USA Day 5: Forgotten charger meant getting downtown to an Apple Store in the heaviest rain I have seen in Manhattan…

USA 2016 part 8: Tuesday 15th November

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My planned day out in Manhattan – to wander aimlessly (otherwise known as exploring!) – has been washed out by rain. No ordinary rain mind you: like New York itself this was big, heavy and relentless. There was no escape. So I dipped out of seeing the high line or World Trade Centre – or any of the other sights I missed last time round – and also failed to down a New York pizza. Just sat in a tiny drab hotel room needing to charge my Apple devices one by one; phone first, then iPad then watch.

And, guess what. I could not find my Apple charger! What a tosser!! I must have left it back in Queens. Nothing charged and heavy rain; that’s it I thought. The day gone. A valuable day in Manhattan literally down the drain. I would have been soaked through to the skin just crossing the road, but needed something to eat. Luckily the Manhattan Diner right next door was pretty good, so coffee and cheeseburger it was.

Whilst in the diner I came to the realisation that the absence of a charger forced me, despite the deluge, to get to the Apple Store on 5th Avenue. Yes, I would be wet through but my dependence on phone and watch to get directions, make calls and pay for things was, I am sorry to say, almost overwhelming.

Were it not for that I would not have ventured out at all. I had never been so relieved to get to an Apple store and the staff were, as ever, very helpful and let me sit down for an hour or so whilst they charged my iPhone – at least to a reasonable level. I left quite a puddle on the floor – apologies for that!

Leaving the store I ran to the nearest coffee shop. Finding a good coffee shop in New York was considerably more difficult than I expected. Starbucks seem to have a near monopoly; Newton Abbot has six times the choice! But I regrettably ended up in Starbucks anyway; what else was I going to do?

Starbucks – oh dear! – and back to Queens

After Starbucks I was pretty much straight back to the hotel. My coat, shoes and jeans were wet through but luckily I found a very helpful Chinese launderette just around the corner. After that I decided I could not bear another might in the hotel, so I checked out and headed back to Queens on the subway via Brooklyn – 2 to Fulton and the J to Queens – 2 hours and I was back at Auntie Sachee’s for one more night.