New York Sisters Trip Aug 2019 [1]
In March 2018, after visiting New York for the first time to attend a conference at St John’s University, I pledged to bring my sisters here, as two of them have never been. After the success of our Caribbean Cruise last November, I’m so happy that we’re together again and having a blast in New York!
Sisters Rosemarie and Jennifer travelled together from the UK via Gatwick Airport on Saturday. I was already in the US after flying to Detroit on 29 July to visit my boyfriend, so flew from Detroit to La Guardia to hook up with my sisters on Saturday 3 August.
By the time I got to Hotel Mela in Times Square, Rosemarie had succumbed to jet lag and was fast asleep in bed, but Jennifer was raring to go…so the two of us went exploring Times Square and ended up watching break dancing and me having my picture taken with a horse and young man who wanted to take a photograph together. I had been recounting how I loved horses and attributed my fondness for them to the fact that my maternal grandfather looked after horses when he worked in Cuba as a young man, which is where he met my grandmother, fell in love, got married and brought my mother into the world…
After horsing around I bumped into aspiring artist American Fortune and bought one of his CDs.
We had a good walk around Times Square and a very expensive meal at a restaurant serving oriental food where I had to call a waiter over to seat us, who look squarely at us and turned away…his demeanour and that of the more senior person who came to attend to us appeared to change profoundly when they heard our English accents…it didn’t escape our attention that there were no other Black clientele in the restaurant…
Still, we had a great night…Times Square was buzzing, it reminds me of London’s West End with bright lights, smart shops and a cosmopolitan feel with people from diverse backgrounds co-mingling in a very chilled, congenial atmosphere….
Can’t wait to see what else New York has to offer…we bought Go City passes for 10 attractions so have a lot to pack in…watch this space!
