We landed at John F. Kennedy airport at around 10 in the morning. We collected our bags and went to find transportation to Manhattan. The taxi charged a set rate and took us by sights like the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station and the Midtown Tunnel, as well as the site of the 1964 World’s Fair (which everyone who has seen Men in Black would recognize – part of it is the globe the alien space ship crashes through at the end of the movie). Since we had almost 24 hours in New York, I thought it would be criminal (and really, it would) not to spend some time soaking up the atmosphere in the “Big Apple”. The chance to do some serious shopping also played somewhat of a factor…
We were lucky to be able to check into our hotel early – the folks at the Westin Times Square really outdid themselves. We were given a nice room on the 11th floor so we dropped our bags and headed off to find some lunch.
At McDonalds.
Laugh if you must, but Rod and I had developed serious cravings for Mickey D’s since moving to Bermuda (there isn’t even one drive thru restaurant here, and very little in the way of fast food, except for KFC).
After we’d had our fill of Quarter Pounders (sticking to vegetarian eating went out the window) we headed off to see the sights. A quick taxi ride from the hotel landed us at the Empire State Building.
And a two-hour lineup just to get to the elevator to get to the observation deck.
Luckily, we found this tour company called Sky Ride. You pay a little more than you would just to get to the observation deck, but you also get a virtual reality/IMAX fly over show of Manhattan. Lots of fun.
After seeing the IMAX movie, and waiting in a much shorter line up to get to the elevator, we crammed into the elevator like sardines for the trip to the observation deck on the 86th floor. Our ears popped about 4 times during the super-fast elevator ride to the 80th floor. Once there, we had to go through a metal detector and get on a different elevator to the 86th.
It was a wait, but boy was it worth it! The view from up there was fabulous!! It was freezing and very windy (you can probably tell from the picture of Rod and Jean) but we could see almost all of Manhattan and even the Statue of Liberty was
visible 
in the distance. It was very worth it.After we dropped Jean off at the Westin, Rod and I headed to Macy’s (the largest Macy’s in the world, by the way). They have an entire floor dedicated to women’s shoes!! It’s about seven stories in total, and to get from the 5th to the 6th floor, they have a wooden escalator (I’m not sure of the story behind it, but it’s probably a hundred years old and been part of the store forever). I didn’t buy as much as I wanted to, but the store was crammed – Thursday shopping before Good Friday.
We decided to walk back to the hotel down Broadway – so cool! Once we got to Times Square we walked around it as well. At one point, a fire truck was trying to (we think) reach an emergency (if the siren was any indication) but there was nowhere for it to go. The traffic was practically grid locked. New York is a fun place to visit but I think my head would explode if we lived there. It truly is a city that never stops.
We decided to try authentic New York pizza for dinner and found the absolute best “by the slice” place a half block from the hotel. We ordered a pepperoni and a Hawaiian and while we waited, we looked at autographed pictures from Ron Howard, Sidney Poitier, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Harry Connick Jr., and Bill Cosby, all endorsing it as the best pizza in New York.
They weren’t wrong. We scarfed it down like the gourmet food it was. We also picked up a couple of hot pretzels (low-carb meal it wasn’t) since I thought is was sacrilege to be in Manhattan and not sample those.
We retired for the evening, full of delicious junk food and looking forward to the flight to Barbados the next morning. Long story short, we almost missed the flight due to a glitch in American Airlines flight tracking system. A recorded message called us in the middle of the night, saying our flight was delayed 2 hours. Luckily everything was closed the next morning and we got to JFK early only to find out the flight was not delayed, but on time and we had about 5 minutes to check in or miss the flight.
Jean was a trooper – we had a long walk to get to the gate, but she kept up. The moving sidewalks really helped as well. Once we boarded the plane (a 767 this time) we were off to the tropics.
After an almost 5 hour flight, we landed at Grantley Adams International in Barbados. The weather hit us like a wall as we walked down the steps to the tarmac (they don’t use jet ways, either in Barbados or in Bermuda. Not worth the expense when the weather doesn’t merit it).
Once we collected our luggage and cleared customs, we found a taxi to take us to Coconut Court Beach Resort in Christchurch parish. It was lovely. Not posh like the Westin, but clean and inviting and right on the beach. We ate in the restaurant hotel that night (it was pretty good food, but I missed the pizza).
It was an early night for us. The next morning, we picked up our rental car and started exploring. We had rented a Suzuki Swift (which turned out to be not so much unless the air conditioning was turned off) and started exploring the island after stopping in Bridgetown to do a bit of shopping before everything closed for Easter weekend.
Did we get lost! That may sound strange to some of you, but we found that sometimes we’d pass through a roundabout (traffic circle) and the map would say we were still on a highway, but the potholes and ruts and turns and twists made me long for the relative pavement of highway 36 to Ormiston!
I was lucky to do most of the driving. I’m looking forward to getting my license here and it was great practice to drive for 4 days while we were in Barbados – I think Rod was happy to navigate and run the camcorder (and side seat drive sometimes – but sometimes I welcomed it). The rules of the road there are the same as here (left side, right hand drive and the pushiest driver wins).
We saw some sights, that’s for sure. We started off driving up the west coast of the island, stopping at one place to try our luck at the slot machines. Mostly we just fed them quarters and after about an hour, we pressed on further north. We went through Holetown and Speightstown after navigating through Bridgetown (the capital of the island) and stopped for lunch at their version of McDonalds, called “Chefette”. After that, we turned inland and saw some really amazing rainforest type scenery.
We were gone almost six hours (yes, some of that involved getting lost – my nickname that weekend was “Wrong Way”) but eventually found our way back to Coconut Court and were in bed pretty early. It was a nice surprise to find we enjoyed the resort enough to spend time (and eat meals) there. It was definitely not fancy, but it was clean, the service was pretty good, and there was a lot to see.
Sunday we were up early and tried to drive up the east coast of the island. The scenery of the island changes much more than Bermuda (it’s also a much bigger island – 266 square miles to Bermuda’s 21). The east coast is very rugged with rough surf, jagged cliffs and not much in the way of beaches. The west coast is flatter and has the majority of the beaches.
We stopped for lunch that day at a small roadside restaurant called the Sand Dune. It had about six tables in it and we had a fairly hard time understanding the waitress/hostess’ accent, but we managed to place an order and settled in to watch the ever-present cricket matches that seemed to be the only thing on any television we saw.
An enormous amount of food arrived, including a serving each of macaroni pie (mac n cheese casserole – home made and very good) and I think we all had trouble finishing everything.
After that, we pushed on to find the Barbados National Wildlife Reserve. Our tour was very educational and we enjoyed seeing all the animals resident there. I think the strangest of them all was a creature that had the rear end of a rabbit and the front end of a deer (no, I did not have too much beer at lunch – they were really there! I’m sure I have a picture of them somewhere…). However, they also housed green monkeys, tons of turtles, too many bird species to count, iguanas and a gigantic reticulated python.
We spent an hour or so there, then made our way back to the hotel to have an excellent buffet and listen to some average steel drum music. We turned in early that night – as we did most nights. The heat, sunshine and fresh air had us all yawning by 8:00 most nights (except for the nights we found places for Rod and Jean to try their luck at the slot machines).
Monday the shops were still closed due to the long weekend, so Rod and I headed out to Carlisle bay to try snorkeling. It was fun, but there wasn’t a lot to look at unless you were out more than 100 yards – not my thing.
After that we went back to the hotel to pick up Jean so we could head off to the horse races at Garrison Racetrack. It was the first race of the season, so we didn’t know what to expect. Of course, Jean immediately found a woman sitting behind us who was really in the know – she owned a racehorse. We got all sorts of tips from her and Rod picked a forecast (getting 1st and 2nd horses in order) and won a bundle!!! All in all it was a good day. Then we had another fabulous barbeque at the hotel.
Tuesday was shopping day, and our last full day with the car. We had a look at the shops at the Sheraton Mall, advertised as Barbados’ largest shopping mall – it would have fit in West Edmonton Mall about 20 times over. Then we headed into Bridgetown to try spending some money there. We found a couple of souvenirs, but there were three cruise ships in port that day, so downtown was way too crowded for us.
Tuesday night we started to pack up for the trip back to New York, and turned in fairly early after having one last meal at a pub across the street from our hotel, called the Red Rooster. I wouldn’t say the food was inedible, but I’m pretty sure I could have made a better pizza than we had, and the chicken fingers were more like toes. However, it’s all an adventure if you’re trying new things!
Wednesday morning we finished packing up, had one last sit around the pool, and headed to the airport.
After an uneventful flight, we landed in NYC once again, this time to stay at the Ramada close to JFK, as our flight was early the next day.
I'm really sorry I don't have more pictures of Barbados to upload, but we brought the wrong (small) card for the camera (and didn't bring anything to unload the pictures to) so most of our memories are captured on camcorder (are they still called that?)
This trip in wasn’t so much fun. It was cold and rainy, and it had been a fairly long day. The shuttle took forever to arrive (should have taken a taxi instead) and was packed full of people (so Rod and I immediately made a game plan that had me dashing off the bus the second we got to the hotel to get checked in. It sort of worked, except for the very pushy redheaded woman – but I’ll get over her terrible behaviour). By this time it was close to midnight and we were absolutely famished, having not eaten for close to 8 hours.
We had a good meal in the hotel bar and turned in right after that.
We got back to Bermuda that morning (no problems through immigration for any of us – Yay!) and grabbed a taxi and headed to the apartment.
All in all, it was a fabulous trip! I definitely want to go back to New York, and we will likely be back in Barbados – I’d recommend it over Mexico any day.
Hugs to everyone at home (I'm sure from Daisy as well, but she's napping at the moment)
Us.
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