On our way to The Big Apple

Sunday 7 October

When we get up we realise it is Sunday morning.  It just doesn’t feel like it…  We have breakfast with our hosts: bagels of our choice with cream cheese and something new: apple butter.  Tastes good!  Apple butter, it seems, is a concentrated form of apple sauce (appelmoes).  The apples are cooked to the point that the sugar caramelises. It seems spices are added, but I don't know for sure.  While we are having breakfast we see a chipmunk playing in the garden.  Cute little animals, those chipmunks.  They are also called ground squirrels, but I like the name chipmunk better.  No Alvin around though.......;-)

Our plan was to leave mid morning so as to be on Long Island by noon, but……. as Lynette had so many more interesting stories to tell, this time a history and geography lesson on Pennsylvania, we never got away until 12pm.  In the meantime Craig offered me to check email and I printed out the tickets for the tour in NYC, because I couldn’t get the laptop and printer to talk with each other back in Hamburg I also sent a message to Nancy & Eric at Long Island to let them know we would be delayed, so they wouldn’t be waiting in vain.

Next came the goodbyes and the offer to come back if we wanted to visit Philadelphia, because they reckoned it was worth a visit even more than NYC.

Although the Prius was very economic with fuel, we had to top up and did so on the way to Long Island.  We got off the highway to get to a petrol station, but had some difficulty to get back on.  In the end we did and from then on it was quite straightforward.  The GPS did a good job, all the way to our address on Long Island.  It was quite a trip, though, because it was 4.30pm when we got there.  The hardest part appeared to be the way to the Washington Bridge and later through the Bronx, but when we left that part behind it was almost plain sailing.  The difficult part we did with the use of the GPS, the physical roadmap for guidance and four eyes on the road.  Pffft, we were glad we could breathe again once we got across the Long Island bridge (Throgs Neck Bridge) and into Queens.  Long Island is what the name implies: long, and it was still an hour before we got to see Nancy & Eric, our next hosts for four nights.

Our first glimpse of the Manhattan skyline (just above the bushes)

Roads leading to the George Washington Bridge and into the Bronx

On the bridge

Beneath the Bronx

Road to Long Island (and to Manhattan on the right)

A slightly better view of Manhattan (in the rain)

The Throgs Neck Bridge to Queens and Long Island

The original plan had been for them to take us for a visit to their second house on Fire Island, a ferry trip away from where they live, but our late arrival, and the rain had thrown a spanner in the works.  So, instead we relaxed until dinner time and were then treated with a steak on the barbie, fried rice and a salad.  After dinner we relaxed a bit more to let the meal settle.  Then we had dessert: coffee and blueberry pie. We discussed the train schedule for the following day and since Eric & Nancy like to follow the Amazing Race, we watched it together until it was time for bed.