Concrete jungle where dreams are made of [sic]

Road Trip: Day Thirteen. Miles travelled: 3984. States visited: 17
(Plus Washington DC). Time zones covered: 4

It seems rather strange to think we woke up in Washington DC this morning and that we're now in New York.

The last leg of our epic car journey took us from DC to Philadelphia and through another four states. States come at you thick and fast on the Eastern side of the US. Delaware, it turns out, is tiny!

There's not much to write about this particular car journey. The Interstate took us through the middle of Baltimore, which seems to be a large, brutal and highly industrial city full of bridges. It's in Maryland, and Maryland, it turns out, likes to make a bit of money by charging people to drive on its motorways. In over three thousand miles of driving, we'd only come across one other toll road, and were fairly amused when we were only charged something ludicrous like 75 cents to drive on it!

Maryland knows it's the gateway to New York and Philly and seems to have no compunction whatsoever about fleecing its drivers. The tolls kept coming. The first was for $4. The next cost us $8. Minutes later we paid another $4. It all felt a little unfair.

Delaware doesn't have much going for it, or certainly not the bit we passed through. I'm told it's so small that it would fit into the Grand Canyon. It does, however, have a giant silver Jesus statue which stares over the motorway like an over-sized, foil-coated Christmas tree decoration. When on earth did religion get so tacky? 

A lot of the States are delineated by rivers in these parts, and going over a bridge often means you're crossing a state line. The impressive Delaware Memorial Bridge takes you into New Jersey, and the Benjamin Franklin Bridge takes you into

Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is literally just over the border and the views of the city's skyscrapers from said bridge are magnificent. I rather enjoyed visiting Pennsylvania because the state was named after William Penn, son of Sir William Penn, who was one of the two Sir Williams who were Samuel Pepys' bosses at the Navy Office in the mid 1660s. Pepys didn't have much time for either, but he does mention William Penn Junior in his diaries. I think he's suitably dismissive!


There are a fair number of beggars in Philly. The city of Brotherly Love plainly doesn't have quite enough love to go around. Many of the beggars stand in the middle of the busy roads at junctions where they know the cars are going to stop. Some of them are really laissez faire about what they're doing, almost as though they're willing the cars to hit them. I can't imagine life can be much fun in their situation.

An elderly black woman in a leopard print trouser suit, floppy straw hat and ruby slippers, smoking a cigar, was talking obsessively to herself on the corner of Market Street and Sixteenth. She looked incredibly glamorous but I fear her ranting was largely falling on the collective deaf ears of people passing by.

We weren't in Philly for long enough to get the slightest sense of the place. My instinct tells me it's New York lite. Noisy, crowded, a bit touristy, but ultimately the city is not as exciting or interesting as its bigger brother. There are lots of fat people on the streets, many of whom wear trousers with elasticated waists, and, in the area where we were, an abnormally high number of people were wandering about in hospital scrubs. There were also a lot of men wearing somewhat boxy, rather ill-fitting 1990s-style business suits. That seems to be the way that Americans like to have their suits tailored. It looks old-fashioned to my eyes. They're a bit more European in their tastes in New York.

There was a huge mural on the side of one building, which closer inspection revealed to be a mosaic. That was kind of cool. Underneath it, a young girl sat on a wall with a pout which said "look-at-me, how-dare-you-look-at-me!"

We wanted to see the Liberty Bell. Nathan was determined to lick it like Barney does in How I Met Your Mother. The queues were insane, so we had to make do with looking at it through a bullet-proof window. Nathan had to imagine licking it.

And then, almost as though the road trip had never happened, we dropped the car off at the car hire place next to the train station. Nathan had single-handedly driven 3894 miles, which, to my mind, is an astonishingly feat.

The last ninety miles of our journey happened by train. At Philadelphia train station you're offered something of a Sophie's Choice: Take the fast, expensive Amtrak train to New York, or the slow, cheap Septa one. Neither company talks to the other, or seems aware of the costs associated with travelling with the opposition. Ask at the "neutral" customer help counters in the middle of the train station and you're told they don't know the costs for either company.

It turns out that Amtrak are the ones taking the mic. It may only be an hour into

New York on their trains, but for $162 dollars - one way, per person - they're instantly in the world of "fuck right off." To put things in perspective, an Uber from Philly to NYC is $120, so getting a taxi door to door for the four of us would have cost us five times less than Amtrak! We ended up taking the slower Septa service for $26 dollars each. It chugs along somewhat, and the total journey is 2 1/2 hours, but it's comfortable and relaxing.




A lot of the train station names in these parts seem to be Welsh. Bryn Mawr. Cynwyd. How on earth would the locals tackle these pronunciations?




We arrived at Penn Station in New York and wheeled our suitcases fifteen blocks up Eighth Avenue to our hotel. The Amsterdam is fine. The rooms are as small as you'd expect in New York. I was slightly perturbed, however, to find we had to pay for wifi. It's the first time wifi hasn't been free for our entire trip across America, and it feels a bit naff to be charged $10 a night for the privilege, particularly as wifi is now free on most of the streets in this city.



We went to the Top of the Rock, a viewing platform at the top of the Rockefeller Building. It's the best place to see New York from. Sam and Matt have never been here before and it's a fabulous place to find ones bearings. It's like looking at a three dimensional map. You can point to the left of Central Park and say, "there's the upper West Side..." The other joy about the Rockefeller is that it gives you a perfect view of the Empire State Building. If you're up the Empire State, you can't actually see it! I think it's Central Park, however, which has the greatest impact because you realise quite how large it is. A massive expanse of green stretching into the distance.


It's so peaceful up there. You're so far above the city that the sound of sirens and the general Mid-Town hustle and bustle merely vanish into the gentle breeze.


We watched the sun setting. It was a little crowded up there, but the sun went a joyous red-orange and literally melted into New Jersey, morphing into a most peculiar shape as it sank. Its disappearance prompted a big cheer from the crowd. You can't beat the drama of the natural world.




That said, when the myriad lights of New York come out to play and start twinkling magically, nature gets quite a good run for its money. It's like looking at a galaxy of colourful stars.




The building itself is Deco heaven with great blocks of glass like giant ice cubes on many of the internal walls.




We met our dear friend Jem at an Italian on about 50th called Maria Pia. We had a delicious meal, which was made all the more delicious by his delightful company. We caught up on several months' worth of gossip and, for some reason, spent about half an hour discussing death. I was rather grateful when Jem very deliberately changed the subject. We talked about musical theatre instead.




We decided to take Sam and Matt to Times Square, which, for people who have never seen the place at night, needs to be seen to be believed. Every time I visit, it seems to be slightly more over the top. More and more of the buildings are sporting giant video walls, and the place is so full of light that it feels permanently like day. As Nathan said earlier, "the eclipse meant that we saw midnight during daylight, and Times' Square means we're seeing daylight at midnight!"




Jem's partner, our other dear friend, Ian, is currently in the Broadway show, Anastasia, so we met him afterwards and were delighted when he suggested he give us a backstage tour of the theatre. It was utterly fascinating to be shown the revolves (which they call turntables here), the flying bits of set and the places where the cast do their quick changes. It was also quite a treat to stand on the stage and look out at the empty auditorium.




Anastasia is running in a theatre opposite the one showing Kinky Boots, a musical set in Earls Barton, a little Northamptonshire town which is no more than ten miles from where Sam and I grew up. The show has a huge billboard outside which announces that it's been on Broadway for five years and is now running in the U.K., Canada, Australia, Japan, Korea and Germany. All that for a story about a shoe factory back home!




The night ended at Roxy Diner where we were seated on a huge upstairs table in front of a massive window overlooking Eighth Avenue. The yellow cabs and the odd horse-drawn carriage heading up to Central Park streamed and clip-clopped past. That's the genuine New York experience if you ask me!