Canada and New York: Friday Greenwich village, REI store

We had a small agenda again today. Somehow I feel like we are going to leave New York thinking "Why didn't we do.... X..... while we were there?"

The destination for Mary, V and W was Madame Tussauds. I took a rain check as I had visited the London show way back in prehistoric days. (I took a photo of myself with Bob Hawke, affectionately holding hands. If I find the slide some day I will insert the photo here).

In the meantime, here's an image from the "not a ballerina" blog of the exact Bob Hawke from 25 years ago. The internet is amazing. I have no idea who this bloke is, but he's the blogger's dad. Link

Found it!

I wandered the New York streets continuing my New York Street Familiarisation Program. It goes like this. Set out in a vague general direction... get distracted by something interesting... it might be a crowd all heading in a certain direction, a vantage point for a good photo, or even an idea that there might be something interesting down that way. Do this a few times. Now you are lost. Don't ask directions. Don't retrace your steps. Try to find your way back to your first intended route using the shortest route. Now you are really lost. Ask someone.

Despite the mathematical grid pattern of NYC which is absolutely clear, there are confounding factors. Some of the streets don't have numbers in their names. Park Ave, Lithgow Ave and Madison Ave are examples. If you don't know what they correspond to, you can easily walk a block or two in the wrong direction. The other confusing thing is your shadow. It goes the wrong way here. (It's a northern hemisphere thing) My inbuilt sundial (did you know we had one of them?) is really upset. Trying to cerebrally account for this to work out which way is north uses up precious thinking faculties that should be allocated to other functions such as noticing things or thinking "Perhaps I could ask".

Anyhow I got to Madame Tussauds a bit early. I considered a coffee across the street, but there wasn't quite enough time- what if the others came out and didn't see me? There was a doorman at Madam T's so I considered asking him to let W know where I was (W is easy to describe.. the doorman wouldn't miss him). The doorman didn't seem to be doing much. I also was struck by his resemblance to Morgan Freeman. I was still considering approaching him when I noticed that a tourist had approached him and was posing with him for a photograph. How embarrassing when I realised what was going on!

Me and Morgan

By this time our objective had become a bushwalking shop called REI which our friend Bill Appelbe had recommended, and an icecream. This meant heading to Greenwich Village, and it was a little too far to walk today, so this meant braving the subway. I have to say that the NY subway is pretty well done. It's efficient, and the information is clear. The card system works. Train position on the line is indicated on the modern trains by a display with all the stations and lights indicating which stations have already been passed. The current station light flashes when you approach.

This is the best I've seen. I would rather catch the NY subway than the Paris Metro or London Tube and should I even mention our own beloved Metro?

The REI shop was nearby a home made icecream shop so we wandered through Greenwich Village to find it. Greenwich Village is a pleasant part of town with a little more greenery than Uptown Manhattan (Central Park excepted) and the icecream was delicious.

In Greenwich Village

The REI store was a fun visit.. lots to see and a few purchases were made by V (Event jacket and backpack). The building itself is actually quite historic as it was the home of the satirical magazine "Puck" a century ago and many artifacts of this past were retained or modified in the current store including two 9 ton flywheels from the printing presses.

After that we headed homewards. I checked out Times Square