New York, New York!

Our trip to New York was successful. We had a real nice time, it was a little cold and crowded, but it is after all New York at Christmas!

The street crossings are always fun. It is like when the quarterback says “hike” and each team plows into each other. If the Steelers can’t win this season, maybe they should practice crossing streets in New York for next season!

Cons – everywhere. Every street seems to have “vendors” wanting to sell you something. There was a lady on our bus who was looking at purses from one of these vendors. She asked the price and he said $250. She was quite shocked and then he changed the price to $125. She said she was thinking more like $25 and the deal was made. There was another street vendor selling movies. It was amazing, because she was selling movies on DVD that were not released on DVD yet, “Beowulf” for example.

There were also many “charities” setup on the streets collecting money for various things. Most of the charities I never heard of and simply looked like people with coffee cans collecting money!

Even the Salvation Army was in the New York spirit. They had several kettles set up in the touristy areas. They would announce they were having a “special” money marathon, saying they needed to collect $50 in 5 minutes. People would head over and start putting money in to meet the goal. Then when you walk down the street and around the corner you see another kettle person doing the same thing. This went on all day.

The people are fun too. There was always a long line for the women’s restroom. While at Rockefeller Plaza there was even a line for the men’s room. When we went to Bryant Park later that evening, one lady decided she wasn’t going to wait in line for the lady’s room and went into the men’s room where there was no line. The attendant wasn’t too happy about that and promptly removed her.

Finally, you can’t forget about the food vendors. Anything you want to eat can be purchased. If I didn’t have a 6-hour bus ride home, I would have probably tried something, but I didn’t want to chance it.

Overall, New York is an interesting city and is easy to get around (when there are no crowds). It also seemed relatively safe. Partly, I guess, because there were so many people around.