I am usually OK on long flights. I don't usually sleep that well but I know that and usually have a nap when I get in and am pretty much up for things immediately afterwards. Not this time and I put it down to my new neck pillow.
It is a very nice neck pillow and really does allow you to get your head in a comfortable position from where you can actually sleep a bit. So I think I did sleep a bit. Of course this would have been in between getting woken up by the flight attendants to eat or drink something (I don't usually eat or drink much on long flights as it makes me uncomfortable) which always happens at the most inconvenient times so any sleep that I did get was broken up. Still it was more than usual so I thought I'd readjust easily.
That didn't work this time as for some reason I have been consistently waking up around 3 am every morning (a week later still the same) and around 3 pm each day I have felt incredibly sleepy. It is bugging me I can tell you. But for the purpose of this post it did mean that on my one day at leisure in the Big Apple I was up with the larks, probably before them actually, wondering what I should do for my day's adventures.
Luckily it was sunny so whilst brisk it was a great day to walk the streets. But first breakfast.
Now I love corned beef hash so a proper New York Jewish deli had to be the way to go and luckily courtesy of Mr. Google I chose Sarge's at 548 3rd Avenue, a great midtown diner.
I expected a normal person sized helping but did note in passing it came with 3 fried eggs and home fries. It was a huge bucket load of really fantastic corned beef hash, so much that I couldn't eat again for the rest of the day... except of course that I did so should really say that I shouldn't have eaten for the rest of the day rather than couldn't. Go there. Sarge's is wonderful. Ridiculous portion sizes though so be warned.
I had some shopping to do, tennis related, so thought I'd see if I could find the tennis shop belonging to a guy I'd met a few years ago at a tennis camp, Woody. He had a couple of shops, one on 35th near Macy's and the other at Flushing Meadows, the home of the US Open. His shop is called NYC Racquet Sports (website: www.nycracquetsports.com so do visit) and is well stocked. Woody was there as well busily stringing racquets. Lots of them with people coming in all the time to get him to do theirs.
Woody told me though that his business and by association all of retail is being seriously harmed by the internet. As I had just ordered some tennis shoes from Tennis Warehouse and am an enthusiastic shopper on Amazon, I really didn't feel I could say much and did feel rather abashed about the fact that my shopping choices were adversely impacting my buddy's business.
It did make me think about the rights and wrongs about this and it is a tricky one for small businesses like Woody's cannot hope to compete on price and choice with the likes of the big internet retailers and I'll focus on Tennis Warehouse for now. Every piece of inventory that Woody holds he has to pay for out of his precious cash flow and it cannot be as large. It is simply too much money. Tennis Warehouse has hundreds of pages of stuff with dozens of different suppliers. Not everything they advertise is in stock so for those items they have to go out and source them before sending it off to the buyer. We the buyer are OK with that if it is the specific thing we want and we ... important point here ... do not blame them for not holding that particular item in stock. But if we do go to a small retailer like Woody and he does not have that specific item, we roll our eyes and go somewhere else. The likelihood of us returning as a result of this is lower too. We have been disappointed once so why try again when there are alternatives? So we the buyer now have double standards when dealing with the small retailer and that is before considering price. Really difficult for the small business to compete which is really tough as what they do provide is service and advice. You don't get that from an internet retailer. When I was in Woody's shop, probably a dozen people came in with racquets and he discussed with them each time their requirements. One particular lady hadn't played in some years and told him she wanted string tension to be 59 pounds. Apologies to non-tennis players here but for the racquet she had, recommended tension by the manufacturer is 54-55 pounds but regular players would chose 52-53 pounds tension. 59 pounds is like playing with a piece of wood. Woody calmly and quietly said all this and put her right. If she starts playing again she will thank Woody for his advice... or rather should but in all probability will not which is a shame. This is what you pay that little bit extra for.
I left Woody with the intent on changing my buying behavior immediately in favor of the small business. Then I went and bought coffee from Starbucks. Grrr.
The day really was glorious and for some reason I suddenly realized that the UN HQ is only a few blocks away from my hotel. It is down by the East River and is probably a thriving place bubbling over with interesting stuff. So I walked the few blocks until I found the building and looked for the ticket office opposite.
I was surprised for the UN is one of the most important global organizations bar none and one would have thought that there'd be oceans of visitors. It was virtually empty. No lines. I was greeted by the security guard who had a nice chat with me... oh nice, Bermuda, eh. That's great. Love to go... all that sort of thing before he ushered me through the door into the ticket office. Sorry deserted ticket office. I joined the line, or rather would have done had there been a line but there were those line divider things in expectation for the crowds. Just in case. The lady behind the counter called out "Next" and I went up to the counter.
She asked me how many, I said one. She asked for my ID and I provided my Bermuda drivers license. She didn't know where or what Bermuda was so I explained. She entered my details into her 'system'... yes the bloody 'system' again ... and told me that Bermuda was not one of the options in her pull down menu. I said in that case why not just put in Great Britain as Bermuda was a colony still. She said she couldn't do that because I gave her a Bermuda ID, not a GB one. I didn't have my passport. So she went over to a colleague who gave her a book and I must say I was very surprised that such a book should exist for it was a book alphabetized by country showing all types of acceptable ID. I was looking at it upside down but it looked like it had drivers licenses, passports, social security cards, and a bunch of others. She couldn't find Bermuda. Mind you I think part of that was due to her inability to figure out that Bermuda would come after Belgium in alphabetic order. I tried to point it out but instead she called for a supervisor. He looked at my ID and said 'yeah Bermuda, well that's OK'. He'd never been there either but had heard of it and most importantly he was able to find it in the book once he figured out the alphabetic thing. In fact the picture they had on the page was a Bermuda drivers license very similar to the one from me that he was holding.
In all this took around 20 minutes to complete and at conclusion there was still nobody else in line. I just cannot imagine what would happen on a busy day.
I don't know why but I still thought that there'd be others jamming up the public parts of the UN building but I was welcomed through the outer gates, personally greeted through security and made my way pretty much alone still into the main hall where I nearly jumped out of my skin as I thought they had a statue of Johnny Barnes right in front welcoming all and sundry. I was wrong of course for on closer looking it was Nelson Mandela. The main meeting room was also less than half empty and it looked like not much was going on.
And I have to say that was my experience of the UN HQ building. It was all rather disappointing that on the one hand nothing much appeared to be going on, debate wise, and on the other that there were not crowds of people visiting one of the most important buildings in the world. It made me rather wonder if the UN really is becoming something of a nothing really and running that thought further along whether being Special Ambassador to the UN was actually a positive career move. During the Soviet era, I think it was probably a bit more important, but now? Well I don't know.
All in all though it was still a great day to be strolling the streets of this wonderful city. And yes by 3pm I was really dragging my feet!
OK on replay they don't look the same but they do both have their arms outstretched to greet you! Sorry guys.
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