Chapter 01 New York

We're leaving. Bente with luggage outside Gardermoen Airport north of Oslo.

The traveling feeling was strangely absent as we waited for the three hour delayed flight that would take us from Oslo to Newark airport in New York. We had been waiting in vain the last two weeks for the feeling to creep in, but except for some short stolen moments, it kept its distance. We concluded that the reason was the size of the project, the stress in the last few weeks to get ready, the fact that we had prepared for so long, etcetera etcetera.

The beer tasted very nice and we felt fine, no matter how little traveling feeling we had. Rocinante was delivered to SAS Cargo the day before departure, after a short visit to Dangerous Goods Management to get a certificate stating that this flamable contaning vehicle was well prepared for the trip overseas. All I had to do was leave less than 1/4 of fuel in the tank, turn of the fuel valve and seal the battery, which was very convenient since I wouldn't have to chase for gas or oil when collecting the bike at Newark.

The flight lasted seven hours, and after a rush hour ride into Manhattan, we arrived at the Malibu hotel on Broadway/103rd at seven in the evening. With a six hours jetlag we dropped dead after a quick dinner in a typical American Diner.

The Manhattan Skyline with Empire State building seen from the Brooklyn Bridge. [Large Image]

Naturally we woke up before dawn the next day, and I went into the streets to see if I could capture some early morning photos in the heavy morning trafic. New York felt very familiar to us, even though we had never been here before. Enough films, tv-series and documentaries have been made to fill a library about this city, and walking the city for the whole first day gave us a growing familiar feeling. Manhattan is a very long island but very logically layed out with numbers on avenues and streets, making navigating the city a peace of cake. Bente, who is normally a lousy navigator - according to herself - was the one in charge of getting us through to the right spot, and proclaimed that NY was a city of her heart.

We must have walked a hundred kilometres during the week we spent in the Big Apple, just roaming through the city streets looking for the soul of the city. We avoided most of the normal attractions, but did pay a visit to Empire State Building, the Metropolitan museum, the Guggenheim museum, and last but definately not least, the International Center of Photography. On display was a exposition of war photos by James Nachtwey, and we were totally taken aback by the excellent but brutal collection of big format photos, both coloured and black and white. But on most days we just strolled the streets, ate on the hotdog stands, had breakfast in Battery Park on the southern tip of Manhattan, lunched in Central Park, windows shopped in Soho, completed the digital camera equipment accessories on B&H Photo, took pictures of buildings and more buildings, overslept our afternoon nap with five hours - being still on Norwegian times, visited Brooklyn for a haircut, and so on.

Dag Rune, a former colleague and friend from Norway who now worked and lived outside Boston, came down to visit us and deliver a big box of gear from Aerostich, containing our new jackets, pants and boots for me, in addition to a first aid set and back pads for the suits. Our room turned into a dressing room for a little while, a room that was lacking space from the beginning, barely supporting a bed and a small desk, with no attached bathroom, all for the price of USD 69,- plus tax per night, a horrendous price anywhere else in the world. In Manhattan people said we got it cheap.

One night we met Tony in the Broadway Dive, our local waterhole. He was a college teacher from Pittsburgh on a Memorial Day weekend trip to the big apple. We told him about the trip we were about to start and he almost fell off the chair with laughter. "Wow, is it really possible to do something like that?". We tried to cool him down a bit, but he was totally taken aback by the thought of such a long trip. We managed to switch subject for a while and were quite surprised to hear his great knowledge of the vikings and Leiv Erikson - the Norwegian who came to America a few hundred years before Colombus, but never got the acknowledgement for the feat, at least not in a thousand years.

New York was a blast, but as the day we would get Rocinante out of her custody got closer, both of us were ready to get going. We got enough of the big city by the end of the week. Now let's get on the road where we belong....

New York Impressions

Doing the piruette in Central Park.

Walking the Brooklyn Bridge.

Looking north from Empire State Building.

Building higher and higher, grander and grander.

A Manhattan housefront. The shoes were waiting for someone.

And why not integrate some greenery as well, to liven up the fasade.

People and cars are highly integrated in the Big Apple.

At the fish market. "What in the h.. are all those strange creatures?"

With Norwegian times still in our bodies, we got up around six and caugth a sub to Battery Park for breakfast.

Early morning fishing in Battery Park.

A monument in Battery Park, showing US Navy soldiers saving each other in one of the many battles at sea. [Large Image]

Central Park wieved from the south side, looking north-east.

"Do you see that bird?". Bente and Dag Rune, a former collegue, in Central Park.

Relaxing in the playground in Central Park.

Relaxing in Central Park.

Our little and very non-luxury room in Malibu Hotel. Sleeping quarters on the left, office on the far right. And a strange character on the near left....

Memorial Day market on Manhattan.

Buying a hot dog from one of the many stands around Manhattan.

Preaching doomsday to passersby on Times Square.

Grand scale wall painting around Madison Square Garden somewhere, I think.

Getting a haircut in Brooklyn.

Bente's donating an old pair of jeans to the homeless.

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