Travelling is a really fascinating thing, but something that gets me about it is that it’s a way to notice just how screwed up the world can really be. I’ve just come back from the USA where briefly I visited San Francisco, stayed 2 weeks in a hotel prison stuck behind a highway in New Jersey, and eventually escaped into the Manhatten metropolis of New York City for about a week at the end. This will probably be the last post I write about my recent trip, since I’d like to keep the focus of this blog on walking and tramping related topics.
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Category: usa
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Final thoughts
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A world of small differences
This isn’t a trampey-related post, but I thought I’d write an update about what’s going on. In short, I made it to the USA without any incidents.
After an overnight stop in San Francisco, we flew into JFK in New York last Saturday (Sunday NZ time), and were taxi’d to our hotel in New Jersey, which is the main base for a couple of weeks while we do some work-related things with a company that’s 5 minutes down the road. And I use that phrase loosely, because as with everything here, it’s a 5 minute drive. It’s actually very frustrating, because although the hotel is quite nice there is nothing nearby. It’s an island in the middle of a freeway, and it’s impossible to get anywhere without driving, which is a a problem when there’s no car. Even food is a problem, because the hotel doesn’t have any proper restaurant — they just expect people to have cars.
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Outdoors in New York
I was all set up to enjoy a nice trip to the Kahurangis over Wellington Anniversary Weekend, which is this coming weekend. The bad news is that I had to pull out, which I’m quite saddened about because I haven’t yet seen the Kahurangis up close, and I was really looking forward to it. The good news, however, at least as far as I’m concerned, is that the reason I pulled out is because the following weekend, work’s sending me on a 3 week trip to New York. We’re getting diplomatic passports sorted and it’s quite exciting.
It’s actually only 2 weeks of work, and that part is really over the border in New Jersey. I’m tagging an extra week to the end to take a look around New York during which I hope to be accommodating myself on the floor of a friend’s apartment. I suspect the time of year is very against me and so far I’m not planning to take a lot of outdoors gear with me. If anyone can suggest some interesting walks or outdoor things to see that might be conveniently accessible in the region during the early to middle part of the winter month of February, though, I’d be interested to hear about them.