America - Days 5 - 8

Day 5: Salty

It was a busy day at work again - and by this point, me and my other international colleagues felt that we needed some nutrition. For dinner, we decided to cut up a lot of fruit (a whole Pineapple was involved) and cereal. It was actually, really nice. We sat there, talking and crunching on bran flakes and apples. 

During the day however, a colleague of ours bought in some better, hotter and more softer pretzels, also eaten with mustard along with a variety of Water Ice flavours. I have to say, the experience for eating both again, but this time - a better version of both, was much yummier! Although I think I am done with pretzels for a long, long time!

Day 6: Busy, busy, busy

It was a very busy day - as it was our last day in Glenside, and we had back to back meetings all day long. Our colleagues took us out to an Indian restaurant called Tiffin, which smelt gorgeous as you walked through.. However, the first time I started to feel a little queasy on this trip was after I ate the food there. I know, how ridiculous is it that I, an Indian felt ill after eating Indian food. But I think, due to my food snobbishness (I am obsessed with everything being fresh, with no additives - be it colouring or flavouring) I felt ill from the moment I saw my BRIGHT RED Paneer Tikka Masala. It was unusually red. And I could feel my body resist the consumption of this food, but I was hungry and I wasn't about to become a total snob. I have to say though, it was just a great experience, despite the whole food thing - because we got to hang out with are very cool and very nice colleagues!

By the end of the day, the only thing that was on my mind was getting rid of the bad stomach ache I had, and the awful migraine that came upon due to the bad stomach. It started raining as well, and the overall temperatures started getting colder too. I decided to meet up with some of my old students and it was really lovely seeing them again as well.

Day 7: "Fairytale of New York"

We left Glenside for NYC early that morning using the Bolt Bus (like the Mega Bus), and it cost us only $13 per person and it took about 2 hours to get there. The drop off point was great, because it was about two streets (or as they say in America, two blocks) away from our hotel. 

The hotel we chose was bang down in the middle of the Garment District. At first, I thought it was a grungy area, but as we wandered about a bit, we realised in fact how extremely centrally we were located inside Manhattan. It was great for a 24 hours stay, as we could walk everywhere, see everything we wanted to see and get back to the hotel which wasn't that far from any of the districts we were visiting.

So, to begin - after getting to our cosy hotel room (which by the way, was a Nutrition based hotel - Just what I needed!) we decided to freshen up a bit and head off with a map in to Greenwich Village and Soho and see what we could see for the rest of our afternoon. We took the subway - which was a total chaos for me, because it was so dirty, so smelly and so absolutely gross - that it traumatised me - and figured out quickly what each station meant. To be honest, I wasn't that excited by Soho or Greenwich village, partly because I was still feeling a bit ill from the food, and partly because we were really exhausted by this point. 

We ended up finding our way to Ground Zero, where they are currently in the process of building I believe 4 new world trade centre towers. It felt really strange being there - to us, obviously it meant nothing personal as we weren't there when the 9/11 fiasco took place, but to see others there with all these emotions, it was pretty interesting. It didn't seem like anything spectacular or that even a tragedy took place there - because there were building works all over the place. 

We found a small stall of souvenir t-shirts where we decided to buy some. This decision was based on the fact that the man selling these t-shirts was Pakistani, so I decided to talk to him and feel a bit at home in a city so claustrophobic and overwhelming. He was really nice, and I had a chance to practice my Urdu - which let me tell you, is bloody awesome! He obviously gave us good discounts, and I happily went with the whole thing.

We decided to walk on and head off in to the south, towards the port that had ferries to Staten Island. At first I was reluctant to get on to anything that floated on sea, because I always get so sea sick. But this ferry was massive, it didn't rock and it was actually one of the best bits about the NYC trip. It was great, because the air was fresh, it wasn't too hot but the sun kept shining! Obviously I took lots of Statue of Liberty pictures as well as views of the entire city of Manhattan. It was lovely to say the least. 

After the ferry, we managed to make our way back Uptown where we wandered off to find a couple of shops and buy a few things. We passed by the Empire State building too - and I didn't realise it was there until my friend pointed it out. It was very anti-climatic, once you've seen taller and more impressive buildings/towers like the Petronas in Malaysia and the CN tower in Toronto. However, due to it's overly romanced nature in Hollywood movies, I decided to take a couple of pictures. I assume though, seeing it at night and actually getting to the top would have had a whole different effect - alas, we hadn't bought any tickets prior to our visit and we weren't up to queuing either by this point.

By the end of the evening, we were totally shattered. I decided to call it a night, repack my suitcase and just relax for the evening.

Day 8: "Imagine, all the people sharing all the world"

The morning started out really nice and sunny - and with absolutely yummy and healthy breakfast options at the hotel. We flew out later that night, so we decided to eat well and spend the remaining day walking the city. 

We walked to Times Square, which was about 3 streets away - and although it was wonderful being there, I couldn't help but feel claustrophobic. There was way too much happening there. I imagine at night it would look prettier, but probably would leave me feeling a bit worse. I don't really like bright blinking lights, so that would be useless. Nevertheless, I have to say that I was thoroughly excited to be in the middle of Times Square, taking pictures in the hundreds. We stopped at Toys r us and the Disney store - although we have both in London, we had to visit them both because lets face it, there's still a massive child inside me. I took several pictures with Dory and the very cool Cheshire cat. Toys r us was impressive as it had floors of sweets and a small Wonka world - basically all gobbly things that could rot your teeth just by looking at the displays! We didn't ride the infamous Ferris Wheel because there was a queue and we wanted to explore the city further.

We decided to continue our journey towards Central Park, leaving the best for last. Along our way to the Park however, we stumbled across FAO Schwarz Toy Store.. Yes, the store they show in Big - the Movie. I was terribly excited, to the point where I screeched a little as well. The toy store inside was like Toys r Us or any other toy store out there, what was fascinating though was obviously the Piano, which they have unsurprisingly labelled "The Big Piano" - I didn't get a chance to go on it and take pictures due to long queues. 

Walking on in to Central Park, we came across a lot of Horse Carriages.. Don't get me started on Animal Rights and all that, as I have PLENTY to say about how they treat their horses in the city - and none of it is positive. Anyway, moving on - we walked around the Park, and it was gorgeous. There were obviously a lot of tourists about, and naturally crowds of people at certain points - such as the Imagine design on the floor of the park, near Strawberry Fields in memory of John Lennon. It was actually quite moving and a little bittersweet being there, just because I grew up being a massive Beatles fan, and reading about as well learning about them a lot through my Media course at A-Levels. We saw the Dakota, where Yoko still lives, and apparently walks to the Park every morning. We didn't see her, but as I said, being there was just very surreal.

After that, we headed to a restaurant as my friend was adamant on eating pure American Mac 'n' Cheese before we left - I didn't have any, due to still feeling ill in my stomach. We continued walking back to the hotel where we then left for our very turbulent flight back to the UK.

All in all - I will say that the trip was great. NYC didn't live up to the expectations I falsely created in my mind, though parts of it was just gorgeous. I think I was thinking through my Sex and the City eyes more than anything. Damn you Hollywood! Never thought I'd fall for all of that. I think for me, it was the sheer exhaustion, lack of good food (obviously there are wonderful places to eat there, but we hadn't a clue where to find these), and just not having the right type of guidance through the city that bought me to my conclusion that NYC - is grungy, dirty, smelly yet strangely charming. I wouldn't want to go there for longer anytime soon. Philly on the other hand, was a better City and Glenside reminded me a lot of Egham, which is why I warmed to it quicker than any other place I've been to. I do however look forward to my West Coast trip to California later this summer! I am told that there are immediate differences with the East and West coast, so I am sure I will have a lot more to add after that.