Jerry's Grand Tour

Yesterday the 14 hour tour of New York City's highlights was scheduled. At 10 AM we gathered into a group of 22 people. Jerry, our guide, was a old geezer of around 75 years who did this walk twice a week brining tourists from the hostel to explore New York. Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, China Town, Little Italy and everything in between. It's impossible to describe everything from a 14 hour tour into a short blog post, so I won't even try.

Jerry is a optimistic old guy who likes to tell stories and wants the best for people. After showing us a couple of things he took us to The Garden of Eden, a shop where you could get everything in the field of fruits, vegetables and other kinds of food. Not expensive and very nutritious. Jerry's motto is: when you're in a hurry you don't have to eat junk food. Normally when you order a sandwich with ham you get a couple of slices. Not at this place... you get a sandwich with HAM.

We also visited Ground Zero where they are now building a new tower which will be twice as high as the previous one. And we also visited a number of other buildings. We took the ferry to Staten Island. Costs: 0.0 dollars. What a great service from the city!

Jerry also has the peculiar feature to take pictures of people's faces he sees on the street. He's turning it into some sort of album. Maybe a nice idea when I get back to The Netherlands. At the end of the evening we went to a Peter Lik gallery. That man makes the most fantastic pictures.

We ate at a small Indian restaurant, which was really good food and not expensive (12 dollars for the food and a few dollars for drinks). After that, off to the subway and towards Times Square. When we exited the underground I really thought it was daytime, that's how much light came from the buildings. You could probably read a book at night there.

The last stop was the Marriott hotel. On the inside the have a bunch of transparent elevators that go all the way to the 45th floor. The view on the inside is amazing. If you have to ask how much it costs to spend the night there you'll probably can't afford it. A (expensive) cup of coffee on the 46th floor of the one hour revolving restaurant is however possible for us mortals.

Again, there's much more to tell and show, but it's not possible in a short blog post. Especially after such a long day you'll only want to do one thing when you're back at the hostel. By the way, not everyone made it to the end of the tour. At the ferry we lost a couple of people and as the evening went of more people left. At the end only about two third of the group remained.

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