New York 2001
Pre-Trip Preparations
2001, Christian Sauvé
Like most insane projects, my Summer'2001 trip to New York started with idle chatter.
Flashback to early May 2001, lunch time at work. Three of us were in a colleague's office, bemoaning the prospect of a long boring summer. Even our local travel freak wasn't going anywhere, already being booked for a Fall outing in Spain. Looking at her world map loosely speckled with past and future destinations, I pointed out that hopeful target New York was barely a few hours away by car, and could easily be visited over a long weekend and a (relatively) ridiculous amount of money.
Fever gripped the office, and before I knew it, I had agreed to go with them to New York. Not a very binding commitment, as it was obvious to me that like most brain fires around my office, this was quickly going to burn out and that none of us would end up going. Sure, whatever, I'm in.
They invaded the downstairs travel office, badgered the agent on duty, demanded brochures and giggled all the way through. (At least that's how I imagine it.) The idea and the brochures spread around. For a brief moment, it looked as if half my workgroup was going. I remained sceptical.
I took a look at the Ottawa Valley Tours brochure and began to be tempted. As with with most of the world's population, I became fascinated by The Big Apple though movies, from KING KONG to MEN IN BLACK, all the way through fifty years of various odes to New York, New York. Then factor in the books, the music, the reputation and the City had always hovered in my mind as a definite destination. But always somewhere in the future, along with London, Rome and Los Angeles.
But this was Summer 2001. I was 25 years old. Symbols have a way to drill down your consciousness and proliferate. Why not *do something* that summer and go to New York? Maybe.
I came across an older New York travel guide at a used book sale and picked it up. Then I started reading. The list of interesting destinations read like a shopping list. That finally bowled me over; I was in.
According to the brochure, a single booking would cost 760$Can. On the other hand, two people would have to pay 500$ each. (Four or more would pay even lower; 360$C) Hmm. By that time, none of my (mostly female) colleagues had definitely committed to the trip. But they informed me in no uncertain terms that in no case would they contemplate sharing a room with me. ("It's not personal" said one, understandably enough; as one friend pointed out, it would have been far more disquieting to hear something like "We won't go unless you share a room with us!")
Besides the blow to my self-image, this had another beneficial effect; forcing me to plan independently. I phoned up my stalwart sister Karine, always ready for a trip and still somewhat bitter that we never got to tour Canada from coast to coast in summer 2000. (Buying a house will do that to your travel budget.)
Lo and behold, she liked the idea and could manage to liberate the funds. We booked our trip 45 days in advance (paying cash, to the travel agent's temporary surprise), getting a further 4% discount.
What did our 460$ get us? A bus trip to (29 June) and from (July 2) an Hotel in New Jersey, plus a shuttle to and from New York (June 30 and July 1), as well as a 4-hour guided tour of the city on June 30. A quick glance at hotel prices in New Jersey alone was enough to convince us of the bargain.
In order to put myself in a proper NYC state of mind, I scoured MP3 sites, downloaded oodles of "New York" tracks, carefully selected the most representative and came up with the following soundtrack, which you might find useful or amusing:
Part One: From the dreams... 01- Lovin' Spoonful - Summer in the City 02- Frank Sinatra - New York, New York 03- Pet Shop Boys - New York City Boy 04- The Manhattan Transfer - Boy From New York City 05- Ronnie Fray - Going To New York 06- They Might Be Giants - New York City Part Two: ...to the melancholy... 07- U2 - New York 08- Mel Torme - New York State Of Mind 09- Sting - An Englishman in New York 10- Playground - New York 11- The Butch Ross Band - New York 12- Tad Robinson - Raining in New York 13- Simon & Garfunkel - A Heart in New York Part Three: ...to the streets of New York City 14- Big Ugly - New York Gritty 15- Raekwon - Live From New York 16- Lost Boyz - New York City War Call 17- Gang Starr - New York Strait Talk 18- Onyx - Walk In New York
While my colleagues did their best at effectively not coming along, my sister and I did our homework. We borrowed travel guides from other colleagues who had recently visited the town, drank deeply in their fountain of knowledge and finally ransacked the local library for all available travel guides to New York. Though their most recent copy of Fodor's wasn't available, we still managed to borrow five books about The Big Apple, bringing our reading total to eight books.
We dove in. In a few days, we became remote NYC experts, almost more cognizant of the city and its history than its own citizen. Our list of things to see was drawn up and roughly highlighted on a photocopy of Rand-McNally's New York City map. If ever you're planning your own outing, keep in mind that the most interesting travel guides at that stage were Let's Go New York and Frommer's New York.
Meanwhile, Karine and I established a few ground rules for our visit: No tours (too rigid), no museums (too time-consuming), no high-rise visits (ditto), no theater (again, too time-consuming while we could visit so many other places) and above all, no cinema (or any other experience we could easily replicate in Ottawa). We made our luggage.
We couldn't expect our reaction to the city. We had concerns about crime. We doubted our ability to navigate the streets. We were sure we had forgotten something. We were jittery.
And, in case you couldn't see that coming, none of my colleagues ended up going to New York.
Day 1, June 29, 2001