Travelling Hopefully - Through Upstate New York

Leaving Niagara Falls at ghastly o'clock in the morning allowed me to renew my acquaintance with Amtrak.  The reunion didn't get off to a good start when I discovered that the waiting room at Niagara Falls was closed.  It's quite chilly at 6.30am in Niagara Falls.  At least my train was actually there waiting to be let of the leash like some mythical beast of legend (or legendary beast of myth if you prefer).  Eventually one of the staff wandering around deigned to notice me and I was escorted on board or at least pointed towards a door in the side of the train that I was supposed to use.

Since this was to be an eight hour trip I had splashed out of a business class ticket which got me a comfy seat, free wifi and all the unpalatable coffee I could drink.  In the bathroom (really an ambitious toilet) was hand soap in a container which proclaimed to the world that it had been provided especially for Amtrak.  Presumably they announce this to scotch otherwise reasonable suspicions that Amtrak replenishes its stores by raiding Motel 6s along its route.  Business class was rather quiet as evidenced by the conductors announcements which were audible without being comprehensible.  Fortunately the guy in charge of the snack bar would pop back and bellow whatever had been announced just in case it was important.

We left Niagara Falls on time which was a pleasant surprise.  The hour long delay we experienced because some idiot had got a truck stuck under a low bridge was, by this time, neither pleasant nor a surprise.  Still I got to see something of upstate New York which I believe is the technical term for that part of New York which isn't actually New York City.  There were quite a lot of trees and there's definitely an English feel to some of the small towns we passed through along the way.  Not surprising I suppose when you consider that the banks of the Hudson must be some of the earliest colonised parts of the country.  Admittedly I believe New York was first colonised by the Dutch but perhaps they had visited England and decided that they had a good model to follow for small towns.

Late but only mildly so by comparison with my other Amtrak experiences the train slid into Penn station in New York City.  I'd like to give an impression of my view of New York as we approached but I didn't see it.  We went into a tunnel and twenty odd minutes later we were there.  My last visions through the window had been of trees, when I got out of the station I was surrounded by buildings.  And people, lots and lots of people.  Through a careful selection process known as blind luck I had managed to select accommodation that was ten minutes walk from Penn station and five minutes from the Empire State Building which was pretty much the only thing on my agenda to see in New York.

The apartment was quite nice (it had a doorman and everything) but the bed was some sort of large inflatable thing which made quite a loud popping noise as it reasserted its original shape.  The first time this happened was when I was lying in the dark trying to get some sleep and I honestly thought something had jumped onto the bed.  I spent five minutes looking for non existent cats before I figured out what it was (it was late and I was tired)  I even briefly considered that the apartment might be haunted before deciding a dodgy mattress might be slightly more plausible.  Despite having something resembling a mind of its own the mattress was quite comfortable and I slept on it extra hard to get back at it for scaring me.