Sunday 11 September 2011

NYC: big city, small baby

Wow, long time no posts. I'll try and do some catching up. Back in September we took E on her first plane trip to New York City where I was travelling for work. The six hour flight went pretty well, although it was a lot more work with a baby: Em and I basically didn't get any sleep and were constantly feeding, changing, holding etc. The amount of luggage also seemed ridiculous for one tiny person: we took 4 bags, a car seat and a stroller to the gate and checked two more bags. We were originally planning to have her on our laps but ended up buying a separate seat, and that turned out to be a very good move.

The weather was terrible in NYC so we bought a rain cover for the stroller on the first day. We had done most of the standard NYC tourist stuff on previous visits, so we took it a bit easier. We watched some volleyball in central park, and went out for dinner in Greenwich Village a couple of times. It happened to be Fashion Week, so all the fancy clothes stores in the village were converted into little bars jam-packed with fasionistas downing drinks and looking at handbags while listening to a DJ. There were also some very convincing people made up as manikins for the display windows.


Probably the coolest thing we saw was the highline, an old elevated railway that has been converted into a pretty amazing park. It has really transformed what used to be a fairly dodgy area. There were heaps of people walking through the park: the first person who buys up some of the abandoned warehouse space the park passes through and builds a bar/cafe/restaurant is going to make a killing. There are also plans for a lowline park.


We also tried to go to the Tennis US Open, and got the subway all the way out to Flushing Meadows only to find that all general admission tickets were sold out (a fact that wasn't available on the website). I have to admit to being fairly nervous about being in NYC, travelling on the subway, and flying, all on the 10-year anniversary of 9/11, but thankfully it passed without incident. I'm pretty sure I saw an undercover cop taking photos of some food vans near our hotel a few blocks from times square...