We're back baby! - New York Day 1

Hello, hello, hello! Due to largely self-driven demand you will be treated to an, ideally, daily update from yours truly over for the next three or so weeks (lucky you!) This post is to be the first in just over six years mostly thanks to the dead horse I refuse to flog and my assumption of the lawyer-boy position. Fear not, the wait is over and you will once again be graced with my flowery prose. Onwards!

Our first stop on this 2023 tour was New York, New York. We were fortunate enough to spend our 16 hour Auckland to New York trip in the presence of none other than Mr Tim Arbuckle by pure coincidence. Not only did we laugh together about how much snowboarders have to learn from skiers but I was also on the receiving end of some handy suit-maker recommendations. 

Having landed the night before, our first day’s morning consisted of some sub-par coffee, a morning 11km around Central Park, and then a walk to Grand Central Terminal. Next stop was a nearby park, and then a Whole Foods. Needless to say, Whole Foods was revelatory – I’m talking three stories, salad bars, thirty different ice-teas, etc. Way too many options for it to make sense. I digress.

After a sumptuous lunch, we meandered over to the old home/mansion of John Piermont Morgan. J. P. Morgan’s net worth apparently peaked at around $60 Billion when adjusted for inflation etc. It was quite scary seeing a house from the 19th Century imitate my own bedroom and workspace so closely but I somehow found the few differences there were to alleviate any time travelling, floorplan-stealing worries I may have had. I’ve recently become a bit of a reader but, unlike Morgan, I cannot say that my family houses three of the fifty ‘Gutenberg Bibles’ still known to exist. 

Once we’d critiqued the home of America’s greatest ever banker we jetlaggedly dawdled over to the cities public library. Although it was busy, my interest was quickly piqued when I saw hand-drafted scores from the likes of Beethoven and Duke Ellington along with handwritten Maya Angelou poems and original printings of Shakespeare’s complete works. Oh! There were the original Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, etc. Wild that they were real animals.

Just when you think we’d have had enough educating for the day, oh no – this was just the beginning. Leaving behind Charles Dickens’ desk at the library we headed back to Grand Central Terminal for our first touristy tour. The tour nicely fed into our day’s emerging theme of the who’s who of America’s golden age elite. The terminal was built in 1871 by a man called Cornelius (the only name which both automatically provides you with billions of dollars at birth and also requires you to maintain those billions in order for you not to be bullied for eternity). His last name was Vanderbilt. Aside from building terminals, Mr Vanderbilt probably spent his spare time laughing at the poor people beneath him of which our friend J. P. Morgan was one of many. Remembering that Mr Morgan’s net worth was $60 Billion in today’s money, Corny Cornelius Vanderbilt’s net worth is thought to have reached $2.3 Trillion in today’s money. That is 10% of the current richest man’s net worth. Anyhow, it turns out GCT is the place where the red carpet was popularised as part of a marketing ploy as well as one of the first places to use electrical lighting throughout its building as a sign of wealth. There’s also a tennis court, once owned but then lost by the Trump organisation, on the fourth (?) floor of one of the pillars that is open to the public. 

Ending the first day was dinner at a lovely Italian place on the upper east side, some reading, etc. and then passing out only to wake up and do it all over again the next day!

P.S

There are indeed photos but I've had trouble uploading them :( I'll do my best to have it sorted by this time tomorrow!

Dallas, Texas, America - Day 1

After last night’s drama, it was a very early (3:00) start to the day. We had to get up to catch the direct shuttle bus to the airport and be there by 4:00 for our flight at 7:00 (to Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) just like before), last night in the rush of it all I forgot to mention that my mum’s iPhone 6s was stolen to add on to it all, what a great night. Anyway, back to today, we soon found out that the visas that we saw were approved last night were our old visas so when we got to the airport we had to try and check if our new ones had been approved with the right passport numbers. The airport in Cancun has absolutely no wi-fi whatsoever which of course hindered us, we asked for assistance and still had the same “get assistance from manager” or whatever message popping up when we tried to check-in via the kiosk. This ended with us going to one of the main desks for help. The lady at the desk told us that our bags were already checked-in and that our documents “seemed” to be ok, not very reassuring. 

We made our way through the basic security checkpoints still unsure whether we were willing to get on the flight. The choice of whether to go on the flight was challenging for the following reasons: A; We were not sure whether or not our ESTA Visas had been approved, B; This would be a problem because if you don’t have the Visas upon arrival into the United States you can and will be deported, C; This would be a problem because if you get deported you aren’t allowed to re-enter America ever again, D; This, aside from the obvious problem of leisure travel, would be a problem as my mum was planning to go later in the year and I have a school trip to Florida next year to visit the launch centre (space centre type activities) for physics. As you can see we had a major decision to make, either risk not having an ESTA Visa and get deported never to return again with the flipside being we make it, legally, and visit Dallas and Houston or play it safe and fly home from Mexico City or something like that. We took the risk. 

After a very early and nerve racking flight into the lone star state we got in line for the APC (Automated Passport Control) Kiosks running as the border control and ended up being denied without reason. As a result of this failure we got in line for the “in person” check done the old-fashioned way, after waiting a relatively short time it was our turn to get checked. We stood up to the window/desk where the officer asked for our fingerprints and a photo of us to check we were who we say we were (this is all usual for those who don’t know), we had a quick, chatty and very anxious conversation with the officer before *stamp* *stamp* we were approved. Turns out the ESTA passed! 

We quickly hurried through all the other customs and immigration checkpoints with wide smiles on our faces and it was out the doors we went into the warm, welcoming arms of Texas! From the airport, it was out to our hotel, The Westin Galleria, before heading out to the main attraction Dealey Plaza. Dealey Plaza for those who don’t know is where the 35^th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was assassinated by (according to the record, without getting to political) Lee Harvey Oswald from the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. We first walked down to where two Xs mark where the President was shot along Elm St., we took some photos and then walked up the grassy knoll to the pedestal on which Abraham Zapruder recorded the most famous taping of the incident that happened on November the 22^nd 1963. After investigating where some believe a second gunman stood we moved up to the 6^th Floor Museum which gave information on the campaign of Kennedy and Johnson as well as the assassination and the following funeral. Also inside the museum was where the supposed gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, was perched with the cardboard boxes placed in what is thought to be the exact same places as that day. Of course, the area is boxed off with glass walls but it was still incredible to be inches away from history. 

After the museum, we walked around the corner to Chipotle for some lunch and headed off to our next tour, a tour of Dallas and important 11.22.63 sites. The tour started off going around the arts district and seeing some important sites intown like the old Dallas Police Department where Lee Harvey Oswald was shot by Jack Ruby. We then went down the same route the motorcade did that fateful day, it was a weird feeling looking back at the window from where the shots were fired and looking across at the grassy knoll and the pedestal from where Abraham Zapruder was perched. From there we made our way to where Oswald was rooming at the time, this is the only tour that lets you do this, we saw his bed and living quarters something insane to think about. We then moved on to where officer J.D. Tippet was shot by Oswald and finally where Oswald was captured in the Texas Theatre. It was a very interesting tour and I found it great to visit all those influential sites in America’s history. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent looking for cowboy/girl hats, which we found, and then shopping in the Galleria (mall) connected to the hotel. For dinner, we went to a very weird Tex-Mex place, I say weird because it was way to sugary and fatty compared to the legitimate Mexican food we had just yesterday. Tomorrow we fly out to Houston in the morning before heading back to New Zealand in the evening, should be a slow but good day. Until then, goodbye.

Joseph Hewson

P.S

Sorry for the lack of photos, due to mum’s phone being stolen it is hard to transfer the photos across, I will update this when we get the photos across, thanks for waiting.

Playa del Carmen, Mexico - Day 5

Today was a let-down. We woke up late in the hopes of having a relaxed day ending with a flight to Dallas and a nice sleep in our hotel there. This is how it turned out.  We woke up late (8:30), as planned, got packed and went out to lunch at the restaurant. We then went on to the lobby where we waited for our transfer to the airport before hopping in the van and driving to the airport to arrive there 3 hours before the flight was due to depart as per recommendations. 

When we went to check-in we firstly found that there was some sort of issue with our documents, we weren’t told what, so we acquired the help of an American Airlines representative who helped us print out something to take to the check-in desk. When we got to the desk we found that our ESTA Visas (the visas you need to get in to the United States) had some issue with them, it turned out that the passport numbers didn’t match up. The reason for this is that when we were in Washington D.C our passports were stolen in the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum so they were subsequently cancelled. Not only did this incident immediately affect us but it has now come back to bite us in the butt, the reason the numbers didn’t match up is because we had to get emergency passports with new numbers and then newer, more permanent passports when we got home with new numbers once more. Through all of this it never connected with us about the visas because we were already in Washington D.C or, in other words, America. 

We spent the next hours of our lives trying to get our applications for the new ESTA Visas in and approved in time for the flight. All of this was not helped at all by the appalling, useless, wasteful and sometimes rude “help” of the person behind the information desk who was, at the same time, learning a new language and playing games on her PC. Anyway, longer story short, we ended up missing our flight so our now staying at the Courtyard by Marriot to get up early (3:00) in the morning. In the evening, we went downstairs where we had a delicious dinner and dessert only improving my idea of what has been the best “Airport Hotel” I’ve stayed in. Tomorrow will be an extremely busy day in Dallas (hopefully) but, until then goodbye.

Joseph Hewson

Playa del Carmen, Mexico - Day 4

Today was our last full day in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. It started off very, very early at 6:00 in the morning getting ready for a full-on day of adventure ahead. We were picked up by our guide Frank soon after and then were driven for 45 minutes to our first stop the Maya Ruins in Tulum which we walked around for about an hour or so, all that was needed in my opinion, and we learnt some interesting things. For instance, these ruins were once used by people for trade and for living there, different than the Chichen Itza site which was used for big gatherings of all the people and where nobody lived. After walking around for a while it was back to the van through the markets laid out by the entrance. Here is what we saw.

Next it was on to our first “adventure” spot, the Tankah Eco-Adventure Park, we arrived changed into our togs and started the short walk around an open centote (like a lake) and saw a few people zip-lining their way across it. We stopped occasionally taking photos of the scenery and colourful birds, sadly I don’t have the photos of most of the day as Frank (the guide) took photos and videos of us on his Go Pro (don’t worry, I will update this post when I get the photos and/or videos). We finished the short walk when we dropped our towels and things off before getting harnessed up and choosing our wooden brake. The way the brake worked is that it was shaped like a 7 and when we were getting close to the end you would place it in front of your “trolley” (part of the whole zip-line system) on the zip-line and that would slow you down. Anyway, we went up the first tower that would sip-line us back to where we first started to walk around the cenote (sen-oh-tay). When we got to the top Frank said, “If you want to do something a bit more extreme you can do it upside down like this.” and just like that he was off, going upside-down, pretty fast on a zip-line, legend. Next was my turn, as soon as I went over the edge I tried to go upside down and apparently, I was successful, as I neared the end of the cenote I looked at Frank and got some, hopefully, good pics of me. When mum and dad had made their way to the end it was up another tower and this time they flipped me upside down before I left, they tried it with dad but it just wasn’t happening, they sent me on my way and off I went. This time round when it was Frank’s turn he decided to be the cool guy by not using his brake the conventional way, instead, he dragged it along the ground at the end and it worked out pretty well. Now it was time for the final zip-line, they again flipped me upside down and away I went, I stayed upside down for almost all of the trip and at the start I saw a turtle pop up in the cenote so, I did the smart thing and shouted, “I SEE A TURTLE!!!”.  From the zipline it was down a ramp and onto the dock to board the next part of our journey, the canoe. In the canoe, we paddled our way along the cenote going in and out of small inlets infested with mosquitos, sadly, no turtles were to be seen but we did, hopefully, get some good pictures of us. From the canoes, it was on to our next port of call, the cenote, it was a short walk to the cenote where we dropped off our towels and went to the top of a small cliff. From the cliff, Frank dove into the see-through, glass like fresh water and swam over to the small dock to record us jumping off as a family but, as my parents were reluctant I jumped in and then they shortly followed as Frank reminded us it was all being recorded and there wasn’t a lot of space in the camera. We swam around for a while wearing snorkelling goggles provided by Frank and my parents sat on the steps on the dock letting those famous dead-skin eating fish have at it, this was free unlike the hundreds of people selling them at a high price in the malls etc. Might I also say, the cenote was all alone until we got there and another couple from the same tour company arrived, very secluded. I jumped off the cliff a few more times doing dives, staple dives and tricks before we headed back to the van ready for the next spot. Due to the weather, we couldn’t participate in the snorkelling we had planned out at Sea so we instead we chose to go to another cenote in a cave with stalactites and stalagmites (formed by the calcium and minerals in the earth) popping out of the ceiling and ground. It was an amazing trip in the cave and as we were snorkelling we saw everything underwater, it helped that Frank was a free diver meaning that when he dropped the camera to the bottom of a, relatively, shallow area he could just dive down and get it. Frank was great he knew when and where to take pictures of us and thanks to it being a Go Pro it didn’t matter where we were. We climbed up the ladder to ground level and caught the van to a restaurant where we had pre-ordered our lunch which was a four-course meal of local dishes, very nice food. 

Zip lining upside down across a cenote, turtles, 

canoeing in open cenote

1st cenote / cliff diving, fish pedicure

2nd cenote underground

3D Museum

Afterwards it was a short drive back to the hotel in time for a relaxing afternoon. Later in the evening we headed out in the hunt for sombreros after visiting the 3D Museum of Wonders full of optical illusions and photo opportunities for all of us, it was great fun. Sadly though, we didn’t find any sombreros that were “us” I guess you could say. Here are the seriously cringey photos of us. Viewer discretion is advised. I'm sorry in advance.

Me opening the bank to all my riches.

Mum the surfer chick.

Alice in wonderland, trippy, slidey scene.

Long way down.

Even longer way down.

Dad saving the day yet again.

Gotta go fast.

Dad and his poker.

Chilly.

Back at the hotel it was dinner time, beef filet and tomato soup, I nice way to end the full on, adventurous day. Tomorrow is our last half day in Mexico before we fly off to Dallas on a 3-hour flight landing at about 8 at night. Until then, goodbye.

Joseph Hewson

Playa del Carmen, Mexico - Day 3

Today was a day of shopping and relaxing. We started off earlier than wanted thanks to a snorkelling tour we were supposed to have but.... It was cancelled due to rough weather (very windy and choppy) so we decided to go do the main thing, shopping, first. We started off by taking a taxi down to the end of the Quinte Avenida or Avenue 5 or 5th Avenue (you get the idea) to go into Zara and then Zara Home and some other shops before going into Haagen Dazs, it was hot ok don’t judge.

Next it was on to the 2 storey Nike building just around the corner for a new pair of socks for me and then it was off to get some Mexican wrestling masks. It took us about 10 seconds to find a shop that would sell them and with mum and dad tag teaming the needy salesperson they got it down from $1700 Mexican Pesos (or $170 NZD) all the way down to $500 Mexican Pesos (or $50 NZD.) I’m almost certain that if my parents wrote a book on bargaining it would be 1000 times better than The Art of The Deal.

From those shops our search began for the place mum had found for lunch and after ½ an hour of no luck we decided to catch a taxi back to the hotel for lunch where he had a very funny exchange in trying to order lunch with a man who spoke very little English (Pretty much us but with English not Spanish). After lunch, it was just relaxing in our beachy bungalow reading and lying in the hammock in the shade of the palm trees, paradise.

Later we headed down to the beach where the waves were still rocking and the wind was warm (very warm, nothing like the wind we have back in New Zealand, it felt so weird), I stayed in the Sea wandering up and down the marked off area for quite some time.

At the start both mum and dad were in there with me, mum kept chucking seaweed on top of me when it landed on her and she kept spitting on dad whenever the seawater got into her mouth, it was pretty funny (doubt dad felt the same way). After getting minorly crunched by the small waves I headed back onto the beach and then back into the house/room/bungalow for a read of a book and more relaxing.

Even later in the evening I went out to the bar where dad was having a Caipirinha and talking to this couple from Maine in the States (according to them it’s the eastern most town in all of America), I had a virgin Pina Colada (maybe two or three who’s to say), and then we went back to get ready for dinner.

Dinner was a massive buffet of meat being cooked on the grill right then and there, there were meats like beef flank, fajita chicken, fish, pork ribs etc. there was a lot. During dinner, there was also a mariachi band playing and going around the tables taking requests, there were a lot of Guantanameras and La Bambas, it was a great soundtrack to the night which was helped by the fact they had good voices.

After dinner, it was back to the bungalow getting ready for tomorrow’s adventurous tour of zip-lining, cliff jumping and swimming in cenotes, should be good. Until then, goodbye.

Playa del Carmen, Mexico - Day 2

Today, as I mentioned before, started pretty early to get ready for the tour of the ancient Mayan Temple in nearby Chichen Itza and the Cenote closeby. So, we got up and went to the front desk to meet our guide Ricardo, we then went for a 2 hour drive to the ancient temple (Stopping for hot chocolates and coffees of course.) When we got there we soon realized that, uh oh, we didn’t bring our togs to swim in the cenote (A cenote is a big hole in the ground 100s of feet deep that is like a very deep pool. I’ll explain how they’re formed later.). We did end up swimming in the cenote by the way, just in our shorts.

Anyway, when we got there we met our Mayan guide Remmy (Ricardo is training to get his Archeological Tour Guide license), we entered the park and after walking for about a minute we saw it. The Mayan Temple of Chichen Itza.

It was not a tomb or a place where the elders slept like most believe, it was actually just used as the Mayan’s calendar. Our guide showed us that if you stand in front of the temple and clap your hands in a specific way a certain sound rings away, that sound is the sound of a bird the Maya believed were sacred and because of this belief the Maya constructed the stairs to sound exactly like the chirping of that bird, absolutely incredible.

It was very hot out there, (35 degrees) there was no shade and I though it would be stupid to wear sunglasses but all the pathways there were made of white rock and dust so I’m thankful I brought both my hat and sunglasses.

We moved around the temple and Remmy explained to us how when the temple was built it was designed (or made through trial and error) so that during the two equinoxes of the year, light would only shine on two of the sides of the temple (One in the morning, the other in the evening.) and when it rises or sets it lights up small triangular shapes made by the steps on the remaining two sides and the sculpted snake heads at the bottom of those steps. All of this combines to give the illusion of a serpent like creature, again, very sacred to the Maya, slithering down the steps of the temple and on to the ground below.

From the temple we moved on to the ancient market place, now only pillars which used to hold up the thatch roofing, and Remmy told us how people from all over the state would converge here after weeks of walking to sell their goods.

From the market place we walked over to the ball court, this is where a very complicated game, a mixture of volleyball, basketball and baseball, was played. The aim of the game was to pass a rubber ball (Weighed 6 ounces) through a stone circle (Like a sideways hoop), the thing was that they couldn’t use their hands or their feet but only their elbows, hips and knees and they only needed to score one point to win.

If you were to win the game (which could have gone on for a week) and you were the captain of the winning team of 7, then as your prize you would be decapitated! This was a highly sought after privilege as you would be reincarnated.  Not only that but you would be taken to a sacred cenote  where you would be decapitated as a tribute to the gods, they would dress you up and cover you in gold and heavy jewelry to weigh you down.

Another very interesting fact about the ball court is the acoustics. The layout of the ball court saw the leader/King at one end and the 6 next top leaders sitting at the opposite end with the public standing atop the tall walls either side of the I (I as in the I which looks like a T but with a base.) shaped court.

 The court looking down to the King's seat at the end.

 The King's end.

The 6 regional leaders end of the court.

The way that the King communicated with the other leaders was that they just talked/shouted to one another but…. The public sitting above the wall couldn’t hear a word they were saying, HOW I hear you ask??!!? The Maya were soooo smart that they built the walls on either side of the ball courts to a 87(ish) degree angle, that’s a tiny angle, this makes the wall look as if it’s on a small lean and it also causes all the audio to be funneled from one end of the court to the other. Incredible I know. This could be tested by people calling out to one another from either end.

The fun doesn’t stop there!! When we were being shown the art on the walls making our way down to one end Remmy showed us that when you clap there is an echo which repeats itself 7 times (As in: Clap! Echo, echo, echo, echo, echo,echo,echo) I know, mind blown.

After the ball court we walked around the corner to a wall, this wasn’t just any wall oh no, this wall was (in ancient times) topped with skulls to warn traders and the game’s audience from foreign townships that it was fine that they come here and trade etc. but if they wage war on them this is what will happen.

Iguana on skull wall.

From the wall Remmy showed us the path that lead down to the sacred cenote used for the human sacrifices, we then got some “free time” to wander down the short track/trail past all the stalls selling souvenirs to the cenote.

When we reached the cenote we found a little alter type setup out of stone on top of the cliff face fencing the cenote in, we could only assume that’s where the honourable were killed and then launched off in to the cenote (Gruesome? Very) .

When we got back to Remmy our tour was then finished by a walk in the sun back to the entrance where we were met by Ricardo. From the temple it was off to the cenote for a dip. It was a 20 minute drive there and once there we headed to the changing rooms and had a shower to rinse off all of the chemicals in the lotion to protect the water in the cenote.

We headed down the slippery steps to the cenote where I then walked up the empty line to the top of the rock path used as a sort of diving boards and jumped off the top one after a few scared moments at the top (as you can imagine.).

This was nothing compared to what Ricardo had done, he went to military school in the U.S and while there they wrapped him up in a type of cling film and threw him into the same sort of wet situation in order to train him to be calm. Anyway, it was great fun and after getting some footage of me jumping into the water it was time to head up for some lunch in the form of an all-you-can-eat buffet, despite the masses of food on offer there I got stuffed with food fast which, I guess, you are looking for in a place like this.

Once lunch had finished I hobbled across the hot paths, got some last photos of the cenote from above and raced to the van to rest my feet. From the cenote we drove to a very quiet and hot town to taste some authentic Mexican chocolate which mum appreciated a lot.

From there it was about another 2 hour drive back to our resort, along the way back I recognized these rope ladder type structures hanging across the road up in the air, after asking Ricaldo my suspicions were confirmed, they are there so that the monkeys in the neighbouring forests don’t have to cross the road. When we got back it was time to relax, I got comfortable in a hammock relaxed for a couple of hours before it was time for dinner.