...and so it's good-bye to NYC!

Today got off to a slow start. It seems each day we get up later and later and likewise stay up later and later. I kicked myself for "getting lazy with all this vacationing." It occurred to me yesterday while watching a bit of football in the early evening and wondering why the games were running so late...seven days into this trip and I'm finally starting to get it...we're not turning into night owls it's just our bodies fighting back against the 3 hour time change we've subjected them to. Getting up at 8:00 a.m is REALLY getting up at 5:00 PST and going to bed at 11:00 p.m. is REALLY going to bed at 8.

The other thing I can't seem to get here is direction. When traveling at the bottom of these "steel canyons" with no direct sunshine one really has no point of reference as to direction. I am forever stepping out of the hotel and turning south to go north. For some reason Becky has been unaffected by this phenomena...perhaps having to do with her working indoors. Becky has taken to hanging back at intersections to see which way I'll turn, laughing and then smugly setting me on the correct course.

So anyway, we arose somewhat late (relatively speaking) and wandered down to our local cafe (I have learned the directions there), ate breakfast, chatted up our "best friend" in NYC, the cashier...(strangely we've come to feel rather close to him) and headed off for Greenwich Village on the always exciting NYC subway system. We wandered the streets a bit, cursing the cold, always the cold and the differences in the neighborhoods of New York City. "The Village" is closer to the tip of Manhattan Island making it older than everything north of it. Manhattan was settled from south to north. At the southern tip the streets curve about and have traditional "names." As one travels north a bit it turns into a rigid grid (with the exception of Broadway) with Avenues going north/south and Streets going east/west. The Village is full of cool little shops and bookstores. We stepped into a few then wandered through a bit of a historical literary walk laid out in one of our guidebooks (see picture #1 for Becky in the "Mews").

It was coming on lunch time (whatever time that is...I no longer have any idea or really care). One of our goals for the trip (a VERY strong recommendation by my daughter Meghan who visited here last Thanksgiving) was to eat at the best damned kosher deli anywhere...Katz's!!!

It didn't looks so very far on the map, but nothing in New York does, so we walked, marched then stumbled though some of the city's scariest places...(hmmm Beck, "the Bowery"...this doesn't look so very good does it?) and finally in the distance we see Katz's sign. Well, now friends and neighbors I am here to tell you that the was THE VERY BEST food we ate in New York and possibly ever in our lives (see picture #3)! I had been warned about them serving large portions so we shared a pastrami on rye (with mustard) and a vanilla egg cream. EVERYONE who is anyone has eaten here. President Clinton ate 2 hotdogs and a pastrami on rye and a diet ginger soda...you can sit at the same booth he did it's ma...(ed note: and here once again our message abruply ends...lost)

Back to the hotel by subway (something about traveling at high speed while underground really appeals to me...this is not the first trip where I've embraced "The Tube" to offload some books and salamis we had bought along the way.

Back out onto the mean streets of New York for another shopping adventure. This time the legendary Bloomingdales. Becky bought a hat (1/2 hour in line to pay for it).

We both found it pretty much awful...I guess we have no appreciation for the finer points of shopping. It had no interesting architecture, the prices were astronomical and the people were ugly. Once again we were confronted with throngs of shoppers all pawing through the goods. I was horrified while squeezing through the racks to find myself walking on $900 dollar coats lying all over the ground. The only interesting thing I saw was a mannequin lying on the floor (along with the coats) wearing an expensive green jacket...she shopped till she dropped I guess...hah! (see picture #4)

Bussed back to the hotel...getting dark. Becky grabbed a sandwich from a Starbucks to eat back at the room. I had never had a White Castle burger before but understand it to be an East Coast thing so I ordered a couple to go. I now have a new standard in the "burger hierarchy." I've always felt that when talking franchise burgers McDonalds was pretty much the bottom of the pile...no longer so my friends...White Castle burgers are so nasty I'm not sure they even can claim to be real "burgers"...how small can a burger be? Are they really meat? Where to they get those teeny-tiny awful tasting buns? But any franchise burger meal you can walk away from is a good meal...and so it was with our last formal meal of 2001.

We are now holed up at the hotel watching the buildup to midnight on the television (same as we do each year while at home). We simply could not face HALF A MILLION PEOPLE jammed together in Times Square (400,000 of whom cannot even see the ball drop) in the LOW 20's!!!I With the wind chill figured in (18 mph) it feels like...now get this 10 FRICKEN' DEGREES!!!! We are all actually being instructed on how to recognize the onset of frostbite! I have saved back a big black and white cookie to celebrate with later. We've packed most of our stuff. Up at 6:00 a.m. to catch a plane at 11:00 (we have been warned security is nuts at JFK) for the coast and home.

Tomorrow: The trip home and a "Best Of/Worse Of List" on our trip...hopefully tomorrow's Dispatch will be written on the home computer. Our AOL account is now officially defunct and please send all correspondence to drgil@pacbell.net or rakalal@pacbell.net once again.

your traveling correspondents, Gil (see photo #5) and Becky

Please click HERE to continue on the Day 8!