The One With Absent Friends - New York City, NY
New York City, NY
Where I stayed
Nesva Hotel, Long Island City, Queens, New York
What I did
Fifth Avenue New York City
St. Patrick's Cathedral New York City
Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York
Today was always going to be a hard day is it was the 1 year anniversary since my Dad passed away; however, despite being by myself in a foreign country (though as I found out yesterday some Americans think I'm a local) I had devised a few things to do to keep myself occupied. In March 1999, not long after my Mum passed away we (along with my sister-in-law Bayleaf) took, what was to be, our last proper family holiday where we had a long weekend in New York. So, in order to keep Dad's memory going I decided to do some of the things that we had done that weekend i.e. Empire State Building, drink in a bar we found near Saks (just off 5th Avenue) and the Staten Island Ferry (as you can see the Statue of Liberty and save yourself about $20). In addition to this I had booked for the tour of the Barclays Center at 10.00am.
When I woke up I had the fright of my life as there was no music playing on my phone (despite the alarm having gone off) and it was 9.30am. This meant that I would miss the tour of the Barclays Center which I had been looking forward to for quite a while as this was supposed to be the first ever tour. As I started to wake up some things started to click into place; firstly, it seemed really dark for 9.30am and it really didn't seem that long since I'd gone to bed. The final piece in the puzzle was when I looked at the bedside clock and saw that it said 01.30am!!! At this point I was now completely awake and realised that when I had set up my phone the night before I hadn't changed the time and date from Saudi to New York so it was actually 8 hours ahead. With that in mind I reset everything on my phone, set my alarm clock and went back to bed.
After all that I woke up a good couple of hours before I'd set my alarm clock and was that paranoid that I'd sleep in I decided to get up and just potter around my round. As I mentioned earlier I had arranged a number of things; however, this was to change when I opened the curtains and saw that it was raining and there was quite low cloud cover. This, unfortunately, meant that I couldn't see the Queensboro Bridge or Empire State Building that I could see from my room the day before. As a result of this I decided that unless the weather improved a lot I would leave the Empire State Building and Staten Island Ferry for another day as it really needs a day where you can see for quite a distance (especially for the Empire State Building).
So, after an hour or so I decided to set off to the Barclays Center and seeing as I was now in plenty of time I decided to stop off at the diner I'd seen the night before on my way back to the hotel. Now, the hotel did provide a breakfast as part of the room price but as it had been over 4 months since my last fix of pork I decided that I wanted to something a little more substantial. After a good feed and fill up on pork I caught the Q train to Coney Island and travelled the 30 minute journey to the Atlantic Avenue - Barclays Center subway station. I walked up a couple of blocks and arrived at the Barclays Center at, about, 9.40am which was good timing as it was set to start at 10.00am. However; there seemed to be no way in and, as a matter of fact, it looked like there was an event going on. When I spoke to someone they told me that it was due to start at 11.00am as there was a private event on at the moment and they needed to clear away before the start of the tour. I showed the woman my 'ticket' which said that the tour would start at 10.00am to which she kind of shrugged and said wait outside and if she heard anything she'd let me know. After 10 minutes she came back outside and said that we (there were more people here now) had to wait at the doors further down.
After about another 10-15 minutes we were invited inside and after a bag check and going through a metal detector they started the tour which considering that it is a really new arena (it only opened in September 2012). Although it was nice to go down onto the floor (even though the basketball court wasn't down as they were getting ready for a boxing match on the 7th) we didn't get to see a lot. To be honest it felt more like an advert for the Barclays Center rather than anything else. However; there was one very strange incident when we got half way round the tour when we were all given a goodie bag. I was half expecting to find a mug or a lanyard with the Barclays Center on it. When I had a look it turned out that it a rice crispy cake, a cookie and a packet of 'flatbread flavour' crisps. All in all the tour wasn't that bad and I'm sure that in a few years when more things have happened then it will be better. However; off the back of that I did decide to see if I could get a ticket for the game on the 10th against the Boston Celtics. When I first engird the tickets were all the way back and the cheapest were about $180. However; after the woman checked a bit more I managed to get a ticket 10 rows from the front for about $100.
After my trip to the Barclays Center the weather was still really bad and as I had been told by Bayleaf (my Sister-In-Law for those of you who don't know) that the weather was going to get a lot worse I decided it may be an idea to invest in a coat so I headed down to 42nd Street/Times Square and then walked down to 34th as Macy's was down there and was most probably the best place to try and get a decent coat as the weather over the next few weeks was going to be pretty cold. After going through every single inch of the store I finally found a coat and when I went to pay for it they took 25% off it so it was an absolute bargain.
By now it was mid afternoon and considering the day I decided that I wanted to go and grab a whisky in memory of my Dad. For those that don't know our family have a tradition that on the anniversary of someone close to us passing away that we have a drink of their favourite alcoholic drink in their memory. As a result of that I decided to grab myself a whisky as this was one of Dad's favourite tipples (along with Brandy, Bitter and Red Wine). During my first visit to New York myself, my brother and Dad visited a bar around the corner from Saks Fifth Avenue. Unfortunately, by the time I got there and had walked a few blocks it became evident that the bar had been shut down in the 14 years since we had been there. Instead, I found an 'Irish Bar' called O'Reilly's Off Fifth Avenue where I ordered myself a Glenmorangie. Normally, I would have baulked at the $9 price but considering the day and the reason I couldn't care less. After a toast to Dad I finished off the (rather large) shot of Glenmorangie and headed back to fifth avenue.
The reason I headed back was that I recalled the night before seeing St. Patrick's Cathedral and thought that it would be nice to light a candle for my Dad and a candle for my Mum (it's her anniversary on the 15th December). After that emotional few minutes I decided to head back to the hotel as the weather was getting worse and I wanted to catch up with the rest of my family to see how they were. After catching up I decided to relax for a while before heading back out to 42nd Street/Times Square as I'd decided to watch The Hunger Games: Catching Fire to keep myself occupied. The film itself was very good and better than the first one; however, I did upset some young lad when I sat down. Unlike UK cinemas the ones in the US don't give you an assigned seat number so you just sit where ever you want. It was quite a popular screening so there weren't a lot of seats left but I then spotted one at the end. Just as I was about to sit down this lad (about 4 seats down) piped up that someone was going to be sitting there. At which point I pointed out to him that someone was sitting there... ME!!!
After the film I headed back to the hotel and went to bed as tomorrow I had an appointment to get a new tattoo.