Trip to NYC

For my Bolivia trip, I decided to go to the Bolivian Consulate in NYC in person rather than mail our passports and applications to them. Also, we could get visas in the airport, but we have a short connection which is probably not enough time to get through the visa line. Long story short, me and my team have our visas which are good for five years.

I decided to take Danny with me. I woke him up at 5:05 AM and he said "No dad!" I said "It's time to go to NYC" and immediately, he was awake and ready for our adventure.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, both of us are fairly sick. On the way back tonight, we stopped one time for 10 minutes and drove the last 3+ hours straight with no stops. Pretty impressive for a 5.5 year old.

We drove to NYC and parked in the upper west side which is just outside of the "congestion zone" for parking. Basically, I researched and found a parking lot that was cheap and near the subway.

We took the 1 train into mid-town Manhattan to 42nd street. West 42nd street. We had to trek to 211 EAST 43rd Street to the Bolivian Consulate. The cool part is that 43rd street is chopped in half by Grand Central Station. We got to walk through and see the huge train station. Keep in mind, Danny is sick. My hyper boy could barely keep up walking with me and eventually had to be carried. He weighs 50+ pounds. Yeah. And I wore my girly clog shoes. Idiot...

We found the address for the consulate and went to suite 702 which was nothing more than a 3 room office that employed 3 people- all Bolivian (obviously).

They asked what I wanted. I said "visas" and they took my folders and left. It was a little disconcerting. The passports of myself and seven others were taken from me into another room that I could not see. Then, we had to leave to take our $800 cash payment for the visas up the street to the Chase bank to be deposited. When we got back, we sat for about an hour waiting for our visas.

There were a lot of people in and out, but interestingly, two sets of Bolivian nationals who live in the US full time who were trying to get the Bolivian Consulate to help them out. One set wanted visas because they have US passports, and the other wanted a new Bolivian passport since she lost hers. This lady came in last, but had her needs taken care of first. One of my first real experiences being the minority and not first in line...

Danny and I left with the 8 passports and went looking for pizza. It was 12:30 PM and we hadn't eaten since we had Dunkin Donuts at 5:30 AM. Sick, hungry, and tired described Danny, but he did well. We found a great pizza place that sold $.99 pieces of pizza. It was great. We ate it out on the sidewalk with people walking by, some of whom made comments about Danny's Red Sox hat and our bravery for coming to NY with a Boston hat!

Here's where I could have planned better. I knew Danny couldn't make it back to the subway station (about a half-mile to a mile walk), and he wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. What we ended up doing was taking a $20 cab ride uptown to our car on 96th street, and then driving downtown to the Financial District to see the Statue. Then we had to drive north again to get off the island of Manhattan... I should have just parked Downtown and moved around better on the subway on the lower east side instead of starting on the upper west side... Anyway, and I learned about Manhattan. Manhattan is a tall, skinny island surrounded by the Hudson River to the West and the East River to the... East. Upper means North, Lower means South. Uptown is North, Downtown is South, and the line separating East from West is Central Park Uptown and 5th Avenue Downtown. Also, streets start at the southern tip of Manhattan as 1st street and run parallel up to like 150th street. The "avenues" run North and south and connect the numbered streets. Make sense? It really does because if all of the streets had unique proper names, it would be impossible to figure out how to get around.

I was impressed with the efficiency of space in NYC. There is no space- at all, for anything. A parking garage is not a place where someone drives in and parks in a spot- no. I drove in, stopped, and then watched them take my car and park it surrounded on all four sides by other cars. They asked me what time I was coming back so they could store my car in a place where they can easily get it out.

Also, the monthly cost of a parking space in the "cheap" parking garage where I was is only $508 a month! I cannot imagine paying over $500 to park my car and be required to give an hour's notice before I can even get my car.

Buses were parked on the side of the road literally touching each other. There is no space between buildings. There is no space anywhere but up in the air. It's no wonder the rental price in Manhattan is higher than in any other part of the world.

Oh yeah, one weird thing- there is no parking anywhere. Especially none that is free. I paid $12 to park in a cheap garage for 2-3 hours. We drove down to see the Statue which is all the way Downtown in the prime real estate zone. I pulled into something at the southern tip of the island and found a place to park, in an open lot, for free. Other people were parking there, there we no signs, so I left it there. It was weird. It didn't feel right- but no ticket, no problem!

Danny and I are shot- 12 hours, 34 minutes and 500+ miles in one day. Being sick didn't help, but it still was a fun adventure as evidenced by Danny saying to me at one point "I think this is a day I will remember for the rest of my life."