New York on your own in a few days
I’ll make a reservation right away that I have been to the USA many times, but fate somehow very skillfully constantly took me away from New York. And finally!... According to the purchased tickets, my trip from New York began and ended with it, that is, in total, I spent only 5 days there with a ponytail. I must say that I almost did not have time to prepare well for the trip, so Volens-Nolens still had to carry a netbook with me on the trip. Of course, in general terms, I knew where I wanted to go and what to see, but I made detailed plans every evening, sitting in the "web". It’s tempting to write in the most detailed way where I was and what I saw, impressions... but the chosen format of this opus is advice to a lone tourist. Speaking English, of course. So… 1. Hotels. Perhaps this is not the best option, but, I repeat, there was not much time. I always assume that a hotel is just a rooming house, so I choose a decent economy option with only breakfast or even without it. If you already spend money, then it’s not in the pocket of hotel magnates, but on excursions, museums, etc. . I also think that cuisine is also an element of the culture of the country you are visiting, and I consider eating an average hotel average food in bad taste. When choosing a hotel, be sure to read reviews about it on the same. Before the trip, I also consulted with one American friend (a real one, not from Brighton Beach), he highly recommended hotels in New Jersey (it’s cheaper there), and from there I can ride to Manhattan. I didn’t listen to him and didn’t feel sorry for him: despite the fact that the skyscrapers of Manhattan from everywhere seem to be in full view, but this is just an illusion: the distances are large, and it takes a fair amount of time to get from some suburb to downtown! The first hotel I booked was in Brooklyn, and that was my mistake. Again: the skyscrapers of Manhattan - here they are visible from the window, and to get to them - 20 minutes on foot to the subway along the not very pleasant dirty port area, and then another 40 minutes on the subway. On the way back through New York, I was smarter: I chose a room in a small hotel in an old house on thirty-something street in Manhattan. The room, however, is small and narrow, the window overlooks some kind of dark courtyard, and at first I was very embarrassed by the shared bathroom for 2 rooms. But I didn’t see or hear my neighbors, only on the second day I guessed that someone was living behind the wall. But the metro station is nearby, 5th Avenue is around the corner, Broadway is also nearby, etc. 2. Air tickets. Booking inexpensive air tickets with convenient arrival times and connections is a thing in itself, accessible only to professionals from the respective companies. But you can try... I recommend checking in for flights in advance online, check-in is open a day before departure, it is possible to choose a better seat for yourself, which is very important for long-haul flights. I flew into JFK airport. Do not believe that this is a terrible and terrible airport, which is impossible to understand! Just in case, to feel more confident, either at home at your leisure you study the plan of the airport, or already on the plane from the magazine that is in the pocket of the seat in front of you. You can get from JFK to the city by bus (for some reason, only to Manhattan), barkers stand on the street right near the exit from the airport, or take the “sky express” (this is such a high-speed airport train) to Howard Beach or Jamaica subway stations - and further on the subway. In general, I recommend printing out the route in advance, especially if you still need to change to another metro line or bus: after a many-hour flight with a practically sleepless night in a huge unfamiliar city, your head will immediately go round and round! Assistants at the metro station will help you buy a ticket for the metro or metro + bus from the machine. 3. Where and what to see. When you are going to New York, decide in advance what you want to see, go to the relevant sites and ask about the days and hours of operation. Try to group in such a way that, if possible, “in one sitting” visit nearby objects. It takes quite a lot of time to travel around the city back and forth and search, besides, the sameness of quarters makes it difficult to navigate immediately after leaving the metro. I confess, I “stupid” several times, and when I got out of the subway I went in the wrong direction. I tried to ask, but in the center it is almost useless: in 90% of cases you will stumble upon the same tourist, in the remaining 10% - an American who knows nothing but the area in which he lives (this is normal for them). For example, spoiled by Europe, where the police know and know how to do everything and will definitely help, I asked the police officer where the bus stop was, to which he kindly replied that he “sorry, knows nothing here and stands only here on the corner. ” If you plan to visit museums, inquire about free days in advance. Even in the States there is such an interesting thing as pay as you can. This means that museums, which are considered national treasures, are allowed in for as much money as you can pay. So in the Metropolitan Museum near the ticket office it says "Suggested donation fee" - that is, not the cost of the ticket, but "the proposed charitable contribution. " With a clear conscience, pay $1, get a ticket, and go enjoy the art. I went to MoMA on "Target Free Friday" - after 4pm weekly. True, there were many such “tricky” in the museum, but everything was civilized, everything could be accessed and everything looked at. 4. Orientation on the ground. City maps - only in stores, free ones have not been met (this is not Vienna for you! ). I used a very conditional scheme on the spread of the advertising booklet of bus tours, not only because the toad pressed me to buy a card, but because this scheme is small and convenient, it was quite enough for orientation in the central part. You can usually ask for a plan of the surroundings at the hotel, they will also explain how to get there. From any metro station there are several exits to different street corners. In Manhattan, everything is perpendicular (except for Broadway, which goes at an angle), there is no architecture, so, as I said, when you get out of the subway, you don’t immediately know which way to go. If you “missed” the station, then it’s probably not worth jumping back into the subway: you walk 10 parallel streets in 15-20 minutes - it’s checked. When using Google maps when searching for some objects, remember that he sometimes lies shamelessly. I personally had several such cases in different US cities, so I dare to say that you need to be careful to trust Google maps, because. Do not double-check somehow (for example, try to call there - local calls are free), so as not to waste time in vain and not to stray where Google has led you. 4. Excursions. It's only natural that when you visit New York for the first time, you want to go on a double decker hop on hop off sightseeing tour. There are red Gray Line buses and blue CitySights NY, there is not much difference. Several excursions are offered in one package. The Super Deal - 2-Day Manhattan Tour Package + Brooklyn Tour + New York History Museum Visit and "Gift" Speedboat Cruise - all for "only" $54 - looks tempting. It turned out to be a divorce: there is no way to do all this in 48 hours! A tour of Brooklyn and a boat cruise - only three or four times a day at certain hours, and another problem is to get to the place of departure by the right time in an unfamiliar city. It should be noted that the guides on bus tours do not bother to give as much historical information as possible. Rather, their task is to entertain the public. . A tour of Brooklyn is generally a waste of time: there is nothing to see there! Brooklyn is very similar to the working-class suburbs of London or Liverpool, with the only difference being that in England there is a front garden in front of the houses, and in Brooklyn there are garbage cans. Therefore, the guide entertained us by singing songs... The cruise, which I had planned for the morning of the second day, was canceled due to the suddenly bad weather. On the East Coast of the United States, sudden bad weather is a common occurrence. Therefore, I had to urgently change plans and roll into the Met for the whole day, which I do not regret at all. Considering that on that cruise the guide would probably have been engaged only in entertaining the public, the textbook views of the Statue of Liberty and skyscrapers can be admired from the board of the ferry (South Ferry), which runs from Manhattan to Staten Island for free. And another tip: do not take the bus all around the tour at once, the hop on-hop off system allows you to get off at any stop, see the sights of interest and continue the tour on the next bus of the same company, i. e. the same buses for 2- x days can be used instead of public transport in Manhattan. 5. City transport. If you look at the map, the metro lines mainly run along the avenue, and buses run along the transverse streets. I took the bus only once. The best option: metro + on foot. I read someone's advice: when going somewhere, use the MTA public transport website (tripplanner. mta. info) to build your route for a specific day and time (there may be surprises! ) And print it out - this will help save time. Almost all hotels have computers with a printer for guests, in extreme cases, put them on a USB flash drive and print them at a nearby print center or FedEx office. The New York subway deserves a separate "opus": I have never seen a more dirty and disgusting place! The underground slopes are narrow and steep, there are practically no vestibules, the platforms are narrow (it’s even scary to stand! ), between the rails there is water, dirt and debris. Perhaps the water brought by Hurricane Sandy at least washed it all away a little... When you look at the metro map, you immediately want to admire the developed network: there are a lot of lines, they are intricately intertwined, indicated by color, letters and numbers. Pay attention not only to the name of the station itself, but also to the letters or numbers next to it - they indicate which train lines stop at this station. For example, Canal St 1 means a station on line 1, but there are also Canal St A-C-E (three metro lines converge there) and Canal St 6-J-M-N-Q-R-W-Z (7 lines) - these are all different stations in different places. If several lines converge at one station, then the transition to another line is often a rather complicated puzzle: for example, elevators that stop at some levels, but not at some. Or, even cooler: to change to another line, you need to go to the surface, cross to the other side of the street and go down to another subway entrance, while the ticket for one trip is valid. And, of course (this is not uncommon in European cities) - trains of different lines running along the same sections, so carefully read the designations on the electric locomotive and cars and the names of the stations themselves. For example, lines 4.5 and 6 in midtown Manhattan go through the same stations, but the trick is that trains on lines 4 and 5 are express trains, i. e. they only stop at some stations. By European standards, trains run slowly, so the trip on the subway in practice takes longer than you expect. In general, the subway in New York works in a strange way: some lines go through several express stations, some lines and stations work all days of the week, some work only on weekdays, then some lines or their individual lines are periodically closed sections, then some stations, etc. You will not understand this system in a few days. In the underground vestibules of the stations and on the platforms there are boards on which announcements of changes are posted. So that such a surprise does not take you by surprise (especially on the day of departure! ), Therefore, it is advisable to plan your route for this day in advance using the MTA website. Experienced travelers, even during short stays, always seek to buy the appropriate metro pass to save time and money. . In New York, I do not advise you to do this: American paper cards with a magnetic stripe, like similar plastic keys in hotels, are unreliable! Travel cards are sold at the stations in vending machines, and in the center there are vending machines even with a Russian menu for Russian tourists. I bought a weekly card for an unlimited number of trips, but I managed to use it only four times: on the second day it refused. In search of justice, I learn from the same MTA website that they will be happy to help you sort out such problems, only you need to carefully put the ticket in an envelope and send it by mail (! ) to the MTA office and wait a couple of weeks for the result (!!! ). You can, of course, go to the office itself, it is located somewhere in southern Manhattan in the Wall Street area, but is it worth spending time on such a short stay? Therefore, in the future, I used only cards for one trip, which also regularly refused (about one in three), and the metro employees whom I turned to for help always directed me around the turnstiles through the emergency door. When buying a travel card, just in case, keep the receipt while the card is valid - just in case. 6. Nutrition. Full of fast foods of various kinds with a mass of flour (pizza, buns, hamburgers, subs, etc. ). In the evenings they are not very comfortable: some strange personalities come. Behind the counters are mostly Taiwanese-Indonesian immigrants. Be prepared for the fact that they understand very poorly and speak English even worse: that is, there is some minimum vocabulary for the performance of official duties, but the pronunciation is terrible. If you want to go to a restaurant, remember that you are in America, and here you may be disappointed: even in fairly expensive restaurants, the cuisine can be by no means chic and even resemble the same fast food, for example, something beautifully served breaded, fried in deep-fried. Although at the same time, the menu may contain captivatingly romantic names. Of course, do not forget about the size of the portions: in America, if you already have a plate, then there is a mountain on it to the brim! And before you immediately go to a cafe you like, if it is not in a crowded place on an avenue or square, but modestly hiding on some street, it is recommended (as in Amsterdam) to look around and, if possible, take a look inside. It may turn out that you didn’t notice a spectral flag somewhere on the wall or in the corner, and after placing an order, you suddenly find that a couple of men are kissing at the next table, and everyone is looking at you strangely... 7. And, finally, we fly away from New York… Do not forget to check in for flights online in advance, we print boarding passes on a hotel computer or at the nearest print center. For transatlantic flights, tickets are always sold with a certain "reserve", and some domestic ones too, that is, more tickets are sold than seats, and registration takes place on the principle of "who did not have time, he was late. " Latecomers are then shoved onto some of the next flights, so you can lose all subsequent connections. As already mentioned, the subway goes to JFK airport, and an express bus from downtown Manhattan to Newark Liberty Airport. The express has three stops: Grand Central Station, near the Bryant Park metro station and Port Authority Bus Terminal - I do not recommend this third stop, because there may already be no empty seats on the bus. Travel times in JFK are fairly easy to calculate (again, check for any surprises that day in the form of closed subway lines). But to get from Manhattan to Newark, you need to take the bus at least 4 hours before the plane's departure, because traffic jams are very likely along the way. Before leaving the hotel with a loaded suitcase, it would be useful to examine all the entrances of the nearest metro station for an elevator or escalator, so as not to drag a heavy suitcase up steep stairs. And there is no need to push with a suitcase through the terribly narrow turnstiles (and as soon as the American "snow whites" pass through them? ). You can show the ticket to the metro employee and use the same emergency door. Everything seems to be... Perhaps I didn’t have time to figure something out in a few days, and those who were in New York longer will criticize me or (better) correct me. Perhaps it will seem to someone that I missed something important, because (I repeat) I have been to the USA many times and have already got used to many things that are strange for us...
