Sweet Nothings

Brooklyn Bridge Because we'd both been to New York before (many times for my wife, just the once for me - see here  and here ), we were lulled into a mistaken feeling of being fully prepared for it. A typically hair-raising cab ride full of last-second lane changes and blaring horns was enough to dispel that notion. Then we arrived at the dreaded Blue Moon Hotel. Now, there are no shortage of glowing testimonials and 'Top 150 New York Hotel' certificates on the walls, and Tripadvisor has some gushing reviews. We however found this establishment shabby at best and dirty at worst, and the management's responses to the negative TA reviews are distinctly tetchy. Perhaps we'd been spoilt by all those huge rooms and honeymoon upgrades. And perhaps with it being an old building on the hip Lower East Side, with rooms named after golden age stars of stage and screen, the target audience doesn't mind the questionable hygiene, or finds it edgy and cool. Read the r...

Saturday began with a leisurely breakfast followed by a visit to MOMA . If you think that website is cool, the museum itself more than lives up to it. The modern painting and sculpture galleries contained works by the likes of Van Gogh, Rothko, Giacometti and Warhol that even a relative artistic philistine such as myself could recognise and appreciate, and the lovely little sculpture garden seemed a fine place to relax. I, though, was off to Greenwich Village to meet up with cousin Steve and his wife Nancy. My great-grandfather and Steve's grandpa were brothers, so that must make us first or second cousins once removed, or maybe twice. Who knows, or cares? Because Steve and Nancy were fabulous, a bohemian older couple who lived in a wonderfully cluttered flat above a Cuban resturant in the heart of the village, and who seemed to know everyone . Yes, Greenwich Village (and West Village, which appeared to be two sides of the same coin) genuinely has a village atmosphere, where people...

It didn't start off so well. Upon arrival at JFK airport I eschewed the chance of taking a bus or the subway to Manhattan and headed straight for the cab rank. I was expecting the cabbie to be a garrulous Irish or Italian type who'd welcome me to their wonderful city by giving me all the proper patter. Instead, my driver was a taciturn black guy who barely uttered two words to me the whole way. The Pod Hotel was all funky and bohemian and my little pod-room seemed very cosy. I had a vague expectation that the lobby would be filled with young, attractive travellers who'd invite me on a four-day hedonistic party around the city, but oddly enough they didn't materialise and so it was that I headed off on my own for an initial Big Apple recce. I walked by the United Nations building and then down 42nd Street towards Times Square, and gawped around like an idiot trying to take everything in. The sheer size and quantity of skyscrapers is what you notice most, a very differe...