Seeing as you still cannot fly direct from Cuba to the USA we had to go via Canada and strangely enough you go through US customs whilst still on Canadian soil. Confidence that you are perfectly legitimate to enter the US is not quite enough when you have heard too many horror stories of nasty customs officials. We checked in for our flight and were given the appropriate form to fill out and proceeded with all our luggage to US customs. First step is to use the fancy machines to enter your passport information, do fingerprint scans and have your picture taken. The machine then spits out a receipt that you take to the desk. To save working our way through the crowds of people and luggage we took a short cut under the barrier and joined the end of the queue. After a quick nosey around I noticed that our receipts had a big X on them and those around us did not. Hayden pointed out a few that also had an X and any worry I had was dispelled. This was until I noticed that the X people seemed to have a queue of their own, a very long queue. We could then hear various others getting in trouble for being in the wrong place, but our line was moving rather quickly and we were nearing the front and thought it far too obvious to try and shuffle over to the other queue. Hayden suggested we play dumb and just wait and see what would happen, but I was still slightly scared of the small but feisty customs ladies. Our turn came and we revealed our receipts and, not surprisingly, were told that we needed to go to a desk at the other end. Surprisingly, this customs lady and taken her nice pills and walked us over to wait for the next available counter, no need to join the long X queue. We made our way to the awaiting officer and handed over our documents and went through the rigmarole of questions, more pictures and more fingerprints. Well, more of my fingerprints. It appears that years of hard work with his hands has led Hayden to have almost non-existent prints. The customs officer suggested blowing on them and rubbing them together and eventually after many tries we were allowed to enter the US, all whilst still in Toronto Airport!
Touching down and arriving at La Guardia Airport it seemed rather strange not to have to deal with customs. We literally walked through the airport, down the stairs, collected our bags and marched out the door! One bus and two trains later we were in our new neighbourhood, Brooklyn and met our roommate for the week, Charlotte, a lovely French girl who is in New York studying. We crashed into bed and were lulled to sleep not by the salsa music of Cuba but by the sirens of New York City.
The morning came and we were up and out to explore the ‘hood. Our apartment was situated just off Bedford Avenue, the longest street in Brooklyn. The avenue highlights just how culturally diverse Brooklyn, and I guess New York City, actually is. We started our walk partway along the avenue in the African-American section, passing plenty of Dunkin’ Donuts, 7 elevens and street graffiti. Before we could take it all in we crossed the street and all of a sudden everything is in Hebrew and the donuts have been replaced by bagels. The Hasidic Jews have made this their neighbourhood and just about every other pedestrian we encountered were sporting the traditional dress. The women all looked the same in their conservative knee length skirts, opaque tights, flat shoes, modest jackets and head coverings. The men stood out to us slightly more in their dark suits, white shirts, dark hats and of course their uncut, curled sidelocks. Soon enough the Jews were gone and we had entered the hipsterville known as Williamsburg. We ate trendy hotdogs and drank craft beer for lunch and continued on to find ourselves in mini Poland. Even the bottled water in the convenience store was fresh from Polish springs! We reached the end of Bedford Avenue and continued along Manhattan Avenue until we hit the water and could continue no further. Time to jump on public transport on check out Manhattan island!
We ticked off the usual tourist bucket list; Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, 9/11 Memorial, Central Park, Grand Central Station, Wall Street, the Met, a Broadway show, Times Square, Rockefellar Plaza, Top of the Rock, the High Line, the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, Carrie Bradshaw’s steps and the New York Public Library. We ate ginormous slices of cheese pizza, plenty of deli style sandwiches, pretzels, bagels and donuts. We were treated to many fine street performances, including a break dance show on the subway and marvelled at the ingenuity of those trying to make a little extra cash!
On Saturday we joined the trendy people and visited various Brooklyn flea markets. We sipped delicious coffee and pretended that we lived in some funky warehouse apartment which we could furnish with our imaginary purchases.
Our hectic week came to an end, our New York dream was over and it was time once again to haul our belongings elsewhere.
