Day 6 - New York to Charlottesville

Today marks the sad day of departing from New York City. It also marks the exciting moment of grand new adventures in the rest of the USA.

From my perspective, I really loved New York City, and I'm sad to see it go - I know Kat found the masses of people overwhelming, but we both agree that the experience of being in New York City is something we really enjoyed, especially New Year's Eve and the fireworks in Central Park!

We woke up very early after a late night celebrating the arrival of 2010, and packed our stuff, checked out, and rode the bus to Grand Central Station. In the station we waited in a queue to get our tickets, and admired how beautiful the inside is of the station. Apparently the domed roof marks every constellation in the sky, or at least, a good portion of them. As with so many other things in New York City, this was another impressive sight!

While Kat waited in the queue I went to enquire with information about how we obtain our tickets, and if we could just print them out - that's when we learnt that we were meant to be in Penn Station, and not Grand Central! Averting the panic that was slowly growing in Kat, we proceeded to the metro shuttle and shortly thereafter arrived in Penn Station (bonus! Two sights in one trip) via the red line transfer at Times Square (do I sound like a local New Yorker yet?).

While riding the elevator up from Penn Station we met an Australian couple and I started to chat to them about rugby and our holiday etc. and it turned out that they were ALSO going on the same train as us, except they were dropping off at DC while we were going on to Charlottesville (CVS). They'd done the drill yesterday in preparation for the day, so they had a good idea of where to go and what to do, and we just followed them.

We confirmed our tickets at an electronic booth which just required our credit cards and our ticket reference number in order to print the tickets (so easy!). We didn't have to check-in our luggage for the ride, which alarmingly meant there was absolutely NO security checks for luggage. I fear that it's only a matter of time before the AMTRAK becomes a soft target for something very sinister. Riding a train is just too easy and there are no checks on luggage at all!

To celebrate our departure, I bought a Philly Cheesesteak from Nathan's and tried to iron out once-and-for-all about the TAX issue, but yet again I couldn't get a straight answer - some places include VAT and others don't... even the locals can't answer the question for me with any form of consistency. Any ideas, anyone?

We boarded the train but were too late to get any comfortable recliner seats in the main coaches, so we were relegated to the dinner section, much to my dismay. We had two two-seater "couches" facing each other and a dining table in between us, which actually turned out to be ideal because we could lie on our couches and also place a lot of stuff on our table. They weren't the most comfortable seats, so I use the term "couch" very loosely, but at least they were seats!!

Apart from noisy kids behind us for the first portion of the ride, it was actually much better sitting in the dining cab because we could face each other and had a table to support our cards or laptop, etc. Interestingly, there were also power sockets on the train so we could charge our devices.

After stopping off after Delaware, we got to chat with the other passengers and most interestingly, we met a politician graduate, and a man named Hilton (who's also trying the train for the first time, at the tender age of sixty-something). There was also some weird Marge Simpson-like woman (she sounded like Marge) in our cab for the next portion of the ride, and she was either really ignorant, or mentally challenged (we honestly couldn't tell), because when Kat and I were telling them about Cape Town, she shouted out "Cape Cod?" .... and I said "no, Cape Town" ... "Cape Cod?"... "oh, I thought you said Cape Cod"... sigh, it was a long ride! When we dared to tell her we were from South Africa, she took a while to register. There was a lot of silence while she seemed to stare blankly at the floor in front of her as we carried on our conversation with the other two gentlemen in the cab. It only really seemed to dawn on her a few minutes later, when she shouted out "oh, you're from AFRICA?" - it would appear our over-educated guest had deduced that South Africa was the bottom part of the country, Africa. Of course, we all know what she asked next: "do you get all of those animals around there?", and we indulged her - I mentioned the big baboons from Cape Cod (if you can't beat them, join them, right?) and she was astounded, because she didn't remember seeing any baboons in Cape Cod. Sigh.

All in all, the train ride was really enjoyable. We spent seven hours on the train but it was really relaxing and peaceful, and we both highly recommend grabbing a dining cab seat if you're ever going AMTRAK, because most of the people that sit in the dining cab are equally as friendly and looking for a good conversation if you want to indulge them. We got to meet some really interesting people, and the political kid (young graduate) and Hilton were both very interesting to talk to. The Marge Simpson lady was a bit more difficult to be patient with, but at least I got to encounter yet another stereotype!

Travel Tip of the Day: after a long and pacey stint in New York City, a relaxing train ride from NYC to the next destination is a welcome break; very slow and peaceful and you've got no responsibilities. The seating is actually also rather comfortable. The train ride was a highlight for us. Oh, and the train actually goes REALLY fast - when you're stationary and a train goes past you on the track next door, you can tell how fast the trains really go. Someone mentioned 100mph and I can believe that easily!

We arrived in CVS and Jeni Garstang (Kat's godmother) picked us up. She took us for a drive around her neighbourhood for a while to show us all the Christmas decorations, and that was a real treat for me, because even though it wasn't anywhere near Dyker Heights in Brooklyn, I did get to experience some suburban Christmas flare.

Jeni has lost her voice from the cold, and we managed to deduce that a week or so ago they had had two feet of snow in CVS - it was clearly evident from the cold and also the amount of white snow everywhere. For supper, we were served a really delightful pork meal with freshly roasted vegetables and Eskimo pie pudding. It was the most ideal home-cooked meal we could have hoped for, and the conversation and relaxation was a wonderful treat. We really looked forward to this recovery weekend for a while, and what better way to enjoy and rest than to spend time with family?

Our cordon-bleu chef, hostess, chauffer, tour-guide, mime, and godmother!

After supper I really wanted to take a walk around the neighbourhood to get a feeling for where we were and to help develop my anticipation for the days ahead. Somehow Jeni decided to take us to the CVS downtown mall instead. It was just as good for me, but I kept feeling like Jeni did it out of obligation to be a good hostess, and if it is actually true, I'm sorry Jeni - I didn't mean to impose. I was really quite happy to walk through the neighbourhood to explore it, but I do appreciate the hospitality and we both enjoyed walking through the downtown mall, with all of its elegant theatres etc. It was especially entertaining to see some yokel trying to impress the girl he was with by sprinting up the mound of snow in the mall and then slipping and falling flat on his butt. The girl just walked away as if he didn't exist! Hilarious! Oh yes, and of course, we learnt about black ice - this stuff is deadly slick and hard to spot... there's no hope if you shift your weight to a leg that's supported on black ice... you're probably going down :(

Downtown Mall Christmas tree.

After that, we came home and snuggled into our beds - there was a Christmas present from Fae waiting for us in our room, and Jeni had done a wonderful job preparing for our arrival, with the beds neatly made, the bathroom set up like a hotel, and the entire upstairs left as our private abode. With the hint that sometimes one can see deer feeding from outside our bedroom window, we went to sleep, eager to hopefully catch the glimpse of a Virginian deer feeding outside our bedroom window the next morning.

Remember - what Trenton Makes, the World Takes!

PS) Highs and Lows of NYC will be coming soon, as well as some Top Tips for NYC! Stay tuned :)