Living in San Giorgio di Pesaro and Kingston

After Las Vegas we flew across to New York for the last part of the holiday. We were there for 5 days and in that time we met up with friends Peter and George who live in Malverne, Long Island and Mike, Monique, Luke and Dante the dog who live in Brooklyn.

When we arrived in New York the most important thing was to get some washing done and near the hotel we found a Laundry which for $8.50 did 5lbs of washing, drying and folding. We became regular visitors. Just across the road was the Morning Star Diner and that became our favourite place for breakfast. Once we had our washing and our breakfast in place we, apart from a view visits it museums, did a lot of shopping. Bill found a classical record where he browsed the records happily and I watched the rather strange people, Bill excluded, browsed through the shelves. It was clear that all the clients were regulars. We also went shopping with Peter and George who took us to Westbury Common, a very large outlet mall. This is the first of two malls they took us to and we managed to buy some new winter clothes.

We ate out with Peter and  George in an Italian and then a French restaurant. With Mike and Monique we ate at their home and also in a Japanese restaurant. Then with Monique we went to see the Frick Museum followed by a visit to her favourite place for cocktails – the Carlyle Hotel’s Bemelman bar. The walls of the bar are covered with drawings from the Madeleine stories written by Ludwig Bemelman. It is a very cosy bar and serves lovely cocktails. I went for a Mule, Bill went for a Manhattan and Monique went for a gin Martini. After one drink everyone was feeling very relaxed!

After helicopter rides in Hawaii and the Grand Canyon we decided to be very brave and try the roller coaster ride which runs on the outside of the casino called “New York, New York”. We were already on the ride and slowly setting off when Bill told me it “looped the loop”. The seats were uncomfortable and formed in a way to provide minimum support to neck and head and they rocked from side to side and back and forward in time to the swerve and curve of big dipper. A very rattling, scarey experience which costs $15 dollars for the first go and only $7 dollars for a second go. We passed on the offer. We also passed on the photographs which were taken at 3 different points on the ride – they didn’t make me look my best.

We heard later that a few years earlier a safety inspection on the ride had shown that 7 or 8 of the bolts holding the ride to the outside of the building were almost sheared off and that the whole thing could fall sideways at any time. From my experience on the ride I can only assume they are near to shearing again.