World Cruise 2012 Sydney to Sydney: Hurray! The sun is out!

Much better view of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge than during the sail in!

Day Two in New York City.

Life is so much better when the sun is out! Sunshine make me want to do things; rain makes me want to curl up with a good book in front of a nice roaring fire. Alas, no fires onboard the ship so we had to go out yesterday anyway. But today is gloriously sunny and warm!

We walked to 42^nd and 7^th where we were fast-talked into buying a Grey Line HOHO (hop-on, hop-off) bus ticket. What a grand day to be on the upper deck, sight-seeing NY! So why did we get off at the first stop? To shop for fishnet stockings that I could wear on the next formal night. But getting back on the HOHO wasn’t all that great. The first bus, we couldn’t get to the upper deck (the ONLY place to be on a bright sunny day!) because it was so full. When we finally did, about 4 stops later, the very next stop was the final one for that bus and guide. The next bus we got on, we got the upper deck, but that bus was pulled out of service a couple of stops later, so off the bus again, this time four blocks from where it went out of service. But the weather was fantastic, so who cares if we have to walk a bit?

While waiting for the bus we spied a couple of electronics stores and bargained for a GPS and a new Kindle. I only wanted the plain vanilla Kindle but all they had—or so he said!—was the Kindle Fire. He made us an offer we couldn’t refuse so out the door with new electronics!

I discovered a new problem with a slow internet connection. And you folks at home with ANY kind of an internet connection have absolutely NO idea what a slow connection is! How slow is it? It is so slow that I cannot register either the Kindle or the GPS! It times out before either one of those can make the connection. Nor have I been able to get my email on the gmail account (I haven’t been able to get email on my msn account for days) because it times out before it can download anything at all. And today I can’t sign on to Facebook because it times out. Very frustrating!

We had a sail-away party on our deck and the ship’s snacks and hors d’oeuvres really suck so we found a grocery store and bought some nice cheeses and some crackers—we get awfully tired of Ritz crackers every single night!—for the party. George, our room service waiter, took care of getting us ice and glasses so we were good to go for a gorgeous sail-away. What a contrast to the sail-in! Bright sun, puffy clouds, what more could we ask? Now for three sea days to St. Thomas.