I am still in New York, and it is still rather awesome. Yesterday I wandered randomly around before meeting my girl at Penn station; her train (from New Orleans) had arrived half an hour early. Returned to hotel, found somewhere to eat and then got the most touristy thing possible out of the way by having a carriage ride in the park thing.
Today we went to Coney Island/Brighton Beach. Possibly not the best weather for it, but we need a baseline to compare Southend against when I finally get some people there. We went to the amusement arcade and on bumper cars. After this to the New York Aquarium, where we saw a number of lolrusses, and a possibly unrelated bukkit. We has a lolrus now.
791_43 bought a number of Russian-language cartoons and seemed very pleased with herself. Then back to town...I think I am falling a bit in love with the architecture.
791_43 is getting jealous, i can tell.Notes on New York Subway:
*Metrocards, bit like Oystercards but still using caveman technology (magstripes)
*7-day pass is cheap - $25 - a Z12 travelcard is £25 and that doesn't cover anywhere the area
*the stations are uninspiring and a bit claustrophobic (but then, the architecture upstairs on the streets, that's amazing enough)
*it isn't clear whether particular lettered/numbered trains are always local or express or whether those are variants of particular lettered/numbered routes
*there are hardly any benches on the entire system
*why no indicators as to when the next train will be?
*the 24-hour running thing is nice
*the bit with using the same gates for entry and exit makes it confusing to try and go the 'wrong' way to the direction most of the other people are going...
