Who would have believed that for the third year in a row we would get an opportunity to visit the Big Apple. This time though it was a deliberate choice of ours to really immerse ourselves in the city we fell in love with two years ago.
Both of our first two trips have been fairly short, but this time we’ve extended our stay for a few days and will be in town until 10 October, a total of 15 nights.
It’s been a great year at work, RSPCA is singing along smoothly and Mardi and I are really impacting animals welfare in a positive way, building on the success of the Washington DC trip last year and some great people around us helping me achieve our long term goals.
Ironically, the reason for our first visit to New York, a Roger Waters concert, was also on our agenda, but not in New York! He did tour Australia in February and he put on a a great show. I had to go and see it, despite seeing it two years earlier in New York.
The trip starts early with Moses my trusty cab driver, always reliable. Airport transfers from Canberra to Melbourne to Los Angeles to New York all work pretty smoothly, with a nice surprise of an upgrade to First Class for the long haul. This allows us time to eat together, drink and rest as we ease into our trip. On arrival at JFK we decide to catch the train to Penn Station and walk to our hotel.
We arrive in New York in balmy autumn weather and head back to our home away from home, the AKA Times Square. Some people say to us, why New York and why stay in the same hotel? Why change we say? The hotel is perfect, we know it, we know the staff, almost family now and we know the area and transit options. We are also both creatures of habit and like the familiarity.
And in keeping with our habits, we visit Shake Shack and Juniors for some delicious American burgers and New York style cheesecake.  We are off and running.
