Northeast Passage Part 1

We spent pretty much the entire summer at home in the mountains, chuckling a little now and then when we read the stories of the endless delays and cancelled flights, slapping each other on the back over our decision to delay any travel until the fall. Fate decided to stick it to us and we arrived at the Denver airport to find our flight had been cancelled and we were going to have to wait an additional three hours for the next available flight. At least I think that was Fate and her handmaiden Hubris who were chortling and backslapping there behind the ticket counter. Though it could also have been a couple of ticket agents, it's a little hard to tell nowdays.

We had reservations at Cafe Grey in New York City that night. Needless to say, there was no chance of making it in time.

Mary says they did serve food on board the flight, but since I was asleep from approximately five minutes after I got into my seat until it was announced that we had not fulfilled our quota for existential angst and we would have to circle over New York for another 30 minutes, it really didn't matter much to me. However, waking up pretty much stunk, because about that time they announced that there would be yet another delay while they did an air-to-air transfer because the pilot had exceeded his flying time allowed in a period of not less than a single femetosecond and not more than three sidereal years. I started remembering that movie the Out of Towners (not the remake, but the good one with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis, where he refuses the meal on board because they'd be home soon, but instead they get hijacked to Cuba). It was kind of like that.

We had arranged for a car service to pick us up at the airport. The driver was waiting for us on arrival, as was our baggage that United Airlines had thoughtfully decided to throw on an earlier plane, so it could be picked over by gypsies and confidence men at La Guardia. Actually, in fairness I have to note that, in contrast to places like New Orleans where bags really are easy pickings for lighter fingered folk, since they never have security checking luggage tags, La Guardia did actually check our paperwork.

We got into our, er, luxurious towncar, in which most of the internal details were either missing or hanging from a single screw, or in the case of the overhead light a single wire. I thought it was an interesting choice to import a car from the backstreets of Madras to New York. As was usually the case with our New York drivers he had depth perception dialed to a precision of two or three millimeters. This is especially disconcerting to those of us who are utterly deficient in the depth perception department. (Eye tests usually end up with me completely randomly punching buttons to answer the questions.) In any case, I usually find myself in driving situations like this flinching violently away from one side of the car or the other as we skirt death seemingly by nanometers. It can be exhausting.

We stayed at Trump International at Columbus Circle, which, while not cheap, is actually one of the less expensive five-star options in New York City. The Trump has one of the smallest lobbies we've been in, made smaller by the two or three hulking plainclothes security guys stationed there. I might be mistaken about the security, it's quite possible that their actual function is elevator call button pusher. Mary says that they never pushed the call button for her, which makes my musings either utterly irrelevant or raises questions that are better left unasked, as we plan on staying there for a few days after we return from Montreal. Anyhow, I like the lobby and it's quite easy to find the front desk, unlike other New York hotels we've visited, such as The Royalton, which apparently feels that if you can't find the extremely non-obvious check-in location, you just aren't cool enough to stay there.

Our room, upgraded to a "junior suite" because we booked it through American Express Platinum Travel Services, was a bit small but adequate. It makes me wonder about the room we were upgraded from. The room was nicely furnished and even included a small stove, mini-fridge and dishwasher, because some of the units are individually owned and used as city apartments. The minibar was well stocked, though they did offer Heinken Light instead of the purer, nobler stuff. The bathrooms were all marble with Trump's trademark and slightly tacky gold fixtures. One amenity that Mary quite liked was the offer of a complimentary pot of tea to be sent up to the room upon check in. I contented myself with beer from the minibar, Light though it was.

We found out that rooms on the north side of the building, upgraded or not, can hardly be regarded as premium, as there was construction going on (on a Friday night?) in the building across the street. In between periods during which the construction workers were throwing debris and possibly Jimmy Hoffa's body down the garbage chutes, the loading dock workers below our window in the Trump decided to fill those few blessed minutes of quiet with their own infernal din, which one might have concluded consisted of upending M1 main battle tanks and dumping them off the end of the loading platform. Needless to say on our return visit we will not be staying in a north facing room.

Since we arrived so much later than planned we decided to go ahead and get room service, and that turned out to be a good decision. Trump does have a conventional room service menu with all the usual suspects like club sandwiches, hamburgers, caesar salad and the like. It also offers the menu from Jean Georges restaurant. We decided to splurge, since we were neither still circling New York, on our way to Cuba, or engulfed in flames after a fiery crash on the Lower East side. I'm not sure if it was the most expensive room service meal we've ever eaten - I suspect not. But it was definitely the best we've ever eaten.

Day 2

Today was our first day onboard the Crystal Symphony. We planned to board at 12:00 pm, but first Mary got a pedicure at what she declared a very nice spa in the basement of Trump International.

Mary feels that a good vacation starts off with a pedicure. Mine starts off with a couple of beers, maybe some wings. While Mary was getting her pediments trimmed at the Trump spa after breakfast, I wandered around the Columbus Circle neighborhood, sightseeing for the most part, though I did check out a shopping arcade in Time Warner Center with the intention of purchasing a tie or two. As usually seems to be the case, there were a dozen women's clothing emporiums and one men's - Thomas Pink. I wandered in and checked it out but without Mary to egg me on, I found I could not justify spending $100 for a tie. They were nice ties but mostly not really my taste as I'm an old fogey and Pink's ties were not for people of my age or lack of coolness. This was reinforced by the staff who resolutely decided to continue with their conversation while I browsed the store, having already consigned me to the ash heap of history.

The vehicle from the same car service that picked us up from the airport that arrived to take us to the cruise terminal was in much better shape and we were happy to put our St. Christopher medals and cans of mace away.

Embarkation on Crystal was the most painless of any we've ever experienced. We dropped off our bags and went through the usual check-in procedures and were on board in less then 10 minutes. There, our carry on bags were taken from us to be delivered to the rooms while we toured the ship and chewed upon the fatted calf. Said fatted calf and garnishes was pretty good though Mary's Cobb salad was not quite up to her exacting standards. She did not insist that the waiter commit seppuku as it was only the first meal. Dinner would be a different affair I was sure.