A Walk on New York Streets

After staying for ten days in Albany, it was time to go out for a break. So on last Saturday I planned for a visit to New York City. Early morning I had taxi from my hotel Extended Stay to reach the Greyhound bus station in downtown Albany. It was easy to book a ticket but surprising to know that there is no allotted seat and you have no other choice than to stand in the queue and wait for the bus. Any way I got a good seat near the window and so was enjoying the outside view . It was a comfortable three hours bus drive to New York City. In between I had a sleep for one hour otherwise I was looking outside for the beautiful houses, architecture, roads, infrastructure and people around. After reaching to the Port terminal in the city, I had to wait for my friend Gautam, who live in Bethlehem and promised to come to city to give me a company in roaming around. Bus station was really big. Though we both had phones it took half an hour to locate each other. Finally we met and came outside of the bus terminal.

Times Square was on a walkable distance so first we went there. Huge tall beautiful buildings, busy streets but smooth traffic, no chaos, cleanliness and enthusiast tourists were few things that impressed me the most. Tourist buses were roaming around but we decided to have metro or so called subway there, to go to other places. Best thing was that all the point of attractions of New York City were in nearby locations only. This is the busiest part of the city called as Manhattan. We went to Subway station to take the metro train to go to the Statue of Liberty. If I compare metros of New York and Delhi; believe me Delhi metros are better. But there was another surprise for me. I was shocked to see a bunch of beggars there. They were in good attires, singing on the platforms and expecting some money. Even a lady came to me and asked a dollar for food. I always thought it would be in India or in developing countries only but  I was so untrue till now. Any way we reached to the nearest station and than walked up to ferry station to have a ferry to go to Liberty Island. We got a first view of the great Statue of Liberty from here.

It was a long queue and after half an hour we could get the tickets but crown ticket for going inside the statue were limited and sold out. By ferry we went to the island and had couple of pictures there. I could see the unique Liberty bike and a great view of New York City from island, which is spectacular. This is what I saw in a number of movies and American sitcoms. Statue is giant and located on a beautiful location. You really need a very good camera to capture its beauty. After spending an hour we came back by ferry and had subway to reach the Wall Street. It was chilly roaming out there. We reached to the big Bronze Bull statue and New York Stock Exchange building. From there we went to the Ground Zero. Some construction was going on that point where few years back the great twin towers of World Trade Centre were located. It was saddened to see this. From there we came back to the Port terminal and had bus to Bethlehem city. We reached there late in night at around nine and had dinner in a restaurant. The restaurant was crowded as it was weekend and so we were late in reaching home. As this was the day of Holi so I called my family members and relatives back in India before going for a good sleep.

I woke up late in morning and had a good tea after a long time. Gautam took me to the city. He also took me to the campus of University of Lehigh, research labs and his office there. From the top of the university building, there was a magnificent view of Bethlehem city. Then we went to a nearby shopping mall before going to an Indian family for having parathas on the occasion of Holi. From there we went to a casino. It was the first time I ever went to a casino. It was nice to see the colorful lights and ambience there. It was two in afternoon now and so he dropped me at the nearby bus station to get the bus for New York and take a connecting bus for Albany.