Land Ho -- It's New York!

There's a bridge in there somewhere. Coming into Brooklyn, the Queen's Room--our disembarkation meeting point

The Queen Mary 2 at Red Hook pier in Brooklyn, The Brooklyn Bridge, The Brooklyn Bridge

Times Square, Some type of mobile police unit, McDonalds in marque lights off Broadway

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Travel Update: 6:38 AM

Position: Brooklyn 40.40.9 N 74.00.97 W

Sea: slight Wind: 9 knots

Humidity: 82% Barometer 29.9 Steady Temp 73.4

Miles from Southampton 3,149.3 New York 1.8 --It eventually changed to zero.

Today we returned to the USA—it’s been a while. We have been tearing across the Atlantic at 24 knots, and at some point in time during the night the vibration disappeared as we finally slowed down. We were full of anticipation, and worry: there was customs—did we remember everything or not? As it turned out we forgot a few things but not on purpose. Anyway at 4:45 or so Nancy got up and went to deck 7 so she could see the Verrazano Narrows Bridge from the ship. She made it and said it was quite spectacular as there were only three or four meters between the bridge and the ship. Neil, on the other hand, tried to sleep, gave up, got cleaned up and went on deck---missed the bridge by a little and almost missed the Statue of Liberty because I was on the wrong side. Together we watched the police helicopter, the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan skyline and the ship slowing to a stop. We went in at some point and had our last breakfast on board ship and a cup or two of coffee—the staff was as courteous as ever. We said our farewells to a great ship and a wonderful experience. Then down to the room to get things straightened around for the final time---find Denys, our room steward, for a tip and then to wait for our turn to disembark.

One Interesting thing happened on Nancy’s quick look to find our Steward. She passed the stairway entrance B, looked and saw two ship’s officers with lots of bars on their shoulders (means they’re important) and a very big police officer with NYPD on his uniform. She decided not to go that way and turned back toward our cabin. As she turned she noticed the cabin door open at 4156 with a second very big NYPD officer in the room looking around. One passenger in the cabin was on the bed and the other was sitting in a chair. At this point Nancy hurried back to the room. She went out about 20 minutes later and the policemen were still there. They still didn't offere an explanation, so Nancy just talked to Denys and went back to the room. We speculated on the purpose of two NYPD dpartment members on board the ship. We figure either the drug dogs found something or there was an outstanding warrent for someone in the room.....all guesses, but why NYPD on the ship with a British registry.

We said good by to the cabin and found our way to the Queens Room where the #4 Aqua group was to wait their turn to disembark. It was going very wel,l and it looked like we would leave early, but then a problem developed at customs and things slowed down. We read our books, did Suduko puzzles, and wondered and worried. At sometime about 10:00 they called for people with US passports to disembark. We gathered our small bags and made our way to the gangway—turned in our Queen Mary identity cards and made our way to the baggage room. After a brief wait we were allowed to find our big bags, collect them, and make our way to Custoims. There was hardly any line for US passports, so we went through customs quickly. The officer scanned our passports, stamped them and passed us through with hardly a question. I wonder what kind of questions you have to answer if you bought one of the Picasso's at the art auction?

We made our way out into the sun and wait for a cab. We joined the line and followed instructions; (Cunard is big on properly queing and instructions) eventually we were directed to a cab. Cabs were assigned by amount of luggage; we didn’t need a huge cab for our luggage, at least not compared to some of the other passengers. The cabbie took us over the Brooklyn Bridge, another new experience, and took us to our hotel, even avoiding the parade forming on Sixth Avenue that morning. The check in guy, Mike, had a room for us even though we were early. We went upstairs, found our room, cranked up the air conditioning, changed into shorts, and set out into the heat. We went South to a bead store that we had found on the way out but had decided not to buy beads because we would be hauling them all over Europe. We spent an hour checking all the many many beads and designing jewelry in our heads. We left in search of lunch. We went into a Burger King but with ten people in line and one counter lady working in slow motion and a small kitchen staff we left. Apparently BK failed to realize with a big parade on 6^th Avenue (a block away) the demand might be higher than the usual Sunday. We ended up back on 40^th street at a McDonald’s right by the hotel. After lunch and a short break in the cool cool room we set out again. Neil had looked up some hobby shops during the break, and they were added to the reasons for our trek.

We marched north up Fifth Avenue. We found one hobby shop, but it was closed on Sunday. We then cut west to Time Square heading for the M&M Store. Along the way aside from lots and lots of people and slowly increasing temperatures we managed to change our last 80 pounds into dollars—took a hit on the exchange rate, but pounds don’t spend well in New York City. At the M&M store Neil bought a few red ones (3 pounds worth at $12.99 a pound--apparently single color M & Ms are more expensive to produce---right!) for the Red Napoleon dispenser purchased on the North Sea. Then across the street to the Hershey store where we purchased some of the incomparable dark chocolate Kit Kat bars. We finished our purchases and started south with Neil looking for two hobby shops and Nancy hanging in there. To put it succinctly the hobby shops were not at those addresses so after a long walk we were headed back to the hotel and a break from the heat. Nancy was about done in, and we still had to have some dinner.

After a break and a bath we were able to head out looking for dinner. We went to a café we had been in during June. We ordered a bowl of soup and a pasta dish—it was passable but not great. Maybe it was the heat or a different cook, but it just wasn’t so good. We wandered back to the hotel for some television and relaxation. We had planned to work on the blogs, but the connection was so feeble that it was not possible. And so to bed.

16,485 steps. This is why Nancy was so tired--so was Neil