July 19 New York NY

Woke up at 7. There is no coffee maker in the room, so had to go downstairs to get a Latte a Coffee and a croissant. You think for $30 a day they could throw in a coffee and a pastry or something. But that's OK, we will just have to buy large size Ziplock bags instead of regular, to get our moneys worth.

Walked to 62nd. Street. where you have to validate your Greyline Hop-on Hop-off tickets. We were told by the security guards that they had moved to the Time Warner Building on 59th Street. Walked to the Time Warner Building, we were told by the information desk that they don't have an office there but to go back to The Grand Army Plaza and we would find the busses there. Took a picture of the lobby of the building. Wondered why a certain part of the ugly bronze statue was so shiny. We came across other bronze statues in Budapest and Havana with shiny parts, where the local tradition was that if you rubbed a certain part of the statue you would return to the city. We are not that interested to return to New York, if you know what I Mean.

Walked back and found the bus stop. It was right across the street from our hotel . The fellow at the stop tried to scan our QR codes no luck. Told us to get on the shuttle bus that was parked there and have them scan it in Times Square. We went to Times Square, took forever, and when we arrived noticed a huge lineup of people at the bus stop there. We had tickets to the 9/11 Memorial Museum for 11AM. Decided to take the subway. Bought a ticket for $11. She said that that would take us to the Museum and then back to Central Park. She gave us only one ticket, when I asked why, she told me to hand the ticket back to Rita so she could get through. Went through the turnstile handed the ticket back to Rita, she couldn't get through. She went back to the booth to say the card didn't work. The lady came out of the booth and after a couple of tries she was able to get Rita through.

Rita was hanging on for dear life, throughout the ride. She thinks it's the worst subway system she's been on.

Arrived at 9/11 Museum at 11:00 on the button.

The only advantage of buying a ticket online is that you don't have to line up. There was a lineup but very short. We were rushing to make our time, we could have had a cup of coffee and relaxed if we wouldn't have bought the tickets.

Went through the Museum.

They had personal story soundtracks playing, as in the Terror Museum in Budapest, but they were too close together and a lot of them, you couldn't make out much of what was being said. Very interesting. We were there for 4hrs.

Tried to get through the turnstiles on the Subway. I got through Rita didn't. Asked an attendant about the problem he said there was only $.10 left on the ticket. Tried to load up our ticket again in the machine, it kept asking for a zip code. I didn't have one. The attendant told us to go to a booth at another subway line. There was a long lineup and we had to wait for about 15 minutes before we were told that there was nothing they could do about our problem. So we put another $11 on our card. Went back to the R line and managed to get back to 57th street station.

Bought a bottle of Malbec from Argentina, in a wine store we found on Broadway. Remember I couldn't find a wine store yesterday. There are two wine stores 10 steps from each other.

We were hungry, so decided to eat at an outdoor restaurant on Broadway. Asked for a beer. They said they didn't serve alcohol. Rita asked for the reason from the waiter. Couldn't understand what he said from the street noise. Probably Halal. We have seen a couple of Halal restaurants. It was a hot day, really felt like a cold beer, so we left.

Found an outdoor restaurant right beside the hotel, Sant Anrea Cafe.

Rita really enjoyed her food, I thought it was alright.

After dinner we went back to our hotel room drank the wine and watched Donald win the Republican nomination. Traveling on a train from Washington to New York, you can appreciate why he is popular. Train routes don't usually go through the most attractive parts of the countryside to begin with. But this was eye-opening. Total devastation of the manufacturing industry along this route. All the large factories are shut down. Trees growing from inside the buildings through the broken glass windows to get to sunlight. Baltimore is a total disaster. The warehouses seem to be doing OK. But I didn't see, not even one, mid to large size factory that was open. Total devastation.