Memorable visit to Longfellow's House

Outside the Longfellow house in Portland, Maine, above
and the garden in the rain, left.

Of all the poems written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the bit in Hiawatha's childhood about the gloves the native American child made for himself, has always stayed in my memory, especially when I put on a pair of mittens or help a child put on a pair of mittens. I now know it is typical of this giant among English language poets in that the imagery, the strong rhythm and the use of language combine to create something which echoes a native American's use of the English language. "Of the skin he made him mittens, Made them with the fur side inside, Made them with the skin side outside. He, to get the warm side inside, Put the cold side skin side outside. He, to get the cold side outside, Put the warm side fur side inside. That's why he put the fur side inside, Why he put the skin side outside, Why he turned them inside outside." When we took a guided tour of the Longfellow family home, where the poet spent his childhood, I enjoyed seeing inside a house which had retained so many features and artifacts belonging to that family. Our guide was able to create for me, a picture of their family life. She was a retired teacher and spoke with the clear articulation I was beginning to expect in the Massachusetts and Maine coastal areas. It was a delight to imagine the poet, his mother and other members of his family living there and using some of the furniture which had been placed as if the family had only just left the house. I could almost have been in England, in Kiplings house. I also found out for the first time that Longfellow was a linguist and had travelled and studied widely in Europe. Although it may have been pouring with rain outside. Inside the Longfellow house we were treated to a taste of Longfellow family life which, for me, will be as memorable as the few verses of his Hiawatha poem which have stayed in my memory since my own childhood.

Refuge from the rain in a Portland railway carriage

Inside the quaint little railway carriages at Portland,
where we took refuge from the rain. 

I am looking at pictures of places I visited just over four weeks ago on the TV news and find it hard to believe them. Hurricane Sandy has transformed the places I visited. It seems amazing to me that it is only just four weeks ago, Arcadia berthed in Portland, Maine. The weather was colder in Portland and also extremely wet, so we wore waterproofs and took umbrellas. We made for the little narrow gauge railway which went a little way along the coast. Being very wet, we caught the first train out, which was pulled by a little diesel engine which looked like an adapted tractor. it had an upright exhaust pipe with a little round hinged cover which popped up and down to release the fumes. The carriages were equally quaint, with old fashioned hinged seats you could turn to face the other way. We joined the local families for the trip up and back and then looked round the small museum on the site. The rain looked set in for the day, so we went in search of a coffee and found a Starbucks, where our wet clothes gently steamed and we warmed our hands on the steaming cups. The poet Longfellow was born and brought up in Portland and we went to look for his house.

Bunker Hill, Boston is on the "Freedom Trail"

The monument to those who died at Bunker Hill

Our day in Boston included a trip across the Charles River by ferry to Charlestown, where we took the freedom trail from the USS Constitution to Winthrop Square and Bunker Hill. It was a strange experience to view the British as the 'enemy', although most Bostonians we met were immensely proud of their British and English roots. The Freedom Trail in Charlestown took us through streets with old weatherboard houses. On the opposite side of the river in Boston were more modern street scenes and high rise buildings, with a few historic sites interspersed. We followed the Freedom Trail through Boston as well tracing the final resting place of some of the state's original settlers. We were weary when we got back to the ship. Our last port of call in the United States would be Portland the following day.

English connections in Boston discovered

One of the memorials to the first governor of
Massachussetts, John Winthrop from Suffolk, England.

WE bought 'charlie' tickets for the Boston subway at Aquarium station. Like everything else in Boston, the subway system was clean and efficient. It was strange looking at the destination boards and seeing we could take a train to places like Braintree. We went to Government Centre (sorry Center) where we picked up the Freedom trail to find the end of the my 'Winthrop Trail' which started in Suffolk England. One of my friends had bought me a "Freedom Trail" booklet from the USS Constitution Museum shop. It is easy to trace the sights and attractions of the city by following the Freedom Trail, which is clearly marked out with coloured bricks in the pavement (sidewalk). It was therefore easy to find the Burying ground next to King's Chapel and the grave of the Winthrops. I had found the end of the trail which started in Suffolk, England. We also found the grave of Mary Chiltern, a child, who was one of the first to step off the Mayflower onto American soil in 1621. We enjoyed browsing in the Boston shops and Quincey Market. We were in search of refreshments and found out way into a sweetie and ice-cream shop, with bar stools and chairs and tables. Here we treated ourselves to ice-creams. A small ice-cream IS small in England. In America, it is enormous, enough for two and although delicious, they were nearly melted when we finally finished them! Two boston police came into the ice cream and sweetie shop carrying coffees from another cafe and sat on the bar stools. I was a bit surprised about this, until I realised one was the boyfriend of the girl behind the counter. One peculiarity about Boston is that it is the city which originated "Dunkin Donuts". I'm not sure what this fact says about the city, but it is not an image which fits well in my mind with the high ideals of the puritans who founded it. It's lucky the city has many other claims to fame. We took a bus back to Arcadia and the route took us past that tea party ship.

We join American tourists on the US Constitution

Much to my delight we had a whole day in Boston and intended to make the most of it. One of my friends had given me a guide book to the city as a Birthday present, so we were well informed and well prepared. I had also picked up a leaflet in Groton Church, Suffolk, England, which I had brought with me. Those puritans who emigrated from England in the early 17th century had high ideals about running a new community. The ideals laid down then, conformity of worship, diligence and hard work have resulted in a clean and prosperous modern city. It was the descendants of these same puritans who refused to pay taxes to England and, dressed as native Americans, stormed a ship with a cargo of tea and chucked the lot into the water. The "Boston Tea Party".

Here is "Old Ironsides" otherwise known as the US Constitution
which withstood British bombardment in 1775 

We took the ferry from Boston, over the Charles River to Charlestown to see the USS Constitution. We explored the ship, which was built in Boston and first sailed in 1778. She withstood British cannon in 1812 so successfully, she earned the nickname of "Old Ironsides". After exploring all over the ship, we visited the museum and shop, where I bought some chocolate drops in tins with pictures of the USS Constitution on them for my grandsons. Charlestown has some old weatherboard houses in it and some of these border a square called Winthrop Square and are in a road called Winthrop Road. We also visited the memorial on Bunker Hill. This obelisk commemorates a battle between the Americans and the British in 1775, in which there were many casualties on both sides. Charlestown has many reminders of those puritans who came across the Atlantic from England to start a "New World" and the battles their descendants fought for independence.

Newport a place founded to end religious contention in the New World

This monarch butterfly was in the synagogue gardens, Newport.

It was in Newport I saw a Monarch or Milkweed butterfly. It was fluttering about in the garden of the synagogue. I had been assured by my friends I would see plenty of these large butterflies on the East Coast of America, but this one proved to be the only one I saw except for the one in New York. One memory of New York I have not yet shared on this blog was an incident on the way back to Arcadia from the Chrysler building along 42nd Street. It was the rush hour and there were a lot of people about, when suddenly, a small oriental woman darted towards a rubbish bin (it's called trash over there) and started ferreting around in it feverishly. After she had added to her bag of empty cans, she dashed to the next one and crossed the street with us. Unfortunately her bag of cans got wrapped around a lamp post on the other side of the street and entangled with the camera bag of one of us, also wrapped around the lamp post. I was slightly behind and saw the tussle between the two of them, she thinking her booty was being lifted off her and the other thinking the bag was being snatched. After the tussle, both succeeded in saving their bags and the little oriental scavenger beetled down the street to the next bin as fast as she could. We arrived back on Arcadia about afternoon tea time. One of our little treats on the ship was to go to Cafe Vivo and have cappuccinos or a pot of tea and a snack. As we were to dine at 6.30, Cafe Vivo was ideal for a little something to tide us over until our evening meal. The friendly staff got to know us and our regular order. We left Newport for Boston. I had looked forward to the trip to Boston for months. As a tour guide I take regular tours in Lavenham in Suffolk, where the Winthrop family built a large timber-framed house when they had become prosperous as skilled fullers in the Lavenham Blue Cloth trade. As a master fuller, Adam Winthrop became a member of the Fuller's Guild in the City of London and was prosperous enough to afford legal training for his son Adam, who also bought the manor of Groton in Suffolk. Adam Winthrop married into the family which owned the Manor of Edwardstone and had a son, John Winthrop, who founded the Massachusetts Bay Company, the Massachusetts Bay colony and was first governor of Massachusetts. I take a walk in Suffolk, England, from Boxford to Groton and back every year, from where the Winthrops and most of the village of Groton left for the New World on the Arbella in 1630. John Winthrop and other puritans took 800 people to found a Calvinist/puritan community in the New World. Their doctrine of a well ordered society and hard work laid the foundations for the prosperous city of Boston. I know well the place they left in the 1630s, I was excited by the prospect of seeing the place they emigrated to.

Signs of religious tolerance in Newport

The Quaker meeting house Newport. Symbolic of the town's determination
of embrace religious tolerance and freedom of belief. 

We had to take a launch from Arcadia to the shore at Newport. We were about the last to get on the launch, so separated from my friends we got sorted into different groups for the tour, which started immediately we left the launch. I had the amusing experience of being re-sorted into a group with my friends as a little discussion about group numbers went on between the two guides. As I am a tour guide, I was amused to see the slightly exasperated look on our guide's face as we all re-grouped. The area around the port in Newport is mostly modern, but our guide took us into the old town. Newport, he explained, was founded in the 17th century, by immigrants and descendants of immigrants as a break-away community to establish freedom of worship. The puritans on the Arbella in 1630, who founded Boston had a clear intention of a establishing a Calvinist/puritan community there. All settlers had to conform to this method of worship, laws and social order. It was a system of administration which caused its own problems as described in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" and more extreme problems, as dramatised in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". Quakers, for instance were outcast and persecuted. So Newport was founded by a group of settlers who believed in freedom of worship. Particularly persecuted by the puritan fathers of Boston and other puritan run communities were the Quakers. One of the first places of worship in Newport was the Quaker meeting house. Also we found the Methodist Church, the Synagogue and the Anglican Church, which looked like a Wren or Hawksmoor church and could have looked equally in place in the City of London. Inside the Anglican church were high pews for nursing mothers and two Tiffany windows. Tiffany had a way of 'folding' stained glass which gives the design a distinctive solid, quality appearance. In England we often point out mansions and houses and say "Queen Elizabeth the first slept here." On the East Coast of America, they point out mansions and houses and say "George Washington slept here." A rather austere brick-built slightly romanesque-style building caught our eye. It was, in fact, the Roman Catholic church where Jack Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier. I had spotted the public toilets (sorry bathrooms or washrooms) on our tour, so that was our next stop before finding somewhere for coffee and refreshments. We found an excellent little home-bakery cafe, where we spent a few dollars on coffee and a slices of the special offer of blueberry and toffee cake, which was delicious and had something sweet and crunchy on the top. In Newport I got the message from my son, I should have got in Bloomingdales and we went to look for the "7 for all mankind jeans". In one shop, three young people were not able to supply them, but "googled" the brand for me and told me about all the stockists, including, of course, Bloomingdales. As I was unlikely to be near any of the stockists, I rather abandoned my search for them at that point, but it was fun chatting and joking with the helpful young people. It was raining when we got back to the launch and back on the ship. Overwhelmingly, Newport was a total contrast to New York.

From the bustle of New York to the quiet of New Port

We left New York in the evening and whilst we were having our evening meal, Liberty kept appearing in the windows of the restaurant. While we are on our journey to Newport I must mention the free copy of "am New York" we were handed near the subway station we bought our Metro tickets at. Large picture of Lady Gaga on the front with the headline "GAGAWARS" "Firestorm erupts after S.I. pol calls her a 'slut'" What I like about the name Lady Gaga is the contradiction it suggests in British English. The image of a "Lady" is of a superior woman. Probably one who wears high heels, a hat and a smart dress in New York and goes everywhere by yellow cab. "Gaga" in British English means you are old and have completely lost your wits. But it wasn't the front page which took our attention. It was the headline on page 2 which read "Finally! No.6 Uptown transfer at Bleeker a relief to straphangers". Not only did we alight from a subway train at Bleeker, we were able to see the new connection in action. And so to Newport, Rhode Island. What a contrast this place was to New York. Some of our party found it too quiet. Us British know about Newport because of its famous folk festival, where Bob Dylan sang with Joan Baez and also where Bob Dylan upset the so-called folk "purists" by using a backing band which used electric guitars and amps. I thought folk music was generic and contemporary. At least it was in England, when the singers and ballad mongers took traditional tunes around the fairs and markets and sung unaccompanied or accompanied by the instruments of the day. They sung songs about traditional stories, contemporary events and spread news and views in their ballads and songs. The only reminder of the famous folk festival I saw in Newport was the Fender guitar shop I took a picture of for my sons, both keen guitarists. My first impressions of the town were of weatherboarded (wooden clad) homes, little gardens and the relative quiet after the bustle of New York. As we knew nothing about Newport apart from the folk festival, we took a guided tour of the town.

The Guitar shop in Newport, with a decorative acoustic in the window (for folk purists) and a Fender. The weatherboard wooden facade is typical of the buildings in Newport.

Fraunces Tavern story from Helene Hanf

Somehow I am reluctant to leave New York. We had two days there after six days on the Atlantic. We were there on 26th and 27th September. It was after our Staten Island ferry trip, when we arrived back to lower Manhattan that we happened upon the Fraunces Tavern an old and most interesting building which Helene Hanff had included on her itinerary. Whereas Helene Hanff had to ask a suited city worker, who happened to have a map in his pocket, how to find the 18th century building, we were lucky enough to find it when we were on our way to Battery Park from the ferry. The tavern is named after Samuel Fraunces, a West Indian, who owned the tavern before, during and after the revolution. To quote Helene, "when the British invaded New York the patriots fled and the British confiscated all patriot property. When the British marched out, the patriots returned and they confiscated all Tory property. But neither side ever confiscated Fraunces Tavern. He was black so he didn't count as a patriot or a Tory."

The Fraunces Tavern, New York, tells a story of its own

Opposite the Fraunces Tavern is the street to the site where the world trade centre stood. We, however were on our way to Battery Park, where we found a most attractive little building in the form of a Subway station, quaintly called, "Bowling Green," it was from there we went to the East Side and the tenement museum on our first day. I'm reluctant to leave New York because its liveliness, its smells, its noise, its buildings and its traffic, the whole experience of being there, chatting to New Yorkers and riding on the subway is still strong in my memory. We left the city in the evening for a short trip round the coast to Newport.

Sculpture catches our eyes in Battery Park

The sculpture in Battery Park which caught
our eye and has because a "9/11" memorial

AFTER our New York shopping experience and meeting up at the Prada/Jimmy Choo corner in Bloomingdales, we took the subway to Grand Central Railway (sorry, railroad) Station which typifies everything in New York. It's not just the stunning and palatial architecture, it's the people crossing the concourse, shopping in the stores and getting refreshments, as we did, from a coffee stall. We took our drinks to chairs and tables laid out in the lower floor of the station, among the mix of people already enjoying refreshments there. Some were having just drinks, others snacks and some, substantial meals. I remember noticing a very smartly dressed man sitting opposite us at a table on his own and wearing a trilby hat. There were some American Military personnel on duty at the station and we asked one of these the way to the Chrysler building. This was not to take the lifts to the top, you understand, I was wanted to see New York as the city workers and apartment dwellers saw it and we didn't have much longer to do it. Going into the foyer of the Chrysler building is similar to entering a work of art. All in the art-deco style, much of the decoration is marquetry, polished and shining. Before I go back to the ship to sail to Newport, I must mention a few things we "happened upon" in New York, which I had read about in Helen Hanff's "Apple of my Eye". One was Battery Park, where there was once a battery of guns trained on the Hudson from Lower Manhattan. Here we saw a sculpture which looked a bit like some kind of grotesque egg, which was partially hatched. It was, in fact, a piece damaged when the twin towers of the World Trade Centre fell after the impact of the terrorists aircraft on 11th September 2001. Looking at that, I remembered watching the second plane impact the second tower with disbelief from our newsroom television and Steve, one of our photographers taking a picture of the screen for the following day's front page. Its typical of New York to simplify an expression and export it to the world... such as "9/ll". Opposite Battery Park was the museum of the Native American, which we did not have time to visit... there has to be a next time!

Bloomingdales offers us a "personal shopper"

As the tramway/cable car deposited us at the back of Bloomingdales, Bloomingdales is where we went. To go into this department store was magic for me. When I worked in Selfridges, Oxford Street, I sometimes had to despatch things to Bloomingdales, New York and then later in the garment and fashion trade, we exported articles to Bloomingdales. I never imagined I would actually go in the store. It is in typical Art Deco New York style and even some of the merchandise follows this. We were very struck by some coffee makers which, although modern, would fit very nicely into a 1920s-style kitchen. We had coffees in Bloomingdales and very nice they were too. We looked round on every floor and as is my habit in big department stores, I spent a fortune... with my eyes. Unfortunately I did not get a signal on my phone in the store and therefore did not get a message from my son to ask me to look for a pair of "7 for all mankind" jeans. I was looking for a Birthday present for him, but since I failed to get the message, although I was looking in the right department and looked at the endless rails of jeans there, I would not have known which style/size to pick. And Bloomingdales is listed as a stockist. Department stores were not really to everyone in our party's taste and therefore we split up, two of us to take the subway to Macey's and the other to take the subway to the Metropolitan Museum. Helen Hanff grumbles a little about the Metropolitan Museum, since planners allowed a large chunk of Central Park, where she used to walk a neighbour's dog, to be snatched to construct it. Amongst the impressive collections in the Metropolitan Museum is the largest number of statues portraying the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. We agreed to meet back in Bloomingdales near Prada and Jimmy Choo. Macy's is palatial, covers an entire block and attracts masses of shoppers. as with Bloomingdales, I never imagined I would actually go to Macy's. Also, as with Bloomingdales, I was in contact with Macy's years ago. I was able to find a special 'New York' present for my son. A sweatshirt printed with the New York skyline in a series of rows in rainbow colours. We also spent a bit in the children's department, where there was one of the three McDonalds we saw in New York. Our lunch was on the eighth floor in Au Bon Pain, a snack chain we had already tried and tested on Staten Island. It was very busy, but we were able to squeeze into a table in the corner after choosing and buying coffees and snacks. There were coats left on chairs near us where there were five vacant seats at two tables and a single woman seated. We were there for about twenty minutes when the tables and chairs remained vacant. We came to the conclusion the party would eventually meet up, but in the mean-time there were many would-be diners who came near our corner and looked hopefully at the vacant chairs and tables. Our seats were swooped on as soon as we left them to continue our shopping and then make our way back to Bloomingdales with our Macy's bags. There we were greeted by the tall doorman, who asked if we remembered him, we did. As we were early we had another look round. The perfume department near the lifts was a cacophony of sales girls in neat black dresses, calling out to us and other potential customers... "hey, hey, you gotta try this... come on, come on, try, try... you gotta love it, when you try it." We didn't try, but were unable to avoid the smart suited man who persuaded us to try the latest Chanel perfume. We obliged. "Remember its in the black package" he called our after us as we left. We were about to take the escalator to the first floor when "Dorcas" introduced herself to us. What were we looking for and where were we from? She had been an actress, she just loved the English actors she had met. She directed us to the right sort of fashions for our age group and I must admit I did spend quite a few dollars... with my eyes. There were certainly styles I liked, but it was a colour and a size thing, which prevented me trying them on, or considering buying them. We were a little late for our rendezvous at Prada/Jimmy Choo and were greeted once again by the friendly doorman. We took the subway to Grand Central Station.

We call it a cable car... they call it a tramway

This is the view from the cable car/tramway
from Roosevelt Island to Bloomingdales 

Our second day in New York was sunny, like the first. There was no need to queue to go through customs and we could cross the busy road... traffic seemed endless until it stopped and the "little man" invited us to cross, counting the seconds till the red hand appears to stop people crossing. This time we could access the subway from the "ticket holders" entrance. We made our way to Roosevelt Island. At the time Helene Hanff wrote her book on New York, Roosevelt Island didn't have a lot on it, but a "tramway" in New York terms, or what we would call a "Cable Car" was built over to the island. This was such a novelty for New Yorkers, that families packed picnics to take the tramway over to the island to spend time there. Because there were no public facilities on the island, they left their food rubbish and human waste there and the few local residents complained. Roosevelt Island has since been developed with homes, shops and restaurants. We met chatted to a resident on the four minute ride to the terminal at the back of Bloomingdales. This chic lady was going shopping and taking advantage of the ease with which she could reach the shops from her home on the island by the tramway/cable car. She told us it was quiet on the island. Anywhere would seem quiet after Manhattan.

Bloomingdales. New York

We hear New York/Irish music in the Tenement Museum

We took the subway to the East Side and found the Tenement Museum in Orchard Street. The museum has some of the original tenements to show off and to see these we needed to book on a tour. We were lucky to be able to book on the tour which showed tenements occupied by Irish immigrants. The tenements are small, about two or three rooms at the most, a little like the back to backs in Birmingham or the Glasgow tenements. With a sort of front room, interior room with no windows and sort of large cupboard, also with no windows at the back. Old paint and plaster was peeling off the walls, the laths showed through the ceiling, there was one dull light for the entire tenement. It was an eye opener, how these poor Irish immigrants lived. The tenement was at the top of the block and reached by the fire escape, although there was also a rickety internal stair case. At the bottom of the block, in the yard was a bank of four

Lavatories/toilets/washrooms(!?)/bathrooms(!?) or, perhaps more accurately
New York tenement water closets, Tenement Museum, East Side. 

earth closets (toilets or as they say in New York washrooms, but how you could wash in them I can't imagine) to serve for the entire block. We were invited to try the weight of a bucket, filled with pebbles, which was the weight of the water from the stand-pipe the inhabitants would have to carry up all the stairs every day, three or four time a day. Our guide or "educator" as they call them, took us up four flights of the fire escape to the top and it was the dimly lit tenement with peeling paint and crumbling plaster walls exposed laths on the ceilings which we entered first. There were seats in the only room with the window and she explained about the Irish potato famine and how they came over the Atlantic to Ellis Ireland, to be admitted into the United States for a new life, but how the Irish mainly only knew rural life or manual labour to make a living in New York and there fore took jobs like "peddler" which is New York for "salesman" and builders, whereas in England a "peddler" is a bit of a vagrant who might also sell things. There would be very little money coming in and life was hard in that tiny tenement, so hard that their baby girl died. Some blocks kept a cow in the basement in such squalid condition there was only unhealthy "blue milk" available. We were played some New York/Irish music, which was so good, we brought back a CD. We were shown cartoons from one of the New York Newspapers, which showed tall German immigrants gossiping over the washing and the Irish immigrants cruely lampooned with monkey faces. Our "educator" gave us a clear picture of the hard life for the family which prospered better once they moved away from the tenement. We were shown birth and death certificates for the little infant and a picture of her sister, who was born in better circumstances and survived into old age. The tenements were so notorious that when better tenements were being built New Yorkers looked for a better name for them. They found it. Rather than the English 'flats' they took 'apartments' from the French and that is how they are called today. I wish I could give you an impression of that dark-one window, cupboard-like three room tenement. If you go to New York, visit the museum, take a tour and see for yourselves. After the visit we took the subway to 49th Street and after asking a newspaper salesman the way to the port... he was really friendly and a bit surprised to find out we intended to walk, but having given us directions, he invited us to donate to his local charity, which we were pleased to do. The port was at the end of several blocks down a long street. It was along this street I smelt Havana cigars at the limousine garage and saw the long butt end of one partially unfurled on the sidewalk. It was such a relief to reach Arcadia and take our shoes off. Our throbbing feet were rested overnight, ready for the next day. That evening we had an entertainment. Three young men from New York came on board and gave a great selection of songs, accompanied by the Arcadia Orchestra in the Paladium theatre. We had an evening meal in the restaurant, efficiently served by Godwin and Clint our friendly waiters. If I bothered to dig out the menu, I could tell you what we ate. Save that for another day, suffice it to say, my first day and evening in New York was a wonderful experience. I hope I have been able to convey, just how wonderful to some of you.

"Let the River Run"

Liberty and Ellis island from the Staten Island Ferry

"Let the River Run" was written and sung by New Yorker Carly Simon. It was played to the image of Melanie Griffiths on the Staten Island Ferry to Manhattan in the film "Working Girl". This iconic image and the song was in my mind when we joined the crowds to board the Staten Island Ferry and had a splendid view of Ellis Island where so many of the New York population first entered the United States to start a new life. I read in Helen Hanff's "Apple of my Eye" that if there was a family member with an illness, that person was refused admission and the whole family had to return to Europe or send the sick person back alone. There were many suicides in the Hudson over these issues. We had brilliant views of the Statue of Liberty from the Ferry as well. Being hungry when we got to Staten Island, we thought we would have a sandwich from the Subway bar, but there were queues of the ubiquitous builders, or construction workers, there and we went instead to the Au Bon Pain nearby, where you can get a coffee and a snack. We took our snacks out onto seats which overlooked the moored ferries, the one in dock was called the John Kennedy. After a pleasant lunch and spotting a Monarch butterfly, which we were surprised to see in New York, we had the pleasure of a Ferry ride back to Manhattan and on the subway to the nearest station to the East Side Tenement Museum. Here we were just in time for a tour of some of the tenements.

Great views from the High Line

A diminutive Andy Warhol stands in between the old
track on the High Line

There was a rumour on Arcadia that clothes shrunk in the wardrobes. Well, so they might for some passengers. Mine expanded. I think it was the excitement of going across the Atlantic by ship and visiting places I never dreamed I would visit. One skirt expanded so much that I had a wardrobe malfunction one night! Having soaked up the exciting sounds, smells and sights of New York streets, we bought tickets for the Subway at 42nd Street-Time Square. They would have lasted a week, if we had wanted them to, but we certainly had good value out of them for the two days. The weather was warm in New York, the subway trains are air conditioned unlike some of the underground and tube trains in London, but the stations themselves are really warm, hot even, so waiting for the trains can be uncomfortable and we certainly needed the showers when we got back to the ship each evening. The Subway is just sub-surface, like our underground in London, not deep underneath the city like our tube tunnels. When we caught the train two passengers moved up to make room for me to sit down, so my first experience of traveling on the Subway was pleasant and friendly. One thing I noticed about all the other passengers is that they all wore flat shoes, mainly trainers, but some women wore pumps. I remember seeing a very smartly dressed woman in a black dress, immaculate hair-cut and patent leather handbag, sitting upright with a neat new pair of pink trainers on her feet. Even immaculately dressed men in suits wore trainers or as Bob Dylan calls them 'sneakers' or gym shoes as we might say. I soon found out why, after a full day in New York my feet really could not take any more walking... it was as bad as a full day walking around Pompeii in Italy... perhaps something to do with volcanic rock? Who knows? It became a bit of a mission for me to see people walking in the streets or traveling on the Subway in high heels, but I only saw about three and two of them were "kitten heels", so I suppose all those Jimmy Choos on display in Bloomingdales must be worn by women who can afford to swan around New York in Yellow Cabs all day. I'm not sure where we got on the High Line, I believe it was near 8th Avenue Subway, to walk above the street on wooden boards and view New York from a higher level which had plantings of flowers and shrubs on either side. The High Line was a goods railway which closed in the 1980s and from public efforts in the guise of the Friends of the High Line, opened as a public walk way. I'm not sure why by the tune of Duke Ellington's "The A Train" kept popping in my head as we walked. What a wonderful way to view the city! We saw the Empire State building from there and intriguingly some quite dilapidated buildings, which looked almost like a film set. As I mentioned before there is lots of building going on. We saw sparrows around the plants on each side and at one end of the walk/line it disappears into a building! There were quite a few others walking the High Line, some, like us were obviously tourists, but others were locals and could bring children in push chairs up in the lifts. The access point we had intended to use was being re-furbished, so we had to walk a block away to get up to the line. In some places there is a little bit of railway track left. In others art-works, such as a painted statuette of Andy Wharhol among the metal rails. Walking on a spur we saw cars piled up on top of each other, like some sort of vehicle block and a massive advertisement hoarding which said "stop praying... God's too busy to find you a parking place". There was a little stall, run by Friends of the High Line, where I bought a set of fridge magnets for my oldest son and a map of the walk. Nearby was a coffee stall and toilets, sorry bathrooms. A little further on we found the "Chelsea grassslands" and a water feature, where children played in the water. It was a great way to see the variety of buildings on the west side of Manhattan. When we came down off the line, we took the Subway to South Ferry for the Statton Island ferry terminal and joined the crowds to go across the Hudson River.

"Apple of My Eye"

The New York skyline from the decks of Arcadia

I must say a bit about breakfast in the Belvedere on board the Arcadia. You really could have whatever you want there on a serve yourself basis, from cooked to continental, cereals, fruits, breads, buns, waffles, yoghurt and my particular favourite, porridge. It could be a bit of a "scrum" at times, but I must admit it was a delight. Three of us liked to breakfast together to plan our days and our port visits. For the outward journey across the Atlantic, I was reading Helene Hanff's "Apple of My Eye" Helene, who wrote 84 Charing Cross Road, lived in an apartment on the East Side of Central Park. She and a friend from the more "select" West Side decided to explore Manhattan from the point of view of a tourist. I also had a Baedeker, which my youngest son had used for his trip to New York with the college he was at in the early 1990s. Fortunately the friends I was with had been to New York before and we were able to plan our two days there carefully to include everything we wanted to do. We made a list. Arcadia, docked next to a huge air-craft carrier and museum, so there was plenty to look at from the ship. We had been warned customs at New York might take some time, especially as the staff on the ship were preparing coffee and doughnuts for them, we had to give them time to enjoy these freshly prepared delicacies. Having been warned we might have a frosty reception from them, we were pleasantly surprised. All our finger prints were taken before we were allowed in. My customs officer was chatty and asked me if I was going to see a show on Broadway. I told him it was my first time in New York and I just wanted to see it. And after we cleared customs, I did. What a wonderful city New York is. It is teeming with life. Every step we took to the nearest Subway station was a new revelation. Those iconic fire hydrants were in abundance. The lamp standards are high and ornate. There are great bunches of street furniture on street corners. The huge concrete slabs of pavement, sorry, sidewalks, ended in worn granite curbs often with worn metal shaping the corners, where I saw a collection of fag ends in the road. In some places there were still huge cobble stones. There were diners, lots of "Subway" snack places, surprisingly we only saw three "McDonalds" the entire two days we were there and one of those was in Macy's childrens wear department. As Helene Hanff had related, there are delicatessens in every street and every district claims theirs to be the best. I saw limousine valeting and hire places, drivers call to each other over the noise of the traffic. There seems to be new building and refurbishments going on everywhere. We got used to waiting for the little man to appear on the side of the traffic lights to cross roads. We saw people hailing yellow cabs. Every so often there are little bits of garden and also 'garden centres' selling plants to fill them. This time of year the pom-pom chrysanthemums are deep yellows and oranges, reds and purples. So many people in such a short space, so many businesses, so many people calling out to each other from cars, from taxis and from garages, from windows. We passed one limousine garage from which a rich scent of Havana cigars wafted and we hadn't gone far before I saw the end of one cigar with several puffs left in it, partially unfurled and discarded on the street. Not far from this a delicatessen wafted an odour of garlic, sausages, spices and baking, and then past a hotel where there was a smell of laundry in the basement... the sounds, smells and activity on the streets was ever-changing and never-ending. Although we bought tickets to use the Subway, I wore the heels and soles of a pair of shoes out in those two days in New York.

My introduction to America

The streets of New York with the High Line in the distance
and one of the ubiquitous delicatessens on the corner

I am just back from my first ever trip across the Atlantic ocean to North America. I will try to describe my experiences. We had to put our clocks back gradually, an hour at a time as we 'steamed' on Arcadia towards the East Coast of America. Those cruise ships offer every luxury to make our trip enjoyable and memorable. We enjoyed good food, first class shows in the Palladium Theatre and occasional bopping to Charlie's 50s and 60s selection in Electra. We frequently finished our evenings with the 'syndicate' quiz meeting up with new friends in the 'Crow's Nest' and making sure one of them had plenty of room to pop into place with a wheel chair, expertly driven into place. A trip on those cruise ships I can only describe as a series of treats, one after the other with the excitement of visiting somewhere new. For me it was a chance to see New York for the first time. I had expected to go in 1977 and never imagined I would do so in 2012, so many places I had seen in favourite films... Broadway Danny Rose, Manhattan, The Devil Wears Prada, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Apartment... I'm sure there are more! Well I got there and to Newport, Boston, where I traced the other end of my "Winthrop Trail" walk I conduct from Boxford to Groton in Suffolk. Also to Portland where it rained and we found a little railway and Longfellow's house. I bought a hat in St John, New Brunswick Canada. Halifax was wonderfully sunny and I twisted my ankle quite painfully there. Quebec is just amazing "Bonjour Madame" they said in a shop we wandered into... but then I was wearing a hat. And we went to Green Gables. Really, the house Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote about in "Anne of Green Gables". If you interested in any of these experiences/places read on!