This morning I woke up and I knew that I was going to get ill. It was one of those tingles in the throat when it’s evident. But no worries, it was the very last morning, so I thanked my luck for being ill on zero of the days in my holiday, what a blessing. Swine flu, bring it on.

Our flight to Heathrow wasn’t until six a clock, so we had a good while morning to bounce around New York left. It was sunny as well, what a great set of weathers have we stumbled on. We generally had very little rain on this trip, only a couple of days when it was pissing down, and even then, it was entertaining.

First things first, our mission was to visit the Chinatown post office and get the very last package on its way to Finland. 26 packages total have we sent from this trip, most of them not on the smaller side if you see what I mean. The post office was an experience on its own. In there you really understand all the safety rituals, all the reasons to be alert of all times. This was like going to a prison to talk to an inmate. All the office workers were behind thick, bullet proof glass, with signs on them that said: Attacking a Postal Worker or robbing a post office is a crime punishable by 10-15 years in prison. There was a bullet proof glass cage which you put the package into, which the officer then opens only after you closed it from the other side. Later on the day we walked past another post office downtown. The security in that one was nothing like this. It really gives you a perspective on how dodgy the neighborhood where we were staying was. I didn’t see any guns, but I could feel them all around me, in the bags, under the counters.

After checking out and leaving our luggage to the hotel reception, we took bus number 15 to Battery Park again and went to visit the museum of American Indians. This was a huge, gorgeous Art Deco building which they seemed to have gained recently to the purpose of putting out this exhibit. However, it was one of the poorest experiences that I’ve seen, an excuse for a museum. It didn’t help that we stumbled onto a security guard, who was pretending to be a curator, who knew absolutely nothing about the pieces on show and then decided that he would interpret my husband’s shit which was Haida art moon that we bought from Vancouver: “See this, it’s a Killer Whale”, was the last straw. They had some costumes of the aboriginals on show (some inluded series of Moose teeth sewn on top!), which of course were interesting, but they had been placed out in the huge building by an eight year old… The museum seriously needs to pay a visit to the Asian Art Museum on San Francisco. As the aboriginals let us down, I felt no obligation or need to buy their tat, even though they had Haida art there as well.

We decided to take the metro back to the Chinatown to have lunch around there. We also tried to check out the museum of Chinese in New York, but it was –if possible- even a bigger disappointment than museum number one previously today. This one didn’t even have an entrance to it. There was a corridor, a sign, but no entrance. But not to worry, there was still plenty of post cards to write back home. I estimate that I have written around 200 post cards, at least 12 from each city (30 from some) and we were in around 12 cities on our way…

No more to do except to get a taxi to the airport. JFK terminal 8 was kind of a disappointment as well… Nothing more that I would have wanted to buy, series or burger kings and Kentucky fried chickens lurking. We spent our last hours abroad watching quality American television – the one thing that the Americans do well. I never had a huge urge to go to America, like some… And now as I’ve been there, I can say that yes, there is original culture there, hiding underneath it all… But I have no huge desire to be back soon… Back in San Francisco one day would be nice, maybe we’ll take the Transsiperian to Vladivostok like we always talked about.

Just when leaving, I stumbled onto the evil King Fu Panda Noodles shop… Forget everything I said about it being bland in here… Only in America…

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.

We got up at eight and were by the Battery Park by nine thirtyish. You guess right, today was the time to do the boring sightseeing that all the tourists do. We had tickets for the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island cruise and went through the inspection (as tough as any airport customs) to get to the ferry in no time. It surely was not the best weather to see the symbol of freedom, but tomorrow it’s promised to rain, so cloudy Liberty pictures it was.

We decided to skip the statue itself, since there’s not exactly much to do there on the Liberty Island and just went straight to Ellis Island instead. This turned out to be a great move – Ellis Island has loads of history to see and we had very detailed audio guides once again to help us. I have come to appreciate Audio guides on this trip. They are really good for the museums as well as the visitors for several reasons: 1) You don’t need a tour guide who is yelling at a tourist group, 2) you can move along at your own phase and 3) you can skip things that might be boring to you, or 4) you can hear more about things that are actually interesting. 5) You don’t have to read, you can concentrate on the atmosphere and area and 6) If you are a museum, you can fit so much more detail, story and drama into the audio guides than you ever could to some wall texts that people don’t stop by to read anyways. Overall, whoever thought of audio guides was genious.

Ellis Island served as the immigration port for years and years of people immigrating to America. And of course, there was a lot of people. They were inspected in Ellis Island, to be fit to the society with their physical and mental health. If you were suspected to have a mental disease, you’d be marked with an ‘X’ on your jacket. If you had tuberculosis with ‘T’ and so on. The island also was a hospital to those who might get well and be fit to the society.

Looking at the exhibitions, I was surprised to realize how bad the life must have been in Europe, specially for those whose religion was not accepted. America served as the safe haven, the place where you are ‘free’ even if you do work 14 hour days, or even if you need to work as a child. Even now, sitting on the subway, it’s clear that this country is a melting pot of all the races together. No wonder they have issues!

I was touched by the gallery of ‘what did you bring with you’? The audio guide asks you, what would you bring if you only could bring a suitcase filled with things. Now a days it’s a very different matter, I feel. Memories and entertainment doesn’t have to take space. Clothes to me a quite irrelevant, as long as I’m warm or cool enough – it doesn’t matter. I bring my life on three different hard drives. All copies of themselves. All texts, all emails, all the pictures. Or better yet, access to internet gives me much more access to memories than any of these men and women immigrating had. Somehow seems more simple back then. At least they knew where the limits of the world laid.

It’s an interesting thought that America was something so much better than Europe. I’ve had Americans telling me on this trip that they should get out in the next ten years because it’s all going down hill. Who knows if that’s the way of the world. Perhaps our children will visit it with very different eyes. The current depression really shows on the streets with goods been sold in the internet more than anywhere. Unlike some, I don’t believe the postal services have come to their ends – I think shipping is a fair cost in today’s world. The Airlines are really pushing anything that isn’t the flight cost – as extra. Your luggage will cost. It’s still possibly cheaper than shipping, but for how long? I have faith in living in Europe for now. If there is one thing I’ve learned on this trip, it’s that I know where my home is and I’m pleased with it. Give me a couple of decades and I might even develop some patriotism…

We had some time after Ellis Island, so we took number 1 to 50^th street trying to get to the empire state building… Instead we stumbled onto Times Square. It was a slightly sad sight after the Virgin Megastore had closed. There was nothing I desperately wanted to shop – actually I’ve had that kind of feeling for two days now. New York crap is what you can buy anywhere in the world, so it doesn’t seem to attract me at all. Could also be that all that I’ve seen and bought on this trip has been so much more interesting… Or perhaps I’m simply tired of shopping. I certainly wouldn’t want a plastic statue of Liberty to my shelf.

It’s a great feeling to see that perhaps going home isn’t such a bad thing, I certainly have started to feel road-weary for a while now. Only one more day to go and then we are flying to London.

We arrived to the JFK after only 4 hours of flight, which meant that we basically skipped the whole night. I had maybe two times ten minutes sleep, so with jetlag, that was not the nicest day ahead.

The customs were not a Bitch, if you don’t count the continuous CNN and morning shows where the ‘stupid people’ can complain about their loans. It took about 45 minutes and we were through. We didn’t even have to fill the green leaflets again since we had only been to Canada… Not exactly abroad now, is it?

It was 7am still and we got a taxi to our Manhattan hotel, the Hotel 91 in East Broadway, Chinatown. This was one of the two options we had in our price range, which was 100euros tops. New York hotels tend to cost average of 300dollars a night, so that was a bargain. The hotel is clean and nice. We have two double beds, so technically four people could have stayed in our room… The toilet is clean, but in comparison to all the hotels that we’ve stayed at before this: It lacks a kettle. There is a lounge for hot water though, in case we need it. There is a coin laundy inside and a post office as well as a liquor store next door. This makes it a great hotel for us, but of course not for all the people.

As tired as we were, we didn’t really get to our room before 3pm, so we had around seven hours to kill. This involved the trial and error or buying a metcard (7day overall pass to the metro and bus system) and realizing that it does not work if you need to go out and in again. Also the Halloween time had seriously closed down some of the lines, so the closest subway station to us was Canal Street. We took the metro uptown to Central Park, since we figured that it would certainly at least be open.

It was the New York city Marathon day today, which was closing even more streets, not to mention confusing the traffic in the Central Park. We had Vancouver-type breakfast in the memory of our friend KG, I had a vegetable omelet, brown toast, orange juice and coffee. I have to say that it tasted better in Vancouver.

When ever in my head I thought of New York, my first place to visit was always the Angel Bethesda. What can I say: I just love ‘Angels in America’ so much. New York is really a city that you see through the television a lot. It’s on all the TV series, it’s on all the films. We walked past the Mall of Central park in a gorgeous yellow and green blanket of trees. This was the spot on cover of ‘When Harry met Sally’. It takes you all the way to the lovely fountain of Bethesda, which to me symbolizes all the tragedy of the big city – the aids, the religions, The cold world outside. It’s as breathtaking as it is in the series.

After wandering through the ramble of the park, we came to our senses and returned to the road which took us to the Metropolitan museum of art. It’s a huge complex, like the British Museum or Louvre, but we were mainly interested in the exhibition on Samurai art, which had just gone on. It was a fascinating layout, lots of katanas, even some cloth pieces, which we know can only be exposed to daylight for a month in every five years, and of course some helmets and armor. The Helmets were even more obscure than we’ve seen before – not even Masamune Date had a huge ‘U’ shaped golden fork decorating his head. At this point however, it started to feel as we’d have to commit ritual suicide if we didn’t get any sleep, so my memories of the exhibition are specially vague. Sleep deprivation is a fascinating thing. Man can think that can accomplish anything, but if man does not sleep… There is nothing but insanity waiting.

We then walked to a subway and found ourselves back in Canal Street. We had one of the best meals of my life for lunch in a Schetzuan restaurant there, hot but great. After that it was three hour nap and dinner to make our night complete. I saw the angel, that was the main accomplishment of the day.