30.7.2012 – 30.7.2012  33 °C

Unfortunately, we had to get up early this morning to go get our rental car from JFK airport.. Gosh I was feeling like death warmed up after our previous night! I just don’t function on much sleep!! Anyway, I spent an hour getting my junk all repacked up (or thrown out) and then D and I hit the subway for our hour long trip out to the airport. The trip itself was very uneventful and it was quite nice to just sit down and read my book for an hour!

We got out to the airport and found the rental car pickup area. Got to the front of the queue and asked for our usual upgrade option, the chick behind the counter told us to go and check out a couple of options outside. (I should have mentioned that our car rental mob is Dollar—every other rental car company has been National or Alamo) Ok so we wander outside to check out the options. We had ordered a Chevy Impala so the first thing we did was check it out.. Hmm.. luxurious? Hmm NO.. Ok so upgrade option, Ford Crowne Victoria.. OMG! The upgrade option is what taxis or police cars are here in the States!! And the rental car agency wants us to pay extra for driving around in an ex-taxi or an ex-police car???? Are they crazy?

So we went back to the original option that we had paid for the Chevy Impala… The only reason we took the car is we know that we are only renting it for four days from NY to Washington DC and so as long as our stuff fits inside we’ll survive. Now, one small issue with this car is that it has a few dings and dents on the car, so I go back inside to see the lady to tell her we’ll take the Impala but could we have a repair report so that we can note the dings before we take the car… Her response was (and this is a direct quote) “is the fender on? As long as the fender is still attached to the car you’re ok”.. No wonder this car is such a piece of junk, and according to the odometer it has only done 10,000 miles!!!!

After driving from JFK back into town to pick up M and our gear, D and I had agreed that the Chevy Impala is a total piece of junk.. we’ve renamed Dollar to Pennies (no cents here).. The interior is made of that cheap plastic stuff, the doors do not make a nice “clunk” noise when you close them, its more like “bang”. Seats are uncomfortable… The overall feel is cheap and nasty.. My twelve year old corolla is a nicer car than this one!

Anyway, we picked up M (and our junk) and said goodbye to NYC! We drove over from Manhattan to New Jersey and started our drive south. We didn’t really have a plan for today but D was keen to see the Jersey shore so we headed towards Atlantic City. None of us really expected to have a big opinion of Atlantic City, I was thinking Tacky-ville Vegas with a beach (and I think that was sort of the mental image of D and M).. The three of us were pleasantly surprised! We arrived into Atlantic City and were immediately greeted with a tourist info office. We hopped in, twenty minutes later walked out with a hotel booking (at the Tropicana Casino) and heaps of cheap vouchers and we started on our Beachside Vegas visit.

I’m sure Atlantic City was once a daggy, hooker-ville (because we all had that sort of image in our minds) but at some stage in the past twenty years it has cleaned up its act and it is now a really nice place to spend the evening. Even though I was bone tired we all went for a wander down the boardwalk towards the other casinos. Atlantic City is setup so that all of the casinos are right behind the main sand dune overlooking the beach. Directly in front of the casinos is this few miles of continuos wooden boardwalk which is the hub of Atlantic City.

Hundreds of people were out tonight wandering along the boardwalk gawking at the shops and the glitzy neon lights of the casinos. It really is a great setup.. pedestrian only and the boardwalk stretches for as far as we could see. We wandered a little ways down the boardwalk to Ballys and Caesars palace.. yep, both of the big names are here in Atlantic City (actually all of the big names are here!). We found the best place to have dinner. It was this small food court out on Caesar’s boardwalk (somehow Caesars seems to have done a deal with the local council and has built this shopping centre out over the main dune to the beach….. I wonder if a bit of money changed hands to allow this centre to be built…). Inside the food court you could get all sorts of basic dinners, I chose a shrimp and vege udon soup  for 8 dollars!! It is no joke, the best udon I’ve had in I don’t know how long.. really good and SO cheap! (I don’t think I could have bought McD’s for that price…)

We wandered back up to our hotel after dinner, but before turning in M&I couldn’t help it… we put a few dollars back into our wheel of fortune slot machine (we won 500 dollars on the one in Vegas) to try and recapture that winning spirit… We both felt lucky, but fell into a big heap!!! No big winners here in Atlantic City!

Song of the Day– Bruce Springsteen, Atlantic City