OK you all, we made it to New york.
After a quite stormy and hectic day at work on Friday I rushed home to pack my suitcase. Luckily ML had already prepared a lot and by 21.00 (and also after a last killing raid on the ants in our front driveway) we were on the road to the Dusseldorf Airport Hotel.
On the way I received an SMS from my boss to sleep on my 2 ears (Thx Manu!), the job got already a little further away.
Hotel in Dusseldorf (I will add the name later) looked disappointing from the outside, but boy the interior was beautiful. Nice, clean & a real moden design. Staff was very friendly. We happen to notice that the front desk guy was a spitting image of the young TIGER WOODS. We were not the first telling him that.
Also our car seemed happy with his nice and safe spot.
Saturday after the normal hassle and the 7 hour flight, off we went to the Big Apple.
At 15.30 we touched ground, and at 17 we were outside of the terminal.
Folks whoever reads this DO NOT TAKE the taxi from JFK to downtown! The trip will cost you 100 USD, but there is a better alternative
take the bus.
A big friendly African American driver asked us 15 USD each to bring us with the bus to Grand Station and from there to our Hotel by mini-van.
Thats already a saving of 70 USD
not bad for city where Dollars are clicking away at the speed of seconds ticking.
The Salisbury Hotel at 57th Street is OK, not a real bargain at 220 per night but hey this is New York where location costs money. And the location is great
just 2 blocks from Broadway (across the street of Carnegie Hall) and a 15 minute walk to Times Square.
At 20.00 we were out on the street and heading to find a double decker bus to do the recommend Night Tour. This is my 5th time in New York, however the first time as a tourist.
Despite the enthousiastic stories of Kim and Jurgen I was sceptic. NY was in my mind as a cool and somewhat dirty business town.
The walk downfown however brought me to other ideas and realy that song of THE VOICE BLUE EYES (Frankie Sinatra) is true
this city never sleeps. What an energy is present here and it is amazing to see everyone continuously busy to make more of life. As a foreign tourist you have eyes too short, and your mind is raging at top speed to capture it all, while Sinatras song is blasting in the background.
The bus tour (again 80 USD) was quite interesting, you get a good view on how the city is build and where the focus points are. However the guide got a little on our nerves with his over enthousiastic stories but even more by using the word FOLKS 6 times in every sentence (so 3 million times in the 2 hour trip). I believe he watched too many cartoons of Bugs thats all folks Bunny.
I told you all to put every day a picture of the day on this blog.
Well it is 5.30 Sunday morning here and Im sitting in the Hotel Lobby. Just discovered that my laptop has no Compact Flash card reader, so the picture will need to wait a little until I solve this technical issue. But I can reveal already this, it will be the sign from the garage door on a Fire Station.
Although I promessed myself not to tough (the past is the past) the 911 drama, standing in front of the place were those true heroes left for their last call was truly emotional.
We recognized even some of their pictures and names after such long time and even as people who lived it from such far distance as Europe.
So to all firemen of ENGINE 54 and 4 TRUCK as to all others who served beyond duty that day, THANK YOU.
You proved that even when there are people in this world who let you loose all hope for the world and future, there is still a majority for whom the true sprit Land of the free and Home of the brave is more than a line out of the national Anthem.
Today, Sunday July 6, we are heading for Ellis Island & Statue of Liberty and after that SHOPPING !!! Lets cross fingers that it remains dry, wheather prediction is BAD.
I already had this morning a situation in the hotel Lobby, but that story you will hear later.
Eric & ML
06-07-2008, 00:00 geschreven door koekjes 
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