We were flying home at 1900 so we had plenty of time to walk around and visit ground zero which is a strange. To be actually standing in the area where you associate the pictures you see on television and the towers falling down are surreal.
We walked around a bit and found a view of the Statue of Liberty. The cues to get a ferry out were crazy so we stuck with a long range effort. We headed back to the sublet, packed up and went to Bua for a few last drinks.
Day 5 was a combination of packing up the house, cleaning the house and a big drive to Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard. No pictures were taken because we were both too hung over.
Luckily we had enough time to make the last ferry and Leona had hooked us up with a place to sleep, in a bed. Six hours sleep had never felt so good and we got up early to do some tourist stuff.
The island was beautiful. No other way to describe it. We had an amazing breakfast and took some pictures of the signs that hung outside the shops.
Waiting for the bus back to the ferry…
The drive back was mad as we didn’t know how long it was going to take and we had to have the car back by 1700. Then we took a wrong turn on the way into New York and ended up on St Marks Street at 1900, long after the rental company closed. We hung out in Bua for a few hours before Stephen hooked us up with a sublet which is really the way to go if you are staying in New York.
I slept on the ground in the second house beside the fire even though myself and Mark had pitched the tent the night before on case we needed it. In hind sight I would have been much better off in the tent.
House two had no electricity but it was a strange collection of stuff gathered together to make something I just can’t describe.
Before the wedding we played football with a beach ball for kids…
Ok, proof I did do karaoke…. To be honest I don’t really remember this. Carol had upped my intake of whiskey considerably after she saw me pouring Irish measures… now I was on full glasses of whiskey…
Myself and Mark checked out of the hotel and walked to the car rental firm (avis) to pick up our car, a Chevy Impala which was big, powerful and fast although driving it felt like driving a boat because of the suspension. We filled the car up with stuff and headed for the mountains.
This is where I took our only wrong turn. I was driving and Mark was navigating. He looked down to check the map and when he looked up we were here… not on the highway.
We got into the house late, about 2300 as far as I remember and immediately started to chill out and have a few beers. It was about 6 hours in total in the Chevy.
Despite the late night which featured a lot of bars and a place that makes bun cakes, we got up early and hit the streets to do some walking and see some stuff. The weather was mildly better but I was better prepared this time. We stopped in Subway for breakfast and then went in look for a Starbucks so we could get access.
We ended up doing 150 blocks by foot just seeing stuff. My sense of direction let me down when looking for Moma and ended up on 82nd street… about 20 blocks too far north. On the way back south towards ground zero we eventually stopped for coffee. There are not many pictures… We didn’t make it as far as Ground Zero and got a taxi to Steve’s place where we got lunch and met up with Eoin.
We were late landing so we missed the train and had to get a ‘Carmel’ taxi into Manhattan. The weather was terrible was a disappointment after leaving a sunny Ireland behind was. After we checked into the hotel, Marco and I decided to do some sight seeing. The weather was crap and we only got as far as Times Square before the rain put us off and we got a taxi to Stephen’s apartment where we left the camera for the night and headed out to visit some bars and drink some beers and get soaking wet.
I took this picture on Martha’s Vineyard recently. I took it not really knowing what was going to come out but I am really happy with it. I focused in on the sunlight sparkling off the sea. If you want a full size version just leave a comment saying so.
We got up early and went in search of petrol. Luckily we found some before having to try and get the car back to the rental company on fumes. We got away with a late charge of $12 which was great.
Before heading off we brought our luggage around to Dua to have a couple of pints with Stephen before we headed off…
We got up early with Leona as our guide walked around the town she was staying at Vineyard Haven (but I could be wrong). We got a bus to another town where we had breakfast and took lots of pictures. We got the 1300 ferry off the island as we had to drop the car off at 5pm and being not sure about how long the journey was going to take… We took a wrong turn coming into New York and we were very low on petrol.
As it turned out we were way late for the car rental company and had to hold onto the car for an extra night. Luckily we made it to Dua before Mary and Gabriel left and got to say god bye. The plan was to spend the evening drinking, but very soon the party broke up.
It was a real commune effort to get the house back to the condition it was before the wedding. Not that it was a mess, but because so much stuff had been moved around. At about 1 Mark and I had to leave to drive to Martha’s Vineyard to visit Leona. We were against the clock to get the last ferry onto the island and it was a real case of foot to the floor. We made it to the ferry with about 10 mins to spare. On the journey I had reached a top speed of over 152 km per hour. I was going to push it to 100mph but at 95mph the car handled differently so I decided I should err on the safe side 
The ferry over to the island was fantastic. It was a cool night so we were able to sit on deck and watch the moonlit sea all the way to the Island. When we landed Leona met us and brought us to her house where she had organised a couple of beds for us.