My first flight was a 2 hour one from Kiev to Vienna and then after a 2.5 hour layover there would be a 9 hour 45 minute flight from Vienna to New York JFK airport. After clearing immigration & getting my passport stamped, it was time to get on my first flight. The flight was uneventful and arrived on time into Vienna. After going through another passport check, I headed to the gate to kill time until I could check in for my next flight. I was lucky to get a 2 seat section near the front of economy class all to myself which was great. The row numbering on the plane was a little strange as there was no 13th row.
The flight service was excellent with a meal, a snack, & plenty of water/soft drinks. The only problem was a kid that was screaming a few rows away & the parents seemed clueless how to settle the kid down. I watched a movie & read a book during the long flight to pass the time. We arrived in New York about 30 minutes early at 2:00 pm. I made it through immigration fairly quickly, so it was off to claim my bag & head to the subway.
When I started my trip in Moscow, I was trying to buy a ticket for the train to the hotel and a "helpful" guy tried to sell me an expired ticket for the train. I guess it was funny that 2 months later at my last stop on my trip, another "helpful" guy was trying to do the same thing for two German tourists standing next to me. They were smart enough to decline his offer.
It was a long 35 minute subway ride to the station near the hotel. During the subway ride, some crazy guy was ranting & raving about some injustice done to him for 10 minutes & requesting money. Then 2 guys got on the subway & started doing some dance routine to rap music & swinging down from the ceiling. There were also several people that got on the subway that looked like they had just been let out of prison or would be going in soon. I guess this was my welcome to New York. I felt less safe here in the USA than I did at any time when I was traveling overseas.
It was an easy walk from the subway station to my hotel for the next 3 nights. I was able to use my Holiday Inn hotel points for a free stay at a Holiday Inn Express a few blocks south of Times Square in Manhattan. It was a busy time in New York & that room would have cost me $300/night. The room was fairly small, but clean & comfortable. However, I didn't plan to spend much time there since there was so much to see & do in NYC.
This was my first trip to NYC. I was reluctant to visit in the past because of the high prices & it's reputation for rude locals. My original plan had been to do some sightseeing for a few days & attend a professional track meet on Saturday. Unfortunately the track meet was moved to Boston after I booked my plane ticket, but I decided there still be plenty to do during my 5 night stay here.
On my first full day in NYC, I did a run on the "high line", which is 1.5 mile long park with an elevated boardwalk that was a rail line at one time. After a big (free) breakfast at the hotel, I went to the 9/11 museum which did a good job of chronicling the events that happened during that unfortunate time. It was hard not to be moved by the exhibits in that museum describing the horrible events from that day.
I wasn't too far from the financial district, so I headed for that area after exiting the museum. I was surprised to see lots of tourists there especially all of ones from foreign countries. One thing I wanted to do in that area was to get a photo in front of the bull statue (it is supposed represent a "bull market" aka stock prices going up).
Unfortunately when I arrived there was a large crowd of people that had the same idea. A nice lady from Argentina asked me to take her photo in front of the bull, it was tough since there were people everywhere. She said she always wanted a photo there since her late father had his photo taken at the same spot. I asked her to take a photo of me, but there was a large group of rude Chinese tourists that kept jumping into my shot. The lady that was taking my photo went over to them & said wait 30 seconds for her to take a photo since I had been patiently waiting for my turn for awhile. I told her that it was pointless to try to reason with them, the Chinese tourist mentality is me, me, me!!! I read they even have separate trains in Switzerland for Chinese tourists since their behavior is so bad.
http://www.whatsonweibo.com/too-loud-too-rude-switzerland-introduces-separate-trains-for-chinese-tourists/
The other tourists starting getting upset at the delay & were yelling at me to move. If you look at the photo below you can see someone's hand in the right hand corner reaching towards the camera. I don't have any experience with Photoshop, but maybe there is a way to eliminate the other people from this photo & to change my grimace to a smile.
After leaving the chaos of the bull statue area, I walked along the waterfront for a little bit & then headed back to the subway to go back to the hotel. I did stop at Grand Central Station along the way to take a few photos.
After eating dinner, I headed down to Times Square to do some people watching. I am going to do a separate post on Times Square with plenty of photos.
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