Day 10

After a great day of sight seeing in New York, I was keen to go back and head downtown to check out Greenich Village and Soho. But unfortunately we had to sort out our ongoing car troubles with Dollar.

Paulo and I went for a run along a path next to Traction Line Park. He turned back after about 15 minutes but I pressed on and ended up doing a 48 minute 'trot'. I say trot because I am not really running - yet. It has been tough to get back into the swing of running and my knees have been kind of giving out to me.

Traction Line Park stretches for a few miles of the train line between Morristown and Madison. When the line was built it was heavily criticised by all of the locals and one in particular decided to build a wall around her mansion as a sort of 'fuck you' to the railroad company. The wall is still standing today and runs the entire length of the path that we ran on.

We had a quick bite to eat and then drove to Newark Airport to the Dollar office so that we could once again change cars. Paulo had been on to Dollar because he was concerned about a noise that one of the rear wheels was making. Neither of us know very much about cars but we thought that it could have been the bearings making the noise and did not want to risk having problems with the car somewhere down the road. We were told to drive to Newark and ask for Toby - he would sort us out.

When we arrived and explained our situation we were met with a bit of uncertainty and the usual "let me see what I can do for you guys". He sort of sat on the fence for a while and then said that he could offer us a Nissan Murano. There were lots of Sebrings right in front of us but he explained that he had other customers inside who were expecting a certain car and that we could not take one of them.

He went inside to figure out how to process the necessary paperwork and I discussed things with Paulo. We agreed that the Murano was too big and would cost a fortune to put petrol in. When Toby returned we expressed our disatisfaction with the situation and in the end we were rewarded with... wait for it... another Caliber!

So, we are now on our fourth car and our third Caliber in only 10 days...

We drove back to Morristown and decided to go for a bite as we were both pretty Hank from the stressful morning. There is a sub shop around the corner from Ronan's gaff called Long John's and it hit the spot perfectly. It is totally old school from the way all of the meat and cheese is sliced right in front of you after you order to the signs everywhere that state mobiles (or cell phones as they are known here) are strictly forbidden while ordering food. I had the Long John's sub and a root beer and was ready to 'hit the town'.

We jumped on the first train we could into the city and walked out 29th Street towards the Hudson to meet a friend of Paulo's. His name is Mark and he works for Boyland Studios as a photographer. He gave us a quick tour of the place and let us see behind the scenes of his current shoot for a French furniture company catalog.

Mark had to work for a few more hours but he gave us directions to his local watering hole - West End Tavern and promised to meet us as soon as he could. We set off for the bar, licking our lips, at the the thought of a few bevvies.

We arrived and I quickly got stuck into the pints of Yuengling. I was thrilled to see it served there as it is kind of a local brew for me. It is America's oldest brewery, started in 1829 in Pottsville PA by none other than David Yuengling. We shot some pool and then Ronan and Mark came in to meet us. We had a great nite playing pool, chatting and listening to 80s New Wave music on the jukebox.

The 10:30 train was our ticket home and we were in bed early to rest up for our big day out on Saturday.