Just as Marlies commented that staying in Brooklyn would give us a “more authentic New York experience,” a pigeon hiding somewhere in the rafters of the subway station shit on Jon. He checked to see where he had been hit, shrugged and said, “In some countries that’s considered good luck.” And just like that, he was officially baptised by the city that never sleeps.

Despite having been awake since 4 a.m. Newfoundland time, we were heading out for a night of dancing with our friends Marlies, Carrie and Carrie’s roommate. You’d think a Friday night on the dance floor in New York City would mean DJs, lights and drinks. Instead, our destination was a church basement for a square dance hosted by a bluegrass group called NYTrad.

This wasn’t a typical night out for the girls either, but their friend was calling the dances, so it had come up in the list of possible options. We figured, why not? As Newfoundlanders, Jon and I are somewhat familiar with square dancing, so we had no hesitation about joining a group of strangers when we arrived. At one point, the caller was struggling to think of what dances to call, so I mentioned a few that we knew from back home, including the Kissing Dance. She was pretty excited about it, and I was able to help show everyone how to “thread the needle” and “crack the whip.”

Bagels, Coffee, and NYC History

Marlies’s boyfriend Brian had generously offered us his apartment near Brooklyn’s Prospect Park for our weekend visit to the city.  On Saturday morning, we followed everyone’s advice on where to get a proper bagel and where to get a proper coffee. I don’t think I have ever had so much cream cheese on a bagel, but it wasn’t long before we were walking it off in Prospect Park as we worked our way toward the New York Transit Museum, located in a decommissioned Brooklyn subway station.

The museum was absolutely worth it. It had great interpretation of the construction and history of the metro, plus the chance to wander through decades of subway cars with advertisements relevant to each car’s era.

We walked to the Brooklyn Bridge fully intending to cross it, and then couldn’t quite figure out how to access the pedestrian path. So we abandoned that plan, bought ferry tickets instead, and cruised to the Wall Street terminal.

The last time I was in New York, the 9/11 memorial was still under construction. This time, we visited the waterfalls before heading underground to the exhibits. The experience was heavy, to say the least, and certain sections were tougher than others to get through.  As Newfoundlander’s our memories of 9/11 are often more focused on the countless planes that had to land in Gander that day and the more positive stories that came out of that.   

That evening we returned to Brooklyn, meeting Marlies, Carrie and their friends at a fantastic Ethiopian restaurant, followed by drinks. It was the perfect decompression after the emotional weight of the afternoon.

On Sunday, we had another high-step-count adventure. We wandered past the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building toward Times Square. Carrie suggested we go to McDonald’s, not for the food, but because the location gives you access to the 2nd and 3rd floors, which are prime people-watching territory. After taking in Times Square from the 3rd floor dining area (we especially enjoyed watching the Naked Cowboy flirting with older ladies, or maybe it was the other way around) we continued on to Rockefeller Centre to take in the entire city from the rooftop.

We passed on paying extra for the Beam Experience photo, where they hand you a hammer or a wrench and strap you onto a beam that gets raised in the air, but fun fact: two people in the original “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper” photo are from the Bonavista Peninsula.

We spent the rest of the sunny afternoon soaking up the last of the fall colours in Central Park before heading back to Brooklyn to meet up with everyone to see Josh Ritter perform at Brooklyn Steel. It was the perfect ending to our weekend in the city.

Getting to India

On Monday, we headed back to JFK to board a Turkish Airlines flight. We fought hard against the urge to sleep during our 13-hour stopover in Istanbul after 10 hours of flying, and spent an hour navigating the metro system to reach the Blue Mosque. We had also intended to visit the Hagia Sophia, but at $50 USD per person, we decided to save it for our next visit to Turkey. The real highlight of the stopover was finding a restaurant down a narrow alley where we enjoyed exceptional service, local food and cold beer.

Our next flight was 6 hours to Mumbai. We landed at 6:00am with a little over three hours to connect to our final flight to Bagdogra in Northern India. Customs was incredibly slow, and after we collected our bags, we were informed that the airline had changed our last flight to the other terminal and it would be impossible to make our connection. This ended up being a good thing since we were exhausted. The airline offered to put us up at a hotel and we were rebooked on the same flight the next morning. Aside from gaining an entire day of rest, the delay meant that we arrived at Bagdora airport on November 20th, at the exact same time as Stephanie, who was on her own multi-day journey from Vancouver…