Kate & Holly haunting the NYC subway system.

Today is the official start of our trip around the world. For the next 100+ days, we’ll travel completely around the world entirely using ground and sea transport. Mostly trains to cross North America and Eurasia and two cruises to cross the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

We left Penn Station in New York City this morning at 7:15 a.m. on Amtrak 63, the “Maple Leaf” to Toronto. This train travels north following the beautiful Hudson River to Albany. The Maple Leaf then turns west to cross the Empire State stopping at Schenectady, Amsterdam, Utica, Rome, Syracuse, and Rochester to Buffalo, NY. From Buffalo we head to Niagara Falls where we will cross into Canada and continue on to Toronto. (Although we go through the town of Niagara Falls, we won’t have the opportunity to see Niagara Falls on this trip and from what I’ve read, we won’t see it from the train.)

Tonight we will catch a show at the Toronto Second City and tomorrow we’ll have time to see some of Toronto before our train leaves at 10:00 p.m. Saturday night to take us across Canada to Vancouver.

We left Santa Barbara three days ago to come to New York to help our daughter Kate prepare her classroom for the start of the new school year. After completing her master’s degree from Teacher’s College in NYC, she decided to stay in New York and will be teaching a 1^st grade class at Grant Avenue Elementary School in the Bronx. We did have two nice dinners with Kate and her boyfriend Leighton. We really enjoyed “Pasha” a Turkish restaurant on West 71^st street near our hotel.  Leighton chose the restaurant and we realized that we had eaten there on a previous trip five years ago and also really liked it then.

I’m not complaining, but the last few trips to NYC have not included much fun or sightseeing.  Mostly we seem to be packing, unpacking, moving and cleaning.  It’s a good thing we are cleaning professionals.  On our prior trip to New York, Holly and I saw Tom Hanks on Broadway in “Lucky Guy”.  Fantastic.  A lot of fun.  This trip, no time for Broadway.

A quick stop in Albany to mail a postcard to Natalie.