After an early rise in Berlin, we flew West for some 9 hours, only to arrive 2 hours later (local time) in New Jersey. We were greeted by John (Volunteer teacher, China 2008) and his wife Grace. While we took things pretty easy during the afternoon, in the evening we attended a block party (local street get-together). We did retire quite early though, after all we had been awake some 19 hours.
Next day, into New York we headed. Being a very hot, and somewhat humid, day we took advantage of the cool buildings and moved along the shaded side of streets. With so many tall buildings this wasn’t too difficult. We went to the observation deck of the Empire State building to take in the relatively uninterrupted views around Manhattan and beyond, but visibility was somewhat restricted by the haze caused by the humidity. We took a taxi, you know, one of those off yellow vehicles so familiar to anyone who watches TV, to the site where the Twin Towers once stood. It was great to see such a lot of building activity there.
After this we wandered around Wall Street then onto the Staten Island ferry to take in a fairly close view of the Statue of Liberty, then onto Washington Square and Greenwich Village for a nice cool drink in one of the trendy shops of the area. On the way back to the train we stopped at one of the outside community courts where many locals play their basketball and hand tennis. We spent time talking to one of the really interesting locals. I mean this in a nice sense. I must say, we have been very pleasantly surprised by the politeness, helpfulness and friendliness of the people we have come into contact with here in America.
On Tuesday we took a rest day. Kaye and Grace went to look at the local shops etc while I relaxed, photographing the many birds, squirrels and chipmunks that visit the shaded gardens.
