Vacation 1: New York City

Ok, Neil came over from Auckland, and we spent a while together on our well deserved holidays. We have been looking forward to this for so long, and while it was sad leaving Seattle, it was also great to go back to L.A. to see Neil again. My flight was to leave at 6am, so I left early, dropped off my Jeep at the FOX rental station and took the shuttle to the airport. When I arrived, there were United staff there, saying that the flight to San Francisco (my flight, then connecting to LAX) was cancelled due to mechanical problems. All passengers were to queue at a counter and will get alternative arrangements. I was probably at position 20 of the appr. 180 people, and it took a VERY long time. There was only one agent dealing with this cancelled flight, and since there were lots of connecting passengers on that flight, she had a hard time finding new connections to places all over the world. When it was my turn, she quickly found me a non-top flight to LAX on Alaska at 7am. She said it was unacceptable that I was told to wait in this queue (since I am UA Premier Executive), and gave me a system-wide upgrade voucher. How nice of her! As soon as I had checked in I went to the service desk and tried to upgrade my flight from Buenos Aires to Washington, D.C. end of October. Business class is on waiting list, but I'll keep my fingers crossed...:) It was my first flight on Alaska Airlines, and I loved it. I was lucky to get a spanking new B737-800 in the beautiful Boeing livery (N512AS). The seats were comfy, lots of seat pitch, and very friendly crew.
Anyway, due to the non-stop flight I was early in LAX, and went to the Travelodge we had booked for the day. It was a bit of a dump, and a construction site, and the staff was very unfriendly, but the room was spacious and clean - that's all we needed. After I had checked in it was time to get back to the airport and pick up Neil. It was great to see him again, and we went back to the hotel, dropped the bags and then went out to have some fast food since we were hungry. After a few hours rest we went back to the airport and checked in for our red-eye flight to JFK with Delta. Delta is often seen as one of the two "best airlines" in North America (Continental being the other one), so I was keen to see how they are. And well, it was crap! The flight attendants were incredibly unfriendly and rude, and the plane was old. The flight was not nice at all, and I kept wondering what the fuss about Delta is all about? Oh, and my suitcase wasn't there either, but I am used to that by now, haha. It was delivered a day later. Good I could borrow some clothes from Neil :)
When we arrived at JFK at 5:45am we took a pre-booked shuttle to Manhattan. We stayed at the West Side YMCA, where I had been before (In 1988). It was a bit of a shocker for us. The YMCA was totally redone a few years ago, and we had booked a room with private bath. However, all we got was a grotty VERY small room without bath. The common baths were pretty dirty and always steaming hot - a free sauna! A complain didn't help, since the guy at the check-in was very unfriendly, and they were full anyway. Oh well, at least we had a bed!

The three days in NYC went by very quickly. Following are just a few photos I took. The second evening we took the train out to Hicksville, where Paul Forestell picked us up and showed us around campus of Long Island University. He has just been promoted to Provost of the C.W. Post Campus (i.e., he is the boss of the campus), and has a beautiful office in a beautiful old building. He then took us out to a great Italian restaurant, and we had a good time taking about work and other stuff.

Madison Square Garden

5th Avenue and Empire State Building

Neil and Robin Williams at Madame Tussauds

On Times Square...

One night we had tickets for the play Boeing-Boeing (comedy) at Longacre Theatre on Broadway, which we truly enjoyed. One of the characters was played by Greg Germann, who was Richard Fish in Ally McBeal.

At the huge M&M store

We had breakfast twice at Trump Tower on 5th Avenue, because it was close and cheap ;-) The second time we were there, there was a big crowd and lots of media people. And rest assured, shortly after it "the Donald" came out and gave a press statement about a new venture he does with a magician or something like that. The photos are bad, but you can't mistake THAT hair - and it is even worse in real life than on TV...;-)

The last day we rented bicycles for two hours and cycled through Central Park. It was the best way to travel around the huge park, and we went all around the outer trail/road.

The Guggenheim Museum is on 5th Avenue, opposite Central Park

Still Central Park!

That afternoon, we headed back to the airport, and checked in for our flight back to LAX. This time, Delta was much better, especially the crew was much friendlier. The personal TVs worked better this time, and the 5 hour flight went by very fast!