Sightseeing and the City

Our last full day on the trip started out with a metro trip up to the 51^st street and Rockerfeller centre. 30 Rock of course is the home of NBC studios, which meant that finally my dreams came through with the perfect gift shop filled with by-products to all the NBC shows. There was a line of Nerf Herd hooties and Buy More mugs, House candy in the shape of brains and of course the fantastic line of t-shirts from Battlestar Galactica. And this was just the shows of my interest. There was course loads of stuff from Heroes, The Office and whatnot, but I was trying to keep it minimal… Somehow I still managed to spend 220dollars in this shop. The cashier man looked at me and said: Looks like you are buying for the whole of Finland…

In front of the Rockerfeller plaza, there is an ice rink – apparently one of at least three that exist in Manhattan. They clearly like the idea of skating. We walked down 5^th avenue, until we got to Grand Central Station, where we had lunch in an American diner type of place in the food hall basement. I then stalked some people at the main level of the impressive station. Behind the central station stands the Chrystler building, which was the tallest building of Manhattan for like two months until Emprire State Building rose above it. Both of them look pretty similar in style, so it’s not difficult to see they were built in the same era. Tall buildings are of course currently very unpopular ever since 9-11. Even in San Francisco, it so happened that no one wanted to work or live in tall buildings any more, so they are just sitting by.

Our 5^th avenue quest took us to the Emprire State building next, outside of which someone tried to sell the tickets with 47dollars instead of 20dollars that they actually cost inside. He said we’d get through the line – which apparently is 30-45minutes. We decided to take our chances inside and found out that this was a total sham, there was almost no one there. We walked through all the empty waiting areas, clearly this been at some point, a very popular stop for tourists… Could the effects of terrorism still be affecting the tourism at this extent? We saw the city from the 86^th floor and took appropriate pictures. The life makes your ears pop of course, but besides this – it wasn’t a particularly exciting journey. Even the tat shop couldn’t allure our money – We are starting to be ready to go home.

Walking downtown took us to Union Square, where we were originally going to search for the Forbidden Planet. Of course with the NBC shopping in our bags, this turned out to be a window tour of the shop which to be fair enough, didn’t exactly offer anything that I would have particularly wanted at this point. However the window display was worth a visit anyways. They had two people in it dressed as a zombie and victim with huge amounts of fake blood and guts. I suppose must beat a job of cleaning somebody’s toilet.

As sun was setting and we were back at Canal Street station, I let my husband go to our hotel to fiddle with the interwebs while I took my chances with Manhattan bridge city view photography. Perhaps it’s needless to say, but this part of downtown in particular is not what you would call ‘okay to walk alone at night’. And specially if you are a) woman and b) carrying a big camera. By this point of our trip, we haven’t experienced any muggings, robbery or pick pocketing. I doubt this has been an accident. There has been series of precautions done to assure the security of us and our stuff. Just to list some:

1. I don’t carry a camera bag. That’s a clear sign of ‘I have something valuable – please mugg me.’ Instead I have a ‘girly flower bag’, which in no way lets on that what’s inside is more than 2000euros of goods.

2. I carry my money, my passport, my tickets and other valuables like room keys or metro tickets – only in a small bag which is most of the time underneath my clothes, impossible to get to without me noticing someone fiddling with me.

3. We’ve used the hotel safes when accessible

4. I’ve got a copy of my passport and travel documents in my gmail account, just in case I’d loose it.

5. I don’t look people into their eyes on the streets of big cities.

6. I try to walk like I know where I am going, trying not to flash out a big map on an area with very little tourists.

7. Use ‘Mr. carrier bags’ (locals walking on the area) to walk after, if walking in the dark. This means that you should always have a native to follow, specially if you don’t know them. Pick one that looks like they know what they are doing.

8. Take pictures of your belongings in the hotel rooms – and hide them to the suitcase when you are out.

9. Do not stop to talk to the homeless. Do not pass money, but more importantly, ignore them so they don’t have a case against you. If they get you talking, you’ve already lost.

10. No victim behavior – if they can see you are afraid, you are an easy target. No reading of books or listening to iPods. Those will make them come after you.

There is just a few examples on how to deal with New York, but also the world in general. Might sound like overly protective antisocial way of looking at it, but I have decided to leave my gullible Finnish me home and expect the worst. Plus – it worked to the extent that no one mugged me, robbed me, pick pocketed me…

In the evening we saw one of our friends for a lovely Chinese in a place where we had gone previously on Sunday. He’s a real New Yorker and reminded me just how much the city was disturbed by the 9-11. It’s a blow that the whole western world felt, but of course it was never for us like it was for those who actually lived in the cloud of ash, saw people falling through the air or tried desperately call out for the loved ones through phone lines that were just completely shut. We didn’t go to Ground Zero, but I saw it from the Empire State Building Observation terrace. A spot on Manhattan which is considerably more low built than any other. For a sparkle of a second, you think: What is that… And then you remember.