Friends, I have a confession to make. Though I have lived lo these many years in Gotham, it was not until yesterday that I went on the full 3 hour Circle Line tour. Yes, I hear your gasps.

“How can this be?” you whisper to yourself in horrified amazement. “Surely, in all this time, she has been on the Circle Line.” And you’d be correct. I have been on the Circle Line. I’ve done the Harbor Lights Cruise until I am blue in the face. Every time someone recalled that I had a guest room, I took them on that trip. But not once in all these years have I committed myself to the full Circle. The three hour ride around Manhattan.

And now, I have.

And I have many pictures (some excellent shots of bridges that I am especially pleased with and - as you see, many pictures of people taking pictures). Those pictures shall be uploaded and shared shortly.

But as a brief teaser, let me tell you this - it was very entertaining. The three hours goes by pretty fast, the guide was engaging, spoke clearly and had clearly spent a good deal of time tying all the little facets of history into a single narrative. Though I must in all honesty say that though he spoke convincingly and with assurance, he was NOT always correct. But look, most of the folks on the tour aren’t from here, won’t be back again or at least not for some time and don’t need to be 100% correct. They want to see the sights, snap their pictures and say they’ve been there. It needs to be mostly correct and sound reasonable. It was and it did.

So a moderate bravo to our guide. A small deduction in points for his use of the “word” (and I use the word “word” loosely) unonymously. I presume that if it existed, it would mean that everyone secretly voted the same way. I am determined to use it whenever and where ever I can until the happy day it makes it into the OED.

Of course a few things were skipped that I would have included. Bound to occur on a trip so chock full of things “to our left” and “to our right”, not to mention, “just ahead of us.” But that’s quibbling. I pointed those things out to my Guest Du Jour (who will shall call Texas Belle for reasons of privacy) and to the couple in front of us who kept turning around and asking me stuff (after she determined that I was in fact a resident of NYC).

So, pictures soon. More to come.

If you find yourself in NY and are looking for a good overview, a pleasant way to spend 3 hours or want to see as many sights as you can in one go - the Circle Line is a good bet. As the Circle Line site says, the three hour tour covers “3 rivers, 7 major bridges, 5 boroughs, over 25 world renowned landmark.” Not bad for a morning’s work.