New York

Having made it through immigration in Canada for America, just. I only had to wait 8 minutes for authorisation, which for ‘normal’ people takes seconds and the immigration guy did insist it was an issue with me rather than anything else and then finally finding my luggage, which had arrived on an earlier flight but no one had told me, I made it to New York and my hostel in Harlem.

As the morning was another beautiful autumn day I decided I would walk from 125th down to W Houston. I have been to New York before so I only had a few places I wanted to visit that I had missed previously. My stroll took me from the top of Central Park to the bottom at Columbus Circle, I saw the waterfalls in the park, lakes, reservoirs and lots of joggers and dog walkers. I carried on down 7th Avenue to Penn Station and picked up my Amtrak rail pass with the advice to book my tickets as soon as I can, so that will be a day of sorting that out very soon.

One of my Manhattan missions was to go to the famous Katz’s delicatessen, though I did stop off on the way for a manicure, my nails needed pampering, so did my feet, but no one is going near them - it would be a health hazard! At Katz’s I went the traditional route and had a pastrami & rye, with 2 different sorts of pickle. It was another huge sandwich, stuffed full of pastrami, which is cut to order and you get to sample a piece of pastrami before they make your sandwich. I was even brave enough to eat some of the pickle, for those that know me and how fussy I am with food, this was a major thing, not that I really liked it, but I did try it.

At this point my feet gave up, so I took the subway to Ground Zero and tried to avoid the people who wanted to have their pictures taken in front of it. It’s now a building site, screened off by a large fence. Basically it is just a huge blank in Manhattan, there is nothing to see, certainly nothing to be photographed in front of. What surprised me is that not more of the surrounding buildings were destroyed by the event.

My final mission was to take the Staten Island ferry, and as it was my last thing to do, I waited for one with an outside bit for better views. On our return from Staten Island the sun was beginning to set over the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan so I was lucky enough to get some great views and photographs.

Next stop: Boston