And I thought I didn't drink Port

The Europe sector of our trip had arrived and we both had mixed feelings. South and Central America had exceeded expectation, not to mention being budget-friendly and spontaneous. Europe on the other hand was set to be pocket pinching and scheduled. Our once expansive European countries list had dwindled to Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany, and we only had six weeks in which to see it all (another thing we’re not fond of, rushing). Before our jet setting expedition, however, we had a week in London. A week in a city I’ve been to on numerous occasions may seem like a long time, but with at least a third of my Charles Sturt University cohort living there and with friends from my USA exchange in Scotland, a week in London and night in Edinburgh wasn’t nearly enough. Then there were the bureaucratic difficulties we faced obtaining Bec’s visa for India. Australians note: if you apply for an tourist visa for India in London using an Australian passport, it takes 15 days! Thank you, Mum, for being British. Coupling this with a week of endless social activities, by the time we reached the Portuguese city of Porto we were both exhausted and in serious need of some down time.

Despite being weary, we took advantage of being out of the hustle and bustle of a big city and in a smaller, colonial one. Also nice was that we were joined by Sam, a close friend of mine from high school, and her travelling companion Michelle. Both were travelling in Portugal while we were and we’d hoped for our itineraries to overlap at some points along the way. So although the afternoon we arrived was spent dragging our feet around the beautiful Old Town, we enjoyed the sunset views of the port and river from high above on the bridge and stopped for dinner at ‘Tapas e +’, a tapas restaurant with an edge (and some very target sharp seagulls, poor Sam!).

 

A riverbank of Port Houses

And what of the subject of this post? Well, it may have been obvious to some, but I didn’t realise before I arrived that Porto is all about port – the alcoholic variety, not the shipping. Now, my experience with port is limited. When I think port I either think of sipping it during communion at church at Christmas or Easter time, or I think of the day following an unfortunate evening at college when I thought port shots were a good idea. So with my very minimal port drinking background, a port ‘tasting’ wasn’t something that had been necessarily on my to-do-list, but apparently they are the thing to do in Porto. One other thing I came away with, apart from my new appreciation of port, is that a ‘tasting’ in Porto is not what you might get at home (i.e. in Australia, a measly mouthful, two at most). In Porto, it’s a full glass! So when the four of us approached one Port House and asked for four ‘tastings’ we were somewhat confused when the server suggested we have two. We’re Australians, we thought, we can handle a full ‘tasting’ for goodness sake! We were finally convinced to share one between two and after delighting in the red, the white, the sweet, the dry, the chocolate and the Christmas pudding flavours, we were pleased by our decision as we left the port house, a definite sway in all our steps. If anything, a Porto port tasting will guarantee you a good night’s sleep, which was precisely what we needed.

 Our 'tasting'

Falling in Love

No, not in that way. I haven’t met the man of my dreams and set off into the sunset...yet. The truth is I’ve fallen for New York City once again. Manhattan, a planet of its own, the ‘concrete jungle’ dotted with yellow taxis, a family-friendly green slab at one end, the epicenter of world trade a hum with business tycoons at the other.

NYC and I have been going steady for well over a decade now. I first fell in 1997 when I was 12. My parents took my brother and me around the world, NYC our last stop. New Yorkers with their wacky style, enormous personalities and that accent immediately captivated me. An impressionable kid, I quickly adopted the bagel and ‘coa-fee’ routine and made Starbucks my Mecca, vowing and declaring after four days that I was moving to the city where rush hour never ends, I too wanted to be a New Yorker. Of course I was promptly set straight by my parents who reminded me of a little commitment called school, and I had a fair way to go at that stage.

My second visit would be nearly a decade later in 2005 while I was studying at the University of North Carolina. New York had changed. The world had changed. There was a war in Afghanistan, a universal fear in the air and while that NYC spirit remained, it had been dampened. On September 11, 2001, we had all watched as four high jacked planes changed the face of humanity forever. We had all watched as New York lost thousands of its beloved citizens and a piece of its iconic skyline. Together we watched the aftermath, grieved for the lost, honoured the brave and admired the unity and resilience of a city that would never be the same. This was something I would understand personally a few months after my 2005 visit while I was in London when its transport system suffered a similar attack. Both populations chose life over fear.

Five years later I once again found myself in New York City, wondering what a four-day visit would bring me this time. To my relief – even in my grumpy mood after a 3.30am wake-up, a missed connection in Dallas Fort Worth and two lost-in-transit backpacks - it was still the NYC I remembered as a pre-teen, a bizarre combination of flamboyance and panache and, like 2005, the scars of 2001 remained an open and raw reminder and commemoration. As a 12-year-old I’d stayed in a hotel with my parents, at 20 it was a backpackers’ hostel in Chelsea and this time it would a combination of both experiences. I was a backpacker in NYC but staying in the boutique Hotel Mela in Times Square, courtesy of Bec’s parents who’d put her up in a hotel as a 25th birthday present. I was just the very fortunate travel companion included in the package, thank you Curreys!

Although short and sweet, our visit was a well-planned assault on the senses. The aim? Take in as much of the city as possible in a mixture of touristy and local activities. Of course this was after some important administrative matters were attended to: a new computer battery from the remarkable Apple Store, spanking new underwear from Victoria’s Secret, and a trip to a Greenwich Village hairdresser to fix our dire split end situation.

Errands complete, we were left to our own devices with me enjoying the role of tour guide to first-time visitor Bec. I wrote above about our plan to mix touristy with local, but to be honest the tourist activities far outweighed the local. This, however, doesn’t really matter in a city like NYC where everything’s exciting. We made it to Broadway to see ‘Wicked’ (which was surprisingly thoroughly enjoyable even after a big night out in the East Village), ate over spectacular views at the revolving Marriot Hotel restaurant in Times Square and hopped on the Staten Island ferry to get a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. We also took a brave step outside the tourist box by giving the Empire State Building the flick in favour of the less visited Rockefeller Centre - aka ‘Top of the Rock’ - viewpoint. Although still packed with thourists it was by no means less impressive and I rather liked the inclusion of the Empire State on the skyline.

Clockwise from top: view of Central Park and the Empire State Building from 'Top of the Rock'; view of Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry

In describing our next activity I should warn anyone judgmental of tele-series addicts to please stop reading now. To give you some background, since leaving Australia I’ve become a fresh ‘addictee’ (is that a word? Spell check doesn’t think so) of ‘Dexter’, and have tapped into a post addiction,‘Sex in the City’. While perhaps I should be questioning their values - one is about a family man serial killer, the other about four women who focus their lives on sex - I just blame Mexico and its cheap box-sets. An addict always deflects. Anyway, when you place something addictive under the nose of an addict you’re bound to expect the dependence to rear its ugly head. And that’s just what happened to us, two ‘Sex in the City’ addicts in New York City.

Buzzing with the hit of landing in the Big Apple and with some careful research behind us, we took ourselves on a self-guided ‘Sex in the City’ tour and, usually irritated by tourist hoards, took the unusual step of joining other fanatics and visiting film locations such as ‘Carrie’s stoop’ (the spot of many a good-night kiss), and the ‘Magnolia Bakery’ (where Carrie first revealed her Aiden crush to Miranda), also where we of course indulged in a ‘Carrie cupcake’. On another evening we found ourselves watching an open-air Roman Polanski film in Bryant Park, the location where the girls attended New York Fashion Week. I could let the addiction keep talking but I’m sure you get the point. I’ll just quit now while I’m ahead.

L-R: 'Carrie's stoop'; the line-up outside the Magnolia Bakery; pre-devoured Carrie cupcakes

I’m sounding painfully touristy aren’t I? Well while I’ve admitted that, for the most part, our time in NYC was very touristy, we did do something drastic, something even many Manhattaners are afraid to do: we left the island and spent the day in the Brooklyn burbs. Starting in the East side, we walked over the Williamsburgh Bridge, taking in Manhattan from a different perspective, and found ourselves on Bedford Ave. Map-less and tired, having walked down what was much longer an Avenue than we’d anticipated, we managed to get ourselves to Prospect Park, Brooklyn’s equally impressive but underrated equivalent to Central Park. Here we took in some sun before heading past the beautiful Green-wood Cemetery to Brooklyn’s China Town where we enjoyed Yum Cha (apparently called ‘Dim Sum’ in every other country bar Australia). And yes, you’ll be relieved to hear that after a day on the dark side we arrived that evening unscathed back in Manhattan.

L-R: view of Manhattan from the Williamsburgh Bridge; Prospect Park

With a night flight out of NYC we spent our last hours fitting in some final must-sees: Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I basked in the amazing collections on show, this place is really something. And with some of the best NYC has to offer under our belts – theatre, art, and of course that NYC attitude – we left the Big Apple for London, a touch of unexpected class thrown in when we were upgraded to business class. How fittingly ‘Sex in the City’.