Day 40

October 9, 2019

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

This is the scene that greeted us as we sailed into New Yawk harbour. It rained most of the day.



The Sun docked at Pier 88 and who did we see on our port side? the Viking Sea which departed two days before the Sun did in London. It leaves later today while we set sail (steam away?) (leave?) in two days, but on a different route this time. Parked on our starboard side is the retired aircraft carrier Intrepid with a host of various planes on its deck including an SR-71 Blackbird  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq8mUnxEBII while next to Intrepid on the quai sits a retired Concorde https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MCETiKCLhc

We bus toured Manhattan for four hours. NYC feels like a slow motion town, but you probably already knew that. Walking is a faster mode of transportation than a tour bus, maybe a cab even. Obstructions in every street. My passionate dislike of bus tours in large cities was mightily reinforced. In future....fuggedaboudit!

Every city tour stops at the 9/11 Memorial, and so did ours. It is an impressive and moving monument. It caused me to reminisce - on the morning of September 11, 2001 I had just arrived at my office at Mattick's Farm at 6 o'clock, daylight was just breaking. I received a frantic phone call from one of our favourite commodity brokers, Carr Futures, who told me that an explosion had occurred several floors below their 92nd floor office in The North Tower of The World Trade Center. They were going to investigate. That's the last time I spoke with them. Tragically, all 69 staff members died that day. Only five companies lost more employees. To my dismay, several months later I got a call from my friend Mike, a Carr Futures manager, who normally worked at the New York office. He had been called to London for a meeting scheduled for Sept. 11th. Not surprisingly, he was suffering from survivor's guilt. He left the business. We lost touch.

The 9/11 experience is a lesson - one's life can change in "a New York minute".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGMibNdEfw4 

Tomorrow evening Karen and I will attend a Broadway play. Read all about it!

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