If my trip was going to be anything like the trip down, this would have been the worst weekend getaways I ever experienced. First off, the
Amtrak train was a hour and ten minutes late; this deficit was
supposedly going to be made up by the time we reached
Penn Station in NYC. Secondly, we were held up on the track just north of Yonkers for over an hour due to a suspicious package on the track that needed to be x-rayed for the local police. The trip was not all that bad, the ride was comfortable and the view down was quite picturesque; I even enjoyed the company of a 81 year old Russian lady who sat next to me, though her thick accent and obtuse subjects added much color to our conversation (she believed that my mother should spank me.) With the combination of delays, we finally pulled into Penn Station around 11:30 PM, almost 3 hours late.
In my travels, I have utilized many of the worlds public transit systems. From
Japan and
Hong Kong, to
London and
Singapore; whether it was in English or some other foreign language, I never seemed to find myself lost. That all changed in the sauna of the NYC subway stations. It may well have been the combination of fatigue and the sweltering heat down there, but I was completely disoriented. It would take me a good two days just to get comfortable with utilizing the trains again. I took the uptown N-train to Times Square and was again lost and mesmerized by the sheer amount of people and moving lights.
It was midnight and the streets were filled with the lemmings of tourist gawking at everything Time Square had to offer. The strong stench of garbage and urine did not help the situation nor did the hot and muggy weather that is all to common for New York in July. Walking up 7th Avenue, I did my best to make my way through the walking mass of sightseers and peddlers. It was my mother yelling across the street hanging on a light post like King Kong on the Empire State Building, that caught my attention. It wasn't long until we made our way to the 26th floor of the
Double Tree Suites in Times Square, where I was able to finally relax, and hope that the rest of the trip is nothing like my experience down to NYC.
supposedly going to be made up by the time we reached Penn Station in NYC. Secondly, we were held up on the track just north of Yonkers for over an hour due to a suspicious package on the track that needed to be x-rayed for the local police. The trip was not all that bad, the ride was comfortable and the view down was quite picturesque; I even enjoyed the company of a 81 year old Russian lady who sat next to me, though her thick accent and obtuse subjects added much color to our conversation (she believed that my mother should spank me.) With the combination of delays, we finally pulled into Penn Station around 11:30 PM, almost 3 hours late.
In my travels, I have utilized many of the worlds public transit systems. From Japan and Hong Kong, to London and Singapore; whether it was in English or some other foreign language, I never seemed to find myself lost. That all changed in the sauna of the NYC subway stations. It may well have been the combination of fatigue and the sweltering heat down there, but I was completely disoriented. It would take me a good two days just to get comfortable with utilizing the trains again. I took the uptown N-train to Times Square and was again lost and mesmerized by the sheer amount of people and moving lights.
It was midnight and the streets were filled with the lemmings of tourist gawking at everything Time Square had to offer. The strong stench of garbage and urine did not help the situation nor did the hot and muggy weather that is all to common for New York in July. Walking up 7th Avenue, I did my best to make my way through the walking mass of sightseers and peddlers. It was my mother yelling across the street hanging on a light post like King Kong on the Empire State Building, that caught my attention. It wasn't long until we made our way to the 26th floor of the Double Tree Suites in Times Square, where I was able to finally relax, and hope that the rest of the trip is nothing like my experience down to NYC.
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