New York: here we are! ACU students from Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne

Up up and away! Students from 3 ACU campuses (Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane) met in Los Angeles to head together to New York to study “The Literature and Drama of New York” which James Marland and myself are teaching this year and in subsequent years if all goes to plan:

We arrived after a 24 hour journey via LA.

Over LA:

Snow over the Mountains behind LA:

The Grand Canyon and the Mid-West- snow covered:

We left Sydney at 11.30am (after a 3 hour check in) and have now hit New York.

Arrival: outside it is 3 degrees C:

 

Our base is The Woolcott Hotel– next to 5th Avenue- where we arrived at around 7pm (Tuesday) cruising slowly through the huge New York peak hour traffic: we think we have it bad in Australia!

In the foyer of the Woolcott:

Overall it has been a great journey so far in which we have all had a chance to have many informal conversations the like of which you just don’t get space and time for back at Uni: and we had a wonderful airhost/ steward (Anthony) who entertained us with stories about how snooty and phoney were the passengers in the floor above us in the massive A380:

The longest stretch from Sydney to LA was very empty and most of us managed to stretch out on a 3 or 4 seat bench: I feel amazingly rested, as do quite a few others. Here in New York it is raining and cold, but there is excitement in the air. Shops are open till around 10pm and we are all scurrying out to find food before we turn in for the night. Tomorrow is the first big day: we go on a  walking tour through Greenwich Village and East Village, exploring the landscapes and residences that belong to the real and imagined worlds of Henry James (Washington Square), F Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) and J.D. Salinger (Catcher in the Rye). We are hoping to find the actual house in which Henry James was born and of course we will explore all the many references to Central Park in Fitzgerald’s and Salinger’s work- especially the Carousel which became the place where Holden reached some kind of epiphany!.

Tomorrow night we head off to see “Waitress” in Broadway…. the first of our selection of Broadway plays that we are taking in this week:

More tomorrow!

MG