moving mountains: Escape from New York

After thoroughly exhausting ourselves for 2 and half days in New York, we are now trying to get out. We got up this a.m. and had a leisurely morning getting ready, then walked the 13 blocks to Penn Station. There, we waited until they posted our track number, then joined the throng to rush down to the track and secure a spot on the train. (Throng-joining is a big pastime in NYC. Pretty much everything we have done has involved a crowd, a rush, or a throng of some description).

Anyway, we managed to get ourselves a spot in the quiet car, and pulled out of the station more or less on time. After about 50 feet, though, we stopped, then after a few minutes, we backed right up to where we had started. Turns out they are having troubles with the engine, and are trying to fix it. They can’t give us an official ETA, so now we are sitting in a dark train in an underground station, waiting for an update.

Sitting in the dark, waiting for Amtrak.

Good to see train travel isn’t any more reliable than air travel. (I’d show you a picture of them fixing the engine, but the extremely officious Amtrak conductor made me delete the photo from my phone. Apparently it is a top secret procedure, so all I can report with confidence is that it delayed us by 2 hours).

No way would this guy have been blog-worthy, if he hadn't trampled on my rights to take a picture in a public place.

So, assuming this delay doesn’t stretch out too much longer, we are willing to wait around for Amtrak for a while still. In the meantime, I will entertain you with some pictures of yesterday, when we tried to fit in every major New York sight we could, as well as catching an off-Broadway show.