New York City - First Impressions: Arrival

I'm back. With an overload of impressions. Lots of things I want to show and share with you and talk about, but I'd like to do this nicely. I'm not a writer, but I'll try hard to make this readable.



"Were you guys not happy with my service or anything?"...

the very friendly, small, thin, eldery waitress inquires (she has a face that reminds me of a certain little cute animal, but I cannot remember which one) . We must have got something wrong with the tip!

Earlier today, after a more than 8 hour flight from Francford/Germany to NYC we wait in a queue for an hour and a half at the overheated Newark airport. Then they take our picture and fingerprints and we are free to go. We take a shuttle to our hotel, I'm too tired and hot to take pictures during the trip, but very excited when the NYC skyline comes into view.

Half an hour later the driver leaves us at the back entrance of the Edison Hotel on 48th Street. We check in, get our key and head off to the 16th floor. Surprise surprise!....this is not what I/we had expected. What have I expected? I don't know, something newer, more modern, something brighter, whiter? But I do like this room. And the faux Renoir above the headboard. This has some kind of "last century" charm to it. Art deco. American Art Deco I suppose, mixed with 1940 Elegance. The mattress is excellent, the faucets are a bit difficult to handle, the shower has a funny way of spraying water in a wide bow upon you and everything else in the bathroom if you don't pull the curtain carefully enough, and it makes spitting and hissing noises.

We conquer the room, put clothes on hangers, take showers to wash off the fatigue. We dress in fresh clothes and out we are. On our way through the lobby I think: this is impressive, the ceiling so high, everything looks so huge, the desk, the sitting area with enormous armchairs and lamps, or did we shrink during the flight??

The revolving frontdoor spits us out onto 47th Street, just a few steps from Broadway and Times Square. WOW !!! I have an overwhelming light-color-crowd experience. We walk down Broadway, together with lots and lots and lots of other people, many families. Now I remember, today is Mother's day. It's early evening, around 6 or so, but in our heads and bodies it's already Midnight. We are thrilled, excited to be here.

After a while, it's time to find a quiet place where we can have a nice dinner. Places there are many, they are all but quiet. Somewhere between 45th and 42nd Street we turn and find a nostalgic looking Deli, it looks crowded with families, but we are motioned to a free table immediately. We order drinks and Hamburger and potatoe pancakes with apple puree, hmmm, reminds my my moms potatoe pancakes = childhood.

The waitress asks us where we are from and when she hears that we're from Paris she says that we must be very tired because of the time difference. She knows cause she lived in Mykonos, Greece, for 10 years, she tells us. Went there with her husband. I don't ask why she came back.

I love my pancakes, my husband loves the coleslaw which came with the meat, finding the meat too dry. Then we ask "our" waitress for the bill, she brings it and we think that the amount added between the subtotal and the total (which is indeed the tax!) must be the tip. That it is included somehow. We pay, she comes and takes the money away and is back two minutes later, asking us if her service wasn't good enough! We sheepishly confess that we don't understand what she has written on the bill.

She is very patient with us tourists and says:"Just double the tax, that's what I always tell my son, just double the tax" (Did she leave her son in Mykonos, then?) We give her a good tip, she's happy, I feel a bit silly for not having figured out this tip thing before.

Next thing we're back on Broadway, Times Square, 47th street, in the lobby and in our room. We try to stay awake cause we don't want to be up at 4 tomorrow morning. But at around 8 I doze off.....