Early November 6 - Let’s Dance!

It’s very late but I had to write something else.  We played trivia late this afternoon and once again we won commandingly (the other teams may try to throw us overboard if we keep this up).  Our teammate Jean from Scotland was on fire; I’m the scribe for the team and all I needed to do was write down her answers.  She was fantastic!

Dinner was a ladies’ table with Aimée, the cruise director, and it was a lot of fun.  We celebrated Linda’s birthday with a cake.  After dinner there was a dance party on deck and of course I went.  What a good time we had!  I sat with Olga and Carlos and Olga and I did a lot of dancing.  It was hot and muggy, but then it is the Caribbean.  Just as the party was winding down, it started sprinkling.  The weather gods have been pretty good for us so far so I can’t complain.  I heard though that tomorrow our luck may end because the weather forecast for our stop in San Juan is rain, rain, rain.  Too bad; I was going to go ashore and get a cab to take me to the old forts on the north coast of old San Juan.  The shoreline there is beautiful and I wanted to take some photos. Maybe next time.

I'm not in the photo.  Maybe next time.

There is something great about being on a ship on a day like today.  It’s a pretty momentous day in the US and if we don’t want to think about it, we don’t have to.  We are in a world of our own out here, and it’s absolutely wonderful!  Something else – maybe I’ll stop getting text messages about election stuff and spam calls.  Yes, I get spam calls out here in the ocean.  At least they haven’t come in the middle of the night!  More tomorrow.

November 5 - St. Kitts

When I last wrote I was deciding what to do for dinner.  I wound up going to have the Japanese dinner in the Colonnade with Aimée, the cruise director, and her friend Rhiannon who is visiting this week on the ship. (I think it’s so nice that some staff are allowed to have family or friends come on for a short while.)  A few years ago if someone had said I’d choose to go and eat Japanese food I would have said they were nuts. I have evolved and I find I really enjoy it.  The two young women were delightful dinner companions.  Aimée is from Shropshire, England, wherever that is, and Rhiannon is from Wales with an interesting accent.  

Yesterday morning we anchored off Frenchman’s Cay, a tiny island 1 mile wide and 500 yards long attached to Tortola, BVI, by a short bridge.  Aside from a few houses on the hillside there is nothing on the island but beaches and bars.  I’m not a beach person anymore (I hate sand and I avoid being in the sun for very long), and I can get all the booze I want on the ship. So, I, along with a surprising number of my fellow passengers, stayed onboard. I did not much of anything constructive; I answered a few emails and got a couple of phone calls.  That leads me to say that I think it’s marvelous that with the ship’s Wi-Fi I can make and receive phone calls and they are like making local calls.  How neat is that?  I remember a time when Al and I went on a cruise and we rented a satellite phone for a month so we could stay in touch.  Now with Starlink and other satellites, voilà we’re connected.

These two photos are Frenchman's Cay. You can see there's not much there.

Last night’s show was Aimée’s solo show.  She has a great voice and I loved her selection of songs, more so than the guest entertainer the other night.  She did a duet with her friend with whom I dined yesterday.  They sang Somewhere over the Rainbow, with Aimée singing in English and Rhiannon in Welsh.  After the show I went down to the club as usual and there were actually other people there.  Some nights I’m by myself.  There was a nice couple named Olga, originally from Russia, married to Carlos, originally from Cuba, and Olga liked to dance too.  A mother with a twenty-something daughter named Katie came in and danced as well.  I do get up and dance by myself, but it’s always more fun when other people do too.  I left very late and didn’t turn the lights off until after two.

We’re now anchored off Carambola Beach on the island of St. Kitts.  This is the place where Seabourn does their beach barbecue. I’ve done that several times and today is an abbreviated  one – no Caviar in the Surf – which is usually included.  Once again I decided to stay on the ship.  The last time I did go there were lots of flies buzzing around attracted by the food and then there was that pesky sand.  Instead I’m catching up with more things I need to take care of.

This is St. Kitts.  Look at this house perched on top of that hill.  Their view must be spectacular!

Today is my new friend Linda’s birthday.  It’s funny how sometimes you meet someone and after a short time you feel like you have known them forever.  That’s how it’s been with her.  We think a lot alike and we’ve had some good conversations.  We’ve been on the same trivia team too.  Sadly, she’ll be getting off in Miami this coming Saturday, but I’m sure we’ll keep in touch.

Random photos.  These are Vuksan from Belgrade and Elrose from Philippines who take care of me in Guest Services

Tonight there’s going to be a deck dance party and I’ll be thinking of my friend Helga.  She would be the first one to get up and dance.  Well, that’s enough blethering for now.  Aside from today being Linda’s birthday, it’s a pretty big day for us Yanks.  I’ll be surprised if we know the outcome by day’s end. We shall see.

I love clouds so I just threw this one in.

November 3 - Lost in Time

I’ve been at sea sailing along the southern edge of the Bermuda Triangle and today  I truly began the day, lost in time.  We didn’t receive a reminder last night that where we are on the planet, we weren’t going to change from daylight to standard time.  Like many of my shipmates my apple devices all happily automatically reset to EST and we’ve all been one hour behind ship’s time.  As a result I got up and dressed too late to make breakfast.  Not to worry though, because it’s impossible to go hungry on this ship.

I don’t have any remarkable photos of exciting sights so I’ll include a few random ones just for the heck of it.

Ignore me and just focus on Patience, the wonderful hostess in the Restaurant

Katarina Rossa, the wonderful violinist who performed two shows

Miami Beach as we sailed away

My cabin attendents made this lovely rose and left it on the counter between my sinks

I decided to try catching up on my blog and got side-tracked once again.  I was sitting in my favorite corner in the Square and a friend came and sat with me.  I can’t resist conversations, so there went the morning. That’s what happened all day yesterday, our first of two sea days.

Yesterday we had our first noon trivia of this 8-day leg of my voyage.  We’re doing cumulative trivia because we have several sea days.  We finished in second place which put us in a good position for the overall winners at the end.  The seas were pretty rocky all day so my muscles had a good workout keeping me reasonably stable.  In the evening I dined with Linda from Texas who I met when we boarded in Montreal and another trivia team member who boarded in Miami on the 1st.  Dinner was good and the drinks were wonderful!   The dessert was the star of the meal. After dinner I went to the show to hear a performer named Jonathan Christopher.  He has performed on Broadway and has a great voice, but his selection of songs was not really my cup of tea.  I’m probably in the minority, but I don’t like the music from Hamilton and he sang several numbers from that.  But different strokes for different folks.

Julia in the Solis restaurant who made us deconstructed Tiramisu for dessert.  It sounds unusual, but it was heavenly to eat.  Ladyfingers soaked in Kahlua, mascarpone cheese spooned over them and chocolate shavings sprinkled on top!

Today we’re steaming along the northern coasts of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico.  We’re still bouncing.  If you read this you know trivia is important and a highlight for us serial cruisers and today was no exception.  We were on a roll!  We won by more than 100 points!  I won a Seabourn umbrella (I have several already) which I will pass on to a favorite crew member. The hardest thing will be which one to give it to because there are so many who take such good care of me.

The most important spot on the ship at high noon with Miss Kitty waiting on the table to wave us to victory (my noon Bloody Mary is there too 😁)

 

I’ve written about this area of the ocean a couple of years ago, but I think it’s interesting enough that I like to remind myself of it.  We’re sailing over an area called the Puerto Rico Trench.  Below us  are tectonic plates passing each other. Along part of this area the North American plate is diving below the Caribbean Plate creating an area of subduction.  The result is that this trench has the deepest points in the Atlantic Ocean, reaching depths of more than 28,000 feet.  The mass of the Earth at the bottom of the trench is so dense that it causes a difference in the gravitational pull at the surface and as a result NASA has detected that there is actually a dip in the ocean level around here.  I find that absolutely fascinating.

That's it for now.  I haven't decided what to do for dinner.  I had an invitation but declined because it was for 6:45 which is too early, and the host is a conversationalist whose talks I haven't been to so I'd have to pretend I had.  More later...

November 1 - Lost in the Ethernet or missing in Miami

I wrote something about my sea day between Charleston and Miami and today in port and it disappeared.  I must have pushed a key I shouldn’t have and now it’s gone.  Oh, well, here’s an abbreviated recap.

We did a lot of rocking and rolling after leaving Charleston.  Winds were 30 knots or better so it was bouncy.  I don’t get seasick but walking around can be very tiring as you try not to lurch from side to side.  Pretty much everyone on the ship looks like they’re a little tipsy. It calmed down in the evening.  After dinner with the cruise director Aimée I went to see the second show by the violinist Katarina Rossa.  She was even better in this one.  She played one of my favorite pieces of music, Ravel’s Bolero, and I was in heaven.

I forgot to mention that we played our last trivia game and once again didn’t win.  I’m convinced it’s because we didn’t have a very good name.  It couldn’t possibly be that we didn’t know the answers.  Only two of us are going on for this next leg, but we have a few recruits already.  No, we didn’t give them a test or have them fill out a questionnaire about their areas of expertise.  Believe it or not I have seen teams that do that before they deign to let someone join.  They don’t get the part “it’s only a game.”

This morning I was all set to sleep in because I didn’t want to go ashore for anything in Miami.  Instead, I’d made an appointment for a pedicure in the spa in the afternoon.  Well, my plan was foiled.  The 15 of us staying on from the last leg had to gather at 9:15 and go ashore as a group for a face-to-face with a Customs and Border Protection officer.  We went into the terminal, passports in hand, and hung out for close to half an hour.  Nobody came to check us and then we were told   we could go back aboard.  In other words, it was a complete waste of time.  I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around watching the newcomers.  

I made a bet with myself that the demographic on this 8-day cruise would be very different from the first 14-day leg, and sure enough I think I’m right.  I believe the average age of the passengers has gone down close to 20 years.  An 8-day Caribbean cruise I’m sure attracts more working people plus it’s a “fun in the sun” cruise too. The club tonight was busier than any of the first two weeks with the exception of the Halloween dance party. I’ll be curious to see if that continues.

Today the man in charge of all entertainment for Seabourn, Handré, came onboard and it was so nice to see him.  He was our first Cruise Director on this very ship on our first Seabourn cruise 11 years ago.  He is a genuinely nice person and he is also a talented pianist and composer.  He’ll be doing a show for us and I’m really looking forward to that. I spent some time talking with him this evening and he told me something about that first cruise I didn’t know.  One morning on that voyage we were supposed to dock in Casablanca.  Around 6 AM the ship did a tremendous roll.  I described what happened in my blog post for that day, October 29, 2013.  I knew that a lot of glassware and china was broken but something else happened that I didn’t know about.  The grand piano in the Grand Salon flipped over.  Until today the same piano has been on the Quest and there have been continuous problems with it, specifically keeping it in tune.  The other night when the band was backing up a guest performer I heard a lot of clunker notes and I thought either the piano player had too much wine or the piano was horribly out of tune.  Well, Handré told me the Quest got a brand new piano today! I’ve got lots of time on here still to listen to the difference.

Well, I’ve written about my day and it wasn’t very exciting, but it conveys a sense of what it’s like on a sea day in port.  It’s actually quite nice because for several hours it’s like having your own yacht and you can just chill out. We have two sea days upcoming on our way to Frenchman’s Cay in the British Virgin Islands.  We’ve got some new guest lecturers to talk about treasures of the Spanish main and other relevant subjects given where we’ll be for the next week.  There is always something going on, in fact sometimes it’s hard to make choices.

So that’s all for tonight.  Time for lights out.  I'll add some photos tomorrow; I'm too tired now. It's 1:30 AM!  Hasta mañana!

October 30 - Charleston

First here’s the trivia answer from yesterday’s question.  The shortest commercial airline flight is between two of the Orkney Islands in Scotland, Westray and Papa Westray.  It travels a distance of 1.7 miles and the record speed was 53 seconds.  It’s flown by Loganair, a regional Scottish carrier.  Not many frequent flyer miles for that one!

After a day and a half at sea we’ve arrived on a beautiful sunny day in Charleston, SC.  I’ve been to Charleston before so I decided to take a tour to a plantation on the other side of the Cooper River in Mt. Pleasant.  The plantation is called Boone Hall and it’s one of the oldest working plantations in the US since it has been producing agricultural crops for more than 320 years.  The site was a wedding gift of 470 acres from a large landowner to his daughter and her new husband, Major John Boone. It’s not known when the first house was built on the land because the current plantation house was built after the property had gone through a succession of owners. A Canadian bought the plantation in 1935 and he and his wife decided that the existing house didn’t comport with what they thought a southern plantation should look like, so they razed it and replaced it with a modern (1936) house which fit their image of an antebellum mansion.

Boone Hall

One very striking and original feature is the entrance driveway, known as the Grand Avenue of Oaks. It’s three quarters of a mile long and consists of 88 live oak trees and one magnolia.  The trees are draped with Spanish moss and the lane is very beautiful.  It’s said that the Grand Avenue was the inspiration for Twelve Oaks, Ashley Wilkes home in Gone with the Wind. Among the original plantation buildings still standing  are several brick slave quarters  on the left of the driveway as one approaches the main house.  The plantation grew in size from 470 acres originally to nearly 740 and pre-Civil War there were as many as 320 slaves on the property.  Not all the housing for those people were brick but the ones that exist are quite substantial 12 x 30 foot brick buildings with raised plank floors and a fireplace.  They were actually occupied until the 1940’s  because after the Civil War many of the former slaves remained on the property and worked, most as sharecroppers.

Grand Avenue of Oaks

One of the brick slave quarters

Another view

A little of the history of the original owner, John Boone, was kind of interesting.  He was a little bit of a scoundrel.  He trafficked in slaves, dealt with pirates and concealed stolen goods.  He was kicked off the South Carolina Grand Council, the local colonial governing body, twice for his activities.  Nevertheless, he and his wife were ancestors of Edward and John Rutledge, two of the fledgling country’s founding fathers in the 18th century.

In front of the main house are two formal gardens with brick walkways.  Because it’s so late in the season most of the flowers were fading, but there were still lots of bright colors and plenty of butterflies around.  We had an opportunity to walk through the ground floor of the  main house, but I chose not to.  It was such a nice day that I opted to walk through the gardens, look at the slave quarters and walk over to the stables.  One of the owners in the 20th century wanted to create an important racehorse stable.  That effort didn’t pan out, but one important horse did live and train there.  His name was Princequillo, at one time considered to be the best long-distance horse in America.  Of more interest to me is that one of his daughters was  the mother of Secretariat, perhaps the greatest racehorse ever.

Not much color because it's late in the season

I was able to catch this butterfly as he landed for a moment

The stables

A few of the horses in one of the paddocks along the Grand Avenue

After we got back on the bus we had a riding tour of Charleston.  Our driver Billy deserved a medal as far as I was concerned because maneuvering a big bus through Charleston’s narrow streets is no easy feat.  Charleston is built on a peninsula bounded by the Ashley and Cooper Rivers.  Near the tip of the peninsula is the area called the Battery overlooking the harbor  and in sight of a couple of forts, one of which in particular we all have heard of, Fort Sumter. On April 12, 1861 South Carolina militia fired on the Union soldiers in what everyone agrees was the opening salvo of that war. South Carolina had officially seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860.  The Union soldiers surrendered a day after the bombardment began because they had no hope of reinforcement.  The fort was not retaken until February 22, 1865.

Fort Sumter

Our guide Keith was a native Charlestonian and very knowledgeable.  The city has a long history, not quite as old as my part of Virginia, and played a significant role in the American Revolution too.  I didn’t know this, but during the Revolution Charleston was the object of a long siege before being captured by the British.  I did take exception to a few things Keith said because he made it sound like South Carolina was the most significant player in the Revolution, and of course as a Virginian I know that we had a little battle at a place called Yorktown where “the world turned upside down” on October 19, 1781.  But I’ll concede that Charleston was important too.

I wrote earlier about John Boone being a little bit of a scoundrel and I heard during the ride about another such man we've all heard of, Rhett Butler.  If you remember Gone with the Wind, Rhett was from Charleston.  There was an actual blockade runner here in Charleston during the Civil War and many people think he was the basis of Margaret Mitchell's character. His name was George Trenholm and a lot of his history is similar to that of Rhett Butler's blockade-running career.  We passed his old home which is now a private girls' school. A couple of the alumni from the school are pretty famous - Madeline L'Engle and Barbara Bush.

Our driving tour lasted a little too long actually, but we did get to pass through most of the neighborhoods.  Unfortunately, when you’re in a bus you can’t get photos.  I thought one of the nicest places we drove through was the campus of The Citadel, one of only two state-run military academies, the other being the Virginia Military Institute.  Eventually we made it back to the dock and reboarded the ship.  It was a very pleasant day.

The parade ground at The Citadel

In the evening we had a Halloween dance party.  We had it a day before the actual day because October 31st will be the last night of the cruise for most of my fellow passengers and they will be packing.  I was amazed at the number of people who had costumes of some sort.  There were lots of witches, spiders, devils and werewolves.  I mainly watched the dancing tonight because we were doing a lot of rocking and rolling and being on a crowded dance floor can be a recipe for disaster.  I have a good time just watching sometimes.

A couple of pictures showing some of the Halloween decorations

October 29 - Is that Cape Hatteras light I see in the distance?

At noon today the captain gave his midday report and told us we were about 15 miles off Cape Hatteras and if we looked really hard we might see the lighthouse there.  I looked and I just saw a calm ocean.

So, what have I been doing for the last two days?  We sailed from New York at noon yesterday.  I stood on my veranda and took way too many pictures but that’s what makes taking photos with an iPhone so great; you can delete, delete, delete. Once again I thought how beautiful the New York City skyline is.  I hadn’t been there in many, many years and I must say that I understand how people find it exciting, intriguing, and exhilarating. I confess that for me it’s just too overwhelming, noisy and crowded.  A short visit was fine for me.  I also have to say that I didn’t see some of the bad stuff I’ve seen on the news or read about in the paper with only one exception.  There were a few panhandlers, but I can see them at home too.  There was a lot more trash on the streets than in many cities I’ve visited but it wasn’t overflowing.  Our guide Darrell did shout to someone in another group when we were near Ground Zero to warn her that a pickpocket was trying to take something from her bag.  That wasn't unique to NYC.  A friend of ours was robbed going up in an elevator in the local hospital; it can happen anywhere.  

I’m going to add a few more New York photos here because I thought some of the buildings were interesting.

I thought the triangular building looked neat.

I liked the Grand Dame of New York skyscrapers peeking out between her more modern competition

This one intrigued me because it looked like a little nudge might tip it over.

After we sailed I intended to load my photos to my laptop and write something, but I got sidetracked.  I’ve met some lovely and interesting people and had some good conversations.  Last night I dined at a table hosted by a guest entertainer who came on in NYC.  She’s an expatriate of Ukraine, her family having emigrated years before the war began.  What I found interesting after talking to her was that her family are all ethnic Russians who lived in an eastern, majority ethnic Russian part of the country.  As a result her perspective is a little different from some other Ukrainians I’ve met. Regardless, she too expressed her fervent hope that the war comes to an end.

Today the temperature has risen enough that for the first time it was really pleasant sitting outside.  They turned the heaters off in the outdoor dining venues and I had breakfast outside in the Colonnade.  I’m hopeful that we’ve left cold weather behind for the duration.  At noon we played trivia and once again Miss Kitty didn’t bring us luck.  The officers’ team, No Clue, won.  Since they can’t win prizes, a team was picked at random to get the Seabourn swag today.  It wasn’t us.  Later this evening we have one of my favorite events, Liars Club.  Four staff or entertainers will try to persuade the audience that their totally ridiculous and outrageous definition of four obscure words is the real meaning.  It’s always good for a lot of laughs because some of the Liars are very, very good.

Tomorrow we’ll be in Charleston for most of the day and I’m taking a tour to a plantation that is supposed to have some nice gardens.  I’ve been to Charleston before so I decided to go out of the city instead. 

I'll leave with a trivia question and it's no fair googling or asking Siri.  In which country can you take the shortest commercial airline flight?

October 27 - A Little Bite of the Big Apple

Today we sailed into New York Harbor on a beautiful, sunny autumn day. The last time I sailed into this place my family was returning from six years living in Madrid, Spain.  In other words, a long, long time ago.  I wanted to make sure that I was up to see it, so as usual I didn’t sleep well despite having my alarm set.  The captain told us the night before that we were scheduled to sail under the Verrazzano Bridge at 7:15 AM and by the Statue of Liberty at 7:45 AM.  At 7 AM I went up to the Observation Bar toward the bow of the Quest and there were already plenty of people there, but I found a seat.  There were also Virgin and Bloody Mary’s, Mimosas, and little pastries and mini-bagels with lox.

There’s an outdoor walkway around the Observation Bar and I walked out there a few times but it was freezing cold with a stiff wind as we sailed along.  I was able to take this picture just before the sun popped up and I thought the colors were pretty nice.  I’ve really got a thing for sunrises and sunsets.  I know I’ve  said it before but I can’t help repeating myself.

As the sky brightened in the distance I could see the Verrazzano Bridge through a little morning haze.  Beyond I could just make out the city skyline, still very obscure.  When I sailed in here in 1964 the bridge was under construction but not yet open.  Officially named the Verrazzano-Narrows bridge it connects Brooklyn with Staten Island, two of New York City’s boroughs.  There’s an interesting story (at least to me about the name of the bridge).  It’s named after Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European explorer to enter what’s now New York harbor.  When the contract was signed to build the bridge it specified the “Verrazano-Narrows Bridge” with just one “Z.”  (There was controversy about naming it after him with other suggestions being made, but the contract specified the name I just wrote.)  The name Verrazzano has two “z’s” and so in 2018 a bill was passed in New York State to change the name.  As a cost-saving measure old signs with one z would be retained and only new ones would show the corrected spelling.  As someone who wonders about what governments spend time on, I can’t help but speculate on what amount of time and at what cost, the change was made.

A few facts about the bridge to keep them in my mind.  The bridge is a suspension bridge with a central span of 4260 feet between two towers which are nearly 700 feet tall.  The bridge has two decks carrying a total of thirteen lanes of traffic.  Because of the height of the towers and the span between them the designers had to take into account the curvature of the earth; thus the towers are not parallel to each other.  The towers are 1.625 inches further apart at their tops than at their bases.  Okay, that’s more information than a traveler needs to know about the bridge; I just thought it was interesting.

Manhattan really does have a beautiful skyline.

As we passed under the bridge and entered New York Harbor, anticipation  grew because our next sight would be the Statue of Liberty.  As I said it was a practically cloudless sunny day by now and there she was beginning to loom up as we sailed along.  There is something very moving about seeing this grand lady, a symbol of our freedom, standing watch over the gateway for so many people who have come to this country.  My Italian grandfather saw this as a teenage boy arriving from a little village in southern Italy.  My German war bride mother some 65 or so years later saw her as she arrived in a strange country with an infant in her arms (me).  I can’t help but wonder what emotions they must have felt.  I won’t write anything about the Statue because I think all of us have read at least a little about the wonderful gift from France to commemorate our centennial.

Isn't she lovely?

She deserves two shots at least.

In the distance now there was the skyline of Manhattan.  Towering above the other buildings with the sunlight gleaming off its sides is One World Trade Center, also known as the Freedom Tower.  When I last arrived by ship in this harbor, the original World Trade Center hadn’t yet been built  and so I never saw those buildings from the sea; I had only seen them from afar on a couple of land visits to New York or from the air when flying into one of the airports around here.  I decided a couple of days ago that instead of taking a tour to the Statue and Ellis Island, my original plan, that I wanted to take a tour that allowed me to see Ground Zero.  That involved a driving tour of the sights of Manhattan so that’s what I did.

We docked, had a face-to-face encounter with Customs and Border Patrol and then we were off on our short, whirlwind tour.  We had a great guide named Darrell and a fantastic bus driver named Eric.  (As an aside, anyone who is a tour bus driver in NYC in my opinion must be either a saint or certifiable.) Darrell was a very tall black man who could make a living as  a stand-up comic.  We are docked in the Hudson on the West Side of NYC I think around 52nd  Street.  Our drive took us east toward Central Park.  It’s Sunday and a beautiful day so it’s pretty crowded in town.  There’s something else going on here today which makes it even more crowded but I’ll tell you more about that later.  As we drove along Darrell pointed out various notable buildings.  Being in a bus you don’t always get a good view because inevitably everything seems to be on the side you’re not on.  I did get a photo of a famous diner which the guide told us is the last of what used to be many Greek diners in Manhattan and this place called Gray’s Papaya where people go to get great hot dogs of all things.

West Side Diner

Gray's Papaya which Darrell said is a great place to get hot dogs

Speaking of hot dogs ...

I think we were supposed to stop for a little stroll in Central Park, but traffic was very messed up and there was apparently no hope of parking.  We drove by the door in the Dakota apartment building where John Lennon was killed.  We saw the Plaza Hotel which has appeared in so many movies and old ornate mansions which were the homes of the tycoons and industrial barons of the Gilded Age in the early 1900’s. As we drove down Fifth Avenue we passed St. Patrick’s Cathedral and a few blocks later we were able to drive by Trump Tower.  The street in front of that building is lined with big dump trucks to protect from a car bomb or suicide bomber from approaching. I was on the wrong side of the bus so I only got this pretty bad photo of the building, but I’m including it anyway.  

Just to prove I did see it

The Plaza Hotel on the corner of 5th Avenue

Just past Trump Tower we turned on to a side street and got out close to Rockefeller Center.  We had about 45 minutes to walk around and look at the buildings, shops and skating rink all of which have been featured in so many films.  I don’t go to many movies anymore but it was wonderful seeing places from some of my old favorites.  The FAO Schwartz store was right on one corner of the Plaza and who can forget Tom Hanks playing the floor piano in Big.  Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings built in the 1930’s.  It’s the home of many of the broadcasting companies.  In the limited time I had I walked around and took pictures of some of the artwork on the buildings.  I took the elevator down to the skating rink and watched the skaters enjoying themselves and got a good picture of the gilded statue of Prometheus.  I have to confess that while I enjoyed seeing the sights, I didn’t enjoy the crowds.  I’m too much of a small city woman now.

30 Rockefeller Center

The inscription over the main door.  We could use a little of these I think.

Prometheus himself

FAO Schwartz - Where's Tom Hanks playing the piano?

We headed back west and drove through Times Square and past the Theater District of Broadway.  Did you know that Broadway is the longest street in New York state?  It runs from the southern tip of Manhattan all the way to Albany, the capital of the state.  That’s a bit of trivia to be filed away for the future.  We continued down toward the tip of Manhattan and things got increasingly congested.  As we traveled down 7th Avenue, there were lots of police cars with blue lights flashing and side streets barricaded.  We were approaching Madison Square Garden where Trump was holding a rally tonight.  As we got closer and looked on both sides of the bus, every side street was full of thousands of people as far as we could see wearing red ball caps and carrying Trump signs.  In front of the Garden the area was packed with people wearing MAGA hats waiting to be admitted for the rally later in the day.  I was told that the venue seats about 20,000 and when the tickets to the rally came available they were “sold out” in less than an hour.

A couple of the electronic billboards in Times Squares

These were just a few of the 20,000 who had tickets and were close to the entrance to Madison Square Garden close to 90,000 were outside the perimeter just to be close to the rally.

Proceeding downtown we passed through several well-known neighborhoods, including Greenwich Village, Soho and Tribeca (which stands for Triangle below Canal Street.  We passed Wall Street and the New York Federal Reserve Building.  Eventually we came to a stopping point from which we could walk to Ground Zero in the shadow of the new Freedom Tower.  We had enough time to walk down around the pools that are on the sites of the Twin Towers.  The perimeters have a sort of railing on which are inscribed the names of those who perished in the attack including first responders and passengers on the planes that crashed.  In the center of the pools is a deeper area into which water cascades down.  Around the sidewalks are trees which were planted when the memorial was built except for one that’s fenced in and is a survivor tree, the only tree that made it through the collapse of the buildings.  Across the street is the firehouse of Ladder Co. 10 of the NY Fire Department.  On the wall of that building there is one area that has the names  and photographs of every firemen who was lost, including Stephen Siller whose family founded the Tunnel to Towers Foundation to help families of first responders and service people lost or severely injured.  The rest of the wall is covered with a bronze sculpture showing the firemen working during the efforts to rescue people before the buildings collapsed. The whole place was very moving.  I guess that I like everyone else who was alive that day will never forget the images we saw and the horror of it.

One World Trade Center AKA the Freedom Tower

The North Pool on the spot of the North Tower

The NY Firefighters who died

After we reboarded the bus we headed back toward the pier.  Along the way we passed a place along the river where we could see people just for fun trying to be trapeze artists.  It was some kind of a sports complex with a football field in the building below the trapeze place.  Our driver Eric had to navigate around lots of closed streets which of course caused a lot of congestion on the streets that were open.  We got back to the ship about mid-afternoon after a quick but interesting tour.  It met my expectations because my primary purpose was to see Ground Zero. 

Darrell told us some information which I found quite interesting.  There is an awful lot of vacant office space in Manhattan. Many companies that shut down during Covid or which began working remotely have not returned to  the city. With fewer people coming into the city to work, shops and restaurants have suffered.  More than 6,000 restaurants in NY have not reopened.  The new Freedom Tower is having trouble getting tenants. Businesses are afraid to rent there because they are afraid it would be an obvious target. (I can’t say I really blame them.)  Finally, he told us what the average rent per month for a one-bedroom apartment is and it floored me.   The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $4250 per month. If you have a car the average cost to park it is $800 per month.

The Quest spent the night in New York, but I stayed onboard because I’m a chicken and didn’t want to wander anywhere at night alone.  We had a marvelous speaker in the evening and actually I wouldn’t have missed him for the world.  He was Walter Isaacson.  He has had a long career in journalism and is the author of a number of biographies of people like Benjamin Franklin, Einstein, and Steve Jobs.  His latest was Elon Musk.  I bought the hardcover book the day it was released (the first time I’d bought an actual paper book in years) and thought it was the most fascinating read. Isaacson was given virtually unfettered access to Musk for close to two years and even did things like go to board meetings with him.  Anyway, it was so interesting listening to him talk about the traits that these very brilliant people share in common and which allow them to “think out of the box.”   Had I known he would be on the ship I would have brought my copy and tried to get him to sign it.  Oh well.  Next time.