop and have a couple of drinks as by this time we were quite tired and thirsty (we had meant to stop at the Dairy in the park but, well, no way to get there!) Must go back and have dinner there some time as the place looked quite nice (caferonda). Budget? What budget?

Off for dinner soon. Of course, I don’t have my address book with me, so if a postcard doesn’t arrive I didn’t get your address right!