Was it a cup or a bowl? Did he crumble any crackers in it?

Blog posts from this part of the world will be less detailed and more sparse, because there is so much to do here that I don’t want to waste too much time writing. Still, I’ll give it a go.

So, this first of our two 4-night stays in NYC is on the upper west side, near Columbus Circle (which is the SE corner of Central Park). The day before yesterday, Cathy took me to the Museum of Modern Art which was brilliant. I think I already wrote something about this so I won’t rewrite what has already been written. Such great stuff. Lunch was in a wine bar near the Rockefeller Centre: a salad for Cathy and a soup and sandwich for me – and yes, it was definitely a meal, I was quite full after. Couldn’t find the Atlas statue (which I know was somewhere in the area), but that somehow feels appropriate.

We then found 42^nd Street (not hard) then walked to the western edge of the island where we took a 3 hour cruise around the entirety of Manhattan. This is something I’d always wanted to do, and it’s now done. I had such a great time, and the tour guide was incredibly interesting and entertaining (he also pointed out to us a small bridge built in the mid 1920s which is the absolute spitting image of the Sydney Harbour Bridge – I need to do some more reading on this when I get back, but apparently this bridge was the prototype for the one in Sydney. It really did look identical in everything other than proportion (it’s smaller). I don’t want to give the impression that this was the highlight of the trip, because to be honest, the whole trip was one long extended 3 hour highlight. Just an amazing trip, considering just about everywhere one looked had (or has) resonance to our lives on the other side of the world, whether we like it or not. The part I thought would be the most ordinary was in fact the most interesting – the journey through the Harlem River at the northern part of the island. The tour guide has some dreadfully clichéd jokes which were right up my street, and was hyper-critical of Donald Trump, as I imagine most locals would be also. Earlier this day I’d taken Cathy into the foyer and public access areas of Trump Tower just to show her how gaudy and tacky it is. I think she agreed. After the cruise, we got takeaway from a Mexican place which we took back to the room. Was hilarious – and kind of surreal – to catch a couple of episodes of ‘Seinfeld’ on local NY television while lying in bed.

Got up yesterday morning and we walked through Central Park to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. More Pollocks (including the Autumn Rhythm painting which I’d already seen in Canberra, but was also quite nice to see in its home), Rothkos and Warhols, but a bunch of other stuff I hadn’t expected, including swags of Asian art and truckloads of ancient Egyptian artefacts (I just wish the locals would treat these artefacts with a little more respect – they aren’t meant to be climbed over). After lunch, Cathy was a bit worn out so I went for a walk on my own. Edited highlights (bear in mind the temperature was about 98F and I went through about 4 cans of soft drink over the next few hours) include traipsing around the Upper East Side, walking through Central Park again (this time from east to west) and seeing the north western point of the park, walking through southern Harlem, as well as finding Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment (as Brad pointed out, the exterior shot you see in the show is a building in a different city, which is probably why I had to walk past this building a couple of times just to be sure it was the right one) and his coffee shop (the two are about 40 blocks apart, or 4 subway stations: hardly local, really). Followed this with a trip to Chelsea to find a newsagent recommended to me, which also brought about a stroll past the Chelsea Hotel (think Sid and Nancy) and the Flatiron Building, then a trip back uptown back to the hotel. I caught the subway for most of this. The subway is fantastic for going uptown and downtown (it looks worn out, but it works well), but not so much for crosstown. While there are crosstown buses, I haven’t worked them out yet. No matter, taxis here are really quite cheap, especially for going crosstown; we haven’t spent more than $12 (including tips) on a single fare anywhere yet, which makes Canberra taxi fares (especially those between town centres) seem quite extortionate in comparison. We pay $10 for a trip from Civic to Braddon at home; you can travel half the length of Manhattan for the same fare.

After cooling off in the room for an hour or so, Cathy took me out for a lovely veg dinner. Taxi past the Dakota building, and I waved at Yoko. Jalapeno tofu for dinner! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a city that has SO much choice for vegetarians. They haven’t quite latched onto the gluten free thing yet in NYC, so it’s not a complete culinary paradise for Cathy, but it is quite clear to me that she is nowhere near as sick as she was at the same time of our trip to Japan 3 years ago (this time, I think it’s more heat than diet which is wearing her out – and probably me, also). Having said that, this particular restaurant did have a veg/GF menu which was fantastic for Cathy – actually, I ordered off the same menu so we could share. I think the spectrum of availability here is a result of the diversity of the population here, as well as its size: a business needs to cater widely, or go broke. Really great conversation with Cathy which made me rethink what it is I hoped to discover about NYC – I feel like I’m seeing the sights, but not interacting with the locals so much. Maybe it’s because I feel like I’m in their way. Once we got back to the room, I watched some more ‘Seinfeld’ episodes on television in bed, while Cathy slept.

Woke up this morning and we walked due east towards the Queensboro Bridge, and to Riverside Terrace. A famous scene in a film I love was shot there; I’d been there before but wanted to go again. The air is quite hazy today which meant the view wasn’t great, but it was still nice to be there again. It reminded me of the time I was in this city with Renea, but also of the time Cathy took me to see ‘Manhattan’ screened (on reel-to-reel) at the NFSA open-air cinema which was such a lovely night.

Following this, we got a cab uptown for the third of our 3 museum visits; this time, the Guggenheim. But first, I was hungry, and people have recommended knishes to me so I bought one from a food truck. I don’t know how I made it to the third bite, it was truly one of the untasteworthy things I’ve ever eaten. Just completely wrong; but anyway, back to the museum. I’d stood inside the atrium of the Guggenheim building before but hadn’t seen any of the art; that changed today. Really liked this collection, many artists I’d never heard of before. The rotunda-style building was also impressive, and given the floor was not flat, which meant you had to put your body into awkward balances just to stay upright, it made you concentrate more on what you were viewing (well, it did for me, anyway).

Following this, we had lunch at the museum (risotto for Cathy, pasta for me), then caught a cab back to the room which is where we are right now. We’ll stay here for a couple of hours, I think, to get out of the heat for a while – it’s 98F outside at 1.30pm, and when the wind blows towards you it feels like standing in front of a giant industrial heater which cannot be escaped. But later on we’ll head downtown for a cocktail, then to watch a Woody Allen film at the cinema, then have dinner. Tomorrow we leave the city for a few days.

I’d hate for you to think we’ve flown to the other side of the world just to see the minutiae of a sitcom and a film. We haven’t, though I’m sure Cathy has her serious doubts about this. I’m here for those things, yes it’s true, but also the art, the park, and the buildings. It's also undeniable that so much of what Australians see as 'popular culture' comes from here (whether we like it or not); and even though I rarely tap into the types of television or music that most Australians associate with this city, it's also generated some of my favourite artists (not just visual art, but other forms), so I think it's an important place in that there must be *something* about it that inspires people (something other than just money, that is). And yes, I think it’s a very pretty city, I’m convinced of it, but I know we’re not seeing it in its best light because of the searing heat, which makes the air a bit hazier, the garbage a bit stinkier, and the locals a bit crankier than they might regularly be. Also, the city is covered in scaffolding. I’ve never seen so much in a city, ever. The nation as a whole might be in recession, but there’s no way known that NYC could be. So much construction, everywhere.