Barry returned from San Francisco safely having had a successful trip. He said the visits to the various hospitals and health institutions were excellent and illuminating and he felt like he learned a lot. His final day in San Francisco was dedicated to sightseeing and he had booked a trip to Alcatraz. He was somewhat unlucky to find the day overcast and wet, bearing in mind California had been suffering a five-month drought! However, he soldiered on and thoroughly enjoyed the day. Below are some photos from his San Francisco experience, ending with the aeroplane being de-iced at Chicago airport before continuing its flight to Boston.
Chinatown in San Francisco
The Golden Gate bridge
Alcatraz
The San Francisco sky line from the bay
Alcatraz
A typical cell
Former inmates
De-icing the plane!
San Francisco may have been experiencing a rainy drought but the snow and freezing temperatures continued in Boston. The weather was so cold that the snow and ice wasn't melting and was just accumulating as more snow fell. It did enable some excellent snowman building though, as witnessed by this marvellous example discovered on our way to Rachel's violin lesson. It also meant that the pavements and roads were getting narrower as the cleared snow was piled up at the edges and some monumental icicles were forming.
The schools have a week's break in February so, as mentioned previously, we planned a few days in each of New York and Washington DC. We left by train early on the Wednesday morning, Barry having returned from a couple of days in Cincinnati late Tuesday night (he's such a jet setter). After a day of more snow on Tuesday we were relieved that Barry's flight had made it in to Boston and that the trains seemed to be running as normal.
Amtrak is the USA's inter-state railway service, the equivalent of UK services such as Great Western. However, unlike the UK rail services we were unable to reserve seats in advance so it was a bit of a bun fight at the station to find somewhere for all four of us to sit together on what was already a busy train. It was like boarding an Easyjet flight! Thankfully, we managed to find four seats together and sat back to enjoy the four hour journey from Boston to New York via southern Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey. The sun was out most of the way and we had some glorious coastal views through Rhode Island and Connecticut. It was also fascinating to see how white the landscape was still from all the snow. The journey would have been perfect had we not been held up in Providence, Rhode Island for around 15 minutes waiting to rescue the passengers of a broken-down New York-bound train just ahead of us. Somehow, Amtrak managed to turn that 15-minute delay into an hour-long delay by the time we arrived in New York.
Anyway, we arrived in New York's Penn Station and found ourselves a yellow cab to take us to our hotel which was close to Central Park, just around the corner from Carnegie Hall. The girls and I had never been to New York before and Barry just the once, six months ago with work, but the crazy traffic, the honking horns and the neck-twisting sky scrapers all seemed very familiar from the very many films and TV programmes we have watched over the years.
We dropped our bags at the hotel and headed straight for the Empire State Building to make the most of the reasonably clear skies. Our pre-booked tickets allowed us to jump the ticket queue and head straight for the security check (one of many we would go through over the next few days) but there was very little in the way of queues anyway. We enjoyed the walk to the lifts to take us up to the 86th floor observatory (the decor and surroundings bore a worrying resemblance to Disney's Tower of Terror ride), taking in all the art deco decor, and then flew up to the observatory level in a super-charged lift (quite a bit faster than the one in Porthcawl's Co-op - those of you who have experienced the Co-op's lift will know what I mean). The views were stunning, giving us a bird's eye point of view over Manhattan Island and beyond and we enjoyed trying to identify all the various sky scrapers.
See - no queues!
The Chrysler Building
Looking up to the top of the Empire State Building
Looking north east, from Downtown towards Queens (I think)
Looking south into Manhattan and the Flatiron Building
Macys
Looking out
The inevitable gift shop
Wrong attraction, Rachel!
The Empire State Building at dusk
We walked back to our hotel through Times Square, which was a cacophony of flashing lights and street entertainment and in the evening went to see the Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway (technically, it was on a side street off Broadway, as are most of the Broadway theatres) which was an amazing show.
Thursday morning we had a wander through Central Park, which was covered in snow. It didn't quite look like the scene in Enchanted where Giselle sings her way through the park, picking up a variety of hangers-on. We admired the Maine Monument, which we discovered was not named as a tribute to the New England state but to the USS Maine battleship.
A very snowy Central Park
The Maine Monument
We had lunch in a great restaurant near Times Square called The Jekyll and Hyde, which was like a Victorian-era horror/freak show. The walls were decorated with painted portraits with moving eyes, the heads of a talking Sphinx and a talking elephant watched over the diners, a glass cabinet full of miniature human skulls was positioned creepily close to our table and the Elephant Man even paid a visit! The food was good too. It was certainly a dining experience with a difference.
Afterwards, we spent more time in Times Square, getting mugged by a couple of Statue of Liberty lookalikes and visiting the M&Ms factory store, the Hersheys Chocolate Shop and the ferris wheel inside Toys R Us, mainly to stop the girls nagging. Needless to say, it made them very happy! Our day ended with another show, this time Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, starring Carly Rae Jepson of "Call Me Maybe" fame (you must remember the song from a year or two back - it was annoying catchy and was everywhere for a while). It was great fun, a really traditional old-style musical and about as close to a pantomime to be found in the USA.
Friday was Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island day. Fortunately (or unfortunately, perhaps) we knew the weather forecast wasn't good so we were not too surprised and disappointed to wake up to a dismal, damp and foggy day. We made our way to the ferry stop in Battery Park, at the southern end of Manhattan, to pick up our boat and headed out into the murky waters. At this point there was no sign of either Liberty or Ellis Island, just featureless murk. As the boat headed out the Manhattan skyline disappeared into the fog within a minute or two - disappointing when the commentary on the boat is advising you to admire the buildings and giving you information about the architecture of the Brooklyn Bridge. In the meantime a vague shape was starting to take form ahead of us. We assumed it was the Statue of Liberty but to be honest it could have been an oil rig or a crane and none of us would have known. Just to give you some idea of the statue in all its glory, see the photo below ...
It was so bad it was funny and most people were chuckling as they disembarked from the boat. The view improved a little as we approached the statue but we never managed to see anything more than a vague outline of the crown at best. Our tickets allowed us up the pedestal to just below the statue's feet and I was glad we hadn't been able to get tickets to go all the way up to the crown - it would have been a pointless exercise on a day like this. Anyway, we enjoyed the display informing us how the statue had been financed and how it had arrived from France. We were interested to see that the day of the grand unveiling was apparently wet and foggy so at least we were getting the authentic experience.
The Manhattan skyline disappearing into the fog
It was a bit cold on the boat
Ah well - you gotta laugh
So this is what it is supposed to look like!
Unveiling day - wet and foggy
The original torch, which had to be replaced when bits of copper started to fall off
Looking up the statue's skirt
Finally ... a half decent view
Never mind - we'll do our own version
The view looking up from the pedestal
Our journey continued to nearby Ellis Island, the first landing point in New York for thousands of immigrants. It was fascinating to imagine the huge, lofty halls full of tired, scared and excited people who had travelled thousands of miles to meet up with family members or to follow their own personal dreams.
Approaching Ellis Island
The Registration Room
Imagine a US Immigration official sitting at this desk
Outside the main registration building
A "Titanic" moment on the boat back to Manhattan
A short walk took us to the 9/11 Memorial site. It would be good to be able to say the weather was improving but sadly that wasn't the case. It had started raining before we entered the security building and as we came outside the other end to walk towards the site we heard an enormous bang. With a mindset in 9/11 mode my immediate response was that a bomb had exploded somewhere close and for a split second I was terrified. It was, of course, a crack of thunder but it left me shaken, nonetheless, and it added a certain eeriness to the whole experience. The torrential rain and thunder and lightning continued as we walked around the site, the main features of which were two large sunken squares, the foundations of the two towers, which were filled with water from waterfalls cascading down the edges. The low walls surrounding the square pools were topped with plinths engraved with the names of all those who lost their lives, including the people in the towers and the emergency first responders. It was extremely poignant, especially when we learned that the few white roses which had been placed by various names on the plinths were there to mark the birthday of those people, a particularly sombre job of the Memorial's custodians. Isabel, of course, was born on 9/11 so we felt it was important to visit the site. It is something Isabel has become increasingly aware of and she has been keen to find out as much information as possible. She was very quiet through the whole visit and said she felt a mixture of emotions.
The new World Trade Center tower
A white rose to mark a birthday
So, our New York leg over, we boarded another train at Penn Station and headed towards Washington DC. The weather improved steadily as we travelled south and by the time we disembarked at Washington DC's Union Station it was a glorious day with clear blue skies and plenty of warm sunshine. I cannot describe to you how that felt after a Boston winter. Suffice to say we all spent the rest of the day in an excellent mood with a smile on our face.
After dropping our bags at our hotel we jumped on the subway towards the White House. Seeing the White House and the Capitol Building in Washington is one of those surreal experiences when you see something so familiar from TV and photographs in real life for the first time. I remember feeling the same thing when I saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Everything in Washington was gleaming in the bright sunshine and we had the added bonus of minimal crowds because of the time of year. The only things we missed out on were the water features - very few of the fountains and "reflecting pools" had water in them, presumably because the water would have frozen through the winter. We thought it was a small price to pay for the lack of other tourists.
We wandered around the edges of the White House, not quite sure which was the front and the back, and surprised by how close we could get to the building. After taking lots of photographs we started to walk straight ahead towards the Washington Monument and noticed that the road we were walking along had just been closed by the police. Within a minute or two a cavalcade of black vehicles with darkened windows sped past towards the White House. Who knows who was in the cars - it could have been the President himself, a lower ranking politician or it could even have been a decoy - but it was still exciting. We would have taken photographs but we were afraid of being arrested by one of the scary looking policemen.
The Washington Monument had scaffolding around the base, evidence of the end of a major restoration project. Usually it's possible to climb to the top of the Monument for views over the city but the ongoing restoration has put a temporary halt to that. We can testify that it is very tall - it can be seen from most places around the centre of the city.
From the Monument we turned right and continued along the Mall, the central grassy strip which runs the mile or so from Capitol Hill at one end to the Lincoln Memorial at the other. We were aiming for the Lincoln Memorial, a huge colonnaded monument at the top of several flights of steps sheltering an outsize statue of Abraham Lincoln looking stately and thoughtful in a large chair. It was almost majestic and was made out of the same white stone as the White House and the Capitol Building so was dazzlingly bright in the sunshine. At the far end of the plaza in front of the Memorial is the World War Two Memorial, commemorating the American armed forces who perished in the Atlantic and the Pacific campaigns.
From the Lincoln Memorial we walked along a bridge crossing the Potomac River, heading for what was by then the nearest subway station. Across the river from the city was Arlington Cemetery, the national war cemetery, and the Pentagon. As we were walking across the bridge we noticed a few helicopters in the distance. We stood and watched as the helicopters turned to fly along the river and before we knew it five large military choppers thundered over our heads. It was like being an extra in Apocalypse Now! Not something that happens to you every day.
Some views of the White House (just like being on Google Street View!)
The Washington Monument
The Jefferson Memorial (taken with a long lens - we didn't manage to walk there)
An arty shot of the US flag
The World War Two Memorial
Looking along the Mall from the Lincoln Memorial towards the Washington Monument and behind it to the Capitol Building
The Lincoln Memorial
The Lincoln Memorial steps were about the only crowded place we saw
Abe himself
A side view of the Memorial
The helicopters approaching
Duck!
Day two in Washington DC and another glorious day. We headed to Capitol Hill and stood in Capitol Square admiring the Capitol Building, the Supreme Court and the National Library of Congress surrounding us, all of them beautiful buildings. The plaza in front of the Capitol Building was almost deserted apart from the occasional jogger, a few stray tourists and some security guards. The building itself looked so clean and perfect it almost looked like something made from Playmobil. Unfortunately the visitor centre was closed on Sundays so we had to make do with walking around the building, which wasn't too hard in the warm sun. Again, we weren't sure which was supposed to be the front and the back of the Capitol - we assumed the front faced onto Capitol Square and the back faced along the Mall towards the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial but it could just as easily be the other way round.
The Mall is lined with the Smithsonian Institute Museums, some of the best known and most respected museums in the US. We dropped in to the National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of Natural History. The Air and Space Museum was jam packed with everything from famous early aircraft to air missiles and space modules. Isabel and Rachel had a go in a flight simulator, spending most of their time spinning upside down. We could hear lots of laughter coming from their simulator so we think they enjoyed themselves. We watched an IMAX 3D film about a space crew carrying out repairs to the Hubble Telescope which involved lots of amazing 3D footage drifting into the Hubble's photographs of space. The big hit in the Natural History Museum with both Isabel and Rachel was the gem room. The exhibition featured many incredible gem stones including the Hope Diamond, the world's largest blue diamond. The security there must have been intense, although it wasn't at all obvious.
On the subway on the way to Capitol Hill
The National Library of Congress
The Supreme Court
The Capitol Building
The Capitol Building from the back (or the front, maybe...)
The National Air and Space Museum
The Natural History Museum. The Hope Diamond ...
... and a small selection of the many other priceless gems
So that's it. We flew home the following morning and threw ourselves back into our daily routines of school, work, music lessons, play practice, basketball. A week has passed already and Barry is now in Salt Lake City. He has just enjoyed two days skiing at the local resorts with some of his work colleagues before having to work hard for the next three days. Rachel's show is in less than two weeks so we're looking forward to that and Rachel also starts with a new basketball club this week, the Mass Commanders, with the first big tournament at the end of the month in Rhode Island. There is never a dull moment!
By the way, belated St David's Day to all my family and Welsh friends. I would have worn a daffodil had any managed to push their way through the snow!
