New York City with Road Scholar

 If you haven’t heard of Road Scholar, they have fairly priced trips all over the world for people over 50. Tours are more educational than most. The even have a list of books to read before hand. I actually read quite a few of them. However, I found that most Road Scholars don’t actually read those books. Oh, well. I learned a lot.

This trip was well-organized. We all had yellow hats for our guides to keep track of us plus if we paused to take a picture or something, we could easily find our group. The hats drew attention but they really helped. We wore headsets so we could hear the guide explain what we were seeing or to give us directions. The days were VERY full of travel all over Manhattan and included many subway trips.

We visited most of the big places in Manhattan. We walked the Brooklyn Bridge at sunset. It was full of other tourists plus lots of couples posing and trying to get the perfect shot.

We spent time at the 911 Memorial & Museum.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Grand Central Terminal (no Avengers - did I mention I like movies and TV shows?)

Rockefeller Center (no Hawkeye)

Times Square (no Captain America here unless there was a fake costumed one).

One day was mostly spent at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. One interesting tidbit was on a ships manifest. The immigrants name, age, sex, country, and occupation was listed. Apparently these 18 & 19 year old women had the occupation of being a spinster!

BTW, to save money a single-person can sign up to share a room. This is my roommate Shelly. We had a great time all week. I felt old here in the museum. The last time I visited the Statue of Liberty was 45 years ago in 1978. This “old” flame was replaced back in the 1980’s.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) is extraordinary but a maze. I looped around the Music Instruments area twice before finding a door out. I saw the Great Hall at least 6 times since I couldn’t find back ways to parts on the other side of museum. Some areas are well-named (Egyptian Art) but how would you know Rembrandt’s are in the Robert Lehman Collection? I’m sure if you have a membership and visit a lot, it all makes sense but not to me in my first visit. Anyhow, I enjoyed the Egyptian section the best.

There are 8.5 million people that live in New York City and growing. When I was there I saw construction everywhere. New skyscrapers are being built along with restorations (which meant scaffolding is everywhere too). I’ve been reading that the island is actually sinking due to the combined weight of all the human construction (especially skyscrapers) and people. Scientist say it is sinking by ~0.05” per year while the sea level is rising by ~0.15” per year. Overtime, that’s a lot. Not only is the actual load a problem, but much of Manhattan is actually built on landfill not bedrock (29% by one estimate) so they sink faster. Interesting situation. I realize what I saw in NYC is just a moment in time and will be different next week.

The Road Scholar trip was very busy (sometimes being from the hotel for 12 hours). Very interesting tour guide with very friendly people. I plan to do another Road Scholar trip this fall too.