The cons:

Going up

In the end, the journey up to New York was uneventful. The train left on time at 8.45pm, and I got a seat with no one next to me – nice!

There was plenty of legroom too meaning that I could stretch out and easily get some sleep – which I did between about midnight and 7am. The train did though lose a bit of time on the way, and we pulled into New York Penn station about 30 minutes later than scheduled.

New York

So … New York. Yup – pretty much the same as I remember it from last time! Just warmer. But that didn’t stop me taking a load of pictures of steam rising from the roads, pretzel stands, NYPD cops, and the yellow cabs that swarm all over the city like bees.

I meet up with Paul & his wife, who are staying in an apartment in Greenwich. It’s nice – and just 30 seconds walk away from a whole load of gay sex shops. Handy.

I’m here to check out the subway, but first we do do some of the standard touristy things, especially as I didn’t do them when I was here before. We go up the Empire State Building, and time it so that it’s 6pm as we go up and it’s daylight, and hang around long enough for it to get dark (and cold) and see the NY skyline lit up in the darkness too – it’s very cool.

We also go to Ellis Island (passing the Statue of Liberty on the boat on the way). Ellis is where over 12 million immigrants were checked & processed as they came into the USA from the eighteen hundreds right up until 1954. They had to go through a fairly tortorous process before they were deemed illegable for entry. I know how they feel.

In the museum was a whole area where you could see the figures of population growth in the USA, and how the spread of immigrants changed the landscape. There was a cool map of how the ‘states used to be arrange – Louisiana for example used to stretch the whole length of the land.

We also got chatting to some young girls in the museum restaurant. “We love your accents!” was their general gist. “How old are you all, and where are you from?” I think I asked. “Sixteen!” said one, “Seventeen!” trumped another – and it transpired that they were all out on a day trip down from their school in Connecticut. They did indeed love our accent, and they all wanted to go and visit England one day.

“Whereabouts are you from?” one of them asked. And that did actually stump me for a moment. England, London is the answer – technically – but a part of me wanted to say “Charleston, South Carolina” too. My goodness – am I going native?

The next day, Paul & I go into geek mode and check out the subway. Leaving his wife to go shopping and arranging to meet her later, we consult the map, and decide to go to the top of the ’4′ line, and walk through the Bronx down the start of the ‘D’ line.

And thus we do … the walk from Woodlawn to Norwood 205th street. I’m slightly worried that I’m snapping away with my expensive DSLR camera, but after much consideration, we decide that the stereotype of the Bronx is a load of cobblers, and it feels no more dangerous than say .. ooh .. Harrow in north west London.

We make it to the station without a hitch. We travel around a bit more, sussing out more of the system. A possible world record attempt is very much on my mind for the future. The current record according to this page here would appear to be 25 hours and 36 minutes.

A few more trains later, and we all meet up on the steps of the New York Library. A diversion into Starbucks is a must. And I discover for the first time the oasis of peace amongst the bustle of the city that is Bryant Park. It’s lovely. I feel that I could just sit here all day watching the world go by, but we only stay there for five minutes.

I also go shopping into B&H – otherwise Leigh (who didn’t come with me – 13 hours on a train is not her style) would have never of forgiven me. I buy some small items – and notice that I don’t get charged sales tax … I ask and discover an interesting fact: On purchases now in New York City (not state) that are under $300 – there is now no sales tax charged! Did you know this? I didn’t. Neat.

And so two nights later and all too soon it’s time to come home. And another looong train journey beckons to take me back to Charleston again.

Coming Home

The return journey is much more eventful from the one coming up! So much so, that it deserves a ’10 things…’ list all to itself.

1) It leaves 20 minutes late to begin with. Not a good start.

2) The train has power sockets (outlets) this time, so I could plug in my laptop and not be restricted to six hours of battery life – yay! I watch ‘Lost in translation’ and fall in love with Scarlett Johansson. I wonder about how I’m going to break the news to Leigh.

3) I get chatty to Ed – the guy in the buffet car selling over priced hot drinks and snacks. I tell him that trains in England also sell over priced hot drinks and snacks, but at least here they’re more polite when they sell them to you.

3) The train gets delayed as someone is taken ill, and we made an unscheduled stop at a pokey hick station somewhere in rural Virginia and I watch out of my windows as an ambulance – and for some unknown reason a fire engine (truck) too – rolls up to take the person away.

4) We stop in Washington DC on the way down for half an hour too, so I take the opportunity to get out and take some photos of the train I was travelling on. I have a Neil moment of “Not in the current climate, sir” when a member of the station staff threatens to call the police unless I stop taking photos of the train. “You can’t do that, not since 911 and all that” he says. (And yes, those were his actual words).

5) Some mad big fat jolly black guy was playing air piano and humming to himself in the buffet car. I don’t quite know what came over me, but it amused me so much as I walked past that I slid into the plastic seat opposite him and for ten surreal seconds joined in! “Jam with me brother!” he says – and we did! It was cool.

6) As well as having a Scarlett moment (who I later decide I don’t like after all because she’s smoking in the film) I also watch a lot of Doctor Who – I have after all got the complete series of Ecclestone and Tennant downloaded (ahem) onto my laptop so it seems rude not to.

When the conductor/ticket inspector comes through the train checking tickets, he sees me and says “Hey! You’re watching Doctor Who!”, and it turns out he was a massive fan too and we had a chat about it, and the classic series of years gone by which he’s now started to buy on video and DVD from the UK.

7) I realise I have a bit of a sore throat. And after the buffet car closes, nothing to sooth it with. All my food and drink that I brought with me has run out by 2am in the morning.

I panic about being asleep and missing my stop. I don’t want to wake up in Savannah, so I don’t sleep well and only get about 4 hours of rest involving me waking up every hour on the hour checking what time it is.

9) The train runs 1 hour and 15 minutes late in the end – meaning I had just under 15 hours on a train. God bless Leigh who came to pick me up from the darkness of North Charleston station at 06.30 in the morning.

10) I decide that next time I go – I’m going to fly up. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it – it was after all clean, comfortable and better than being on a plane in some respects, but flying is just quicker, and that ultimately is the big decider.

And it’s not as if I had a bad journey, and at least it wasn’t as bad as some had led me to believe.

Next time: The Tankmobile finally comes under scrutiny as I’ve been planning to do so for ages.