New York, NY.
I had a hard time in New York city, constantly reminding myself that I wasn't in an American movie, or a character on FRIENDS, or Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and The City! Instead, I was a little English lass, living as a traveller in a small hostel on the upper west side - with a whole bunch of other tourists. Still, I did have a lot of fun daydreaming and seeing the sights of the ol Big Apple - even if I did have to travel by metro, instead of by the quintessential 'yellow cab'...
*
After another arduous, overnight bus trip (this time 17 hours from Chicago - and I would write about it, but I have already blocked the horror of it from my mind... delays, over allocation of seats, obnoxious female greyhound employees, passengers who stink... you get the point), Karlos and I finally arrived in New York City. The final destination of our US adventure, and a place I had dreamed of visiting for as long as I can remember. I had been sleeping on the bus (as best I could) and woke with perfect timing - suddenely realising "that's Manhattan!" as we drove over the Manhattan Bridge towards downtown. All I could think was "du, du, du, du-du..." - that blasted New York, New York song! It played in my head the moment I arrived, like some sort of theme song. I think I may even have sung a line or two on the train at some point... but it was excusable - I was excited!
We were stoked to find out that our hostel was just 2 blocks from a subway stop - ding ding! We dumped out backpacks and wasted no time in exploring the city... first stop was Ground Zero.
It was kind of surreal visiting Ground Zero. I had never been to New York city before, and so had never seen the twin towers of course, but I had a pretty good idea of what they had once looked like - and we all know that horrific scene as the towers collapsed - so to see the massive construction site spread out before us was pretty sad. A dozen or so men were also stood on the street corner spouting off about a conspiracy theory that the US government knew about the attacks before they happened, ignored warnings etc, and therefore the tragedy could have been prevented. I wasn't sure how I felt about this, to be honest. I really don't know enough about the politics involved, and for various reasons have always found it preferable (in life in general) not to get too weighed down by that stuff. This is in no way meant to sound as careless as it comes across - I consider it quite the opposite in fact. I don't trust a single thing the media tells us, and so I rarely watch/read the news or care much about current "issues." If something affects my life directly - I will find out all of the facts about it, generate informed opinions and then plan any necessary courses of action etc based on that. I therefore felt removed enough in this situation to simply walk on... admittedly surprised, that after almost 9 years there were still men on the street corners, passionately fighting for the "truth" in this case. I hope they get the support and answers that they need, from the people who can give it.
Next we caught the Staten Island ferry (which is totally free by the way - my favourite word at the moment!) and cruised passed the statue of liberty, getting great shots of ourselves next to the NYC skyline... it had been a long day though, without any sleep on the bus... so after falling asleep on the ferry, we decided to head back to our hostel for a nap.
A few hours later, after the sun had long set - Karlos talked me into heading out for some drinks and fun times. We found a nice little bar on Amsterdam that served good strong drinks - so we stayed there all night. It was a lot of fun... but admittedly ended in being one of those "I'm never drinking again" morning afters. Why do I keep letting this happen to myself? They pour drinks really strong over here (truth) so I end up drinking more alcohol than I would in the same number of drinks back home (theory).
After a really slow start to the next day, and a hangover cure of McDonalds (pretty shitty goodness wherever in the world you are) we hauled our asses to Times Square, faught our way through crowds of kids in Toys R Us, as I avoided glares from Karlos as to "why the hell did we come in here," before finding ourselves on Broadway (like how I keep dropping these big apple place names? eh eh) in the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. That was a real laugh, in a nice air conditioned room - perfect to escape the city heat for a couple of hours and reminding me that the one thing NZ needs to get onto, is interesting museums for kiwis to get lost in... great way to spend an avo. Rather than explain the museum - I would be here all day - here is an interesting link: http://www.ripleysnewyork.com/buy-tickets.cfm?gclid=CN22i_Ci5qICFQ4EZgodrjEQww
Anyway, that night we were keen to see some live performances in NYC... and after figuring that Mary Poppins or The Lion King were probably not Karlos' style, we settled on going to see some standup comedy, off Broadway. This was awesome fun. Lots of african american men taking the piss out of themselves and all of us - and I spent most of the evening trying not to pee my pants laughing, or catch the eye of one of the comedians - just in case I get ribbed in some way. Karlos got a little bit of stick for his facial hair, but only in a "wouldn't wanna mess with you kind of way." Hahaha. He looks so hard these days, it's a shame - he's the sweetest thing to make fun of - those comedians missed out, I thought! Hahahaha. Anyway - the night ended with a big ol slice of pepperoni pizza and two happy chappys returned to our abode.
I had a hard time in New York city, constantly reminding myself that I wasn't in an American movie, or a character on FRIENDS, or Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and The City! Instead, I was a little English lass, living as a traveller in a small hostel on the upper west side - with a whole bunch of other tourists. Still, I did have a lot of fun daydreaming and seeing the sights of the ol Big Apple - even if I did have to travel by metro, instead of by the quintessential 'yellow cab'...
*
After another arduous, overnight bus trip (this time 17 hours from Chicago - and I would write about it, but I have already blocked the horror of it from my mind... delays, over allocation of seats, obnoxious female greyhound employees, passengers who stink... you get the point), Karlos and I finally arrived in New York City. The final destination of our US adventure, and a place I had dreamed of visiting for as long as I can remember. I had been sleeping on the bus (as best I could) and woke with perfect timing - suddenely realising "that's Manhattan!" as we drove over the Manhattan Bridge towards downtown. All I could think was "du, du, du, du-du..." - that blasted New York, New York song! It played in my head the moment I arrived, like some sort of theme song. I think I may even have sung a line or two on the train at some point... but it was excusable - I was excited!
We were stoked to find out that our hostel was just 2 blocks from a subway stop - ding ding! We dumped out backpacks and wasted no time in exploring the city... first stop was Ground Zero.
It was kind of surreal visiting Ground Zero. I had never been to New York city before, and so had never seen the twin towers of course, but I had a pretty good idea of what they had once looked like - and we all know that horrific scene as the towers collapsed - so to see the massive construction site spread out before us was pretty sad. A dozen or so men were also stood on the street corner spouting off about a conspiracy theory that the US government knew about the attacks before they happened, ignored warnings etc, and therefore the tragedy could have been prevented. I wasn't sure how I felt about this, to be honest. I really don't know enough about the politics involved, and for various reasons have always found it preferable (in life in general) not to get too weighed down by that stuff. This is in no way meant to sound as careless as it comes across - I consider it quite the opposite in fact. I don't trust a single thing the media tells us, and so I rarely watch/read the news or care much about current "issues." If something affects my life directly - I will find out all of the facts about it, generate informed opinions and then plan any necessary courses of action etc based on that. I therefore felt removed enough in this situation to simply walk on... admittedly surprised, that after almost 9 years there were still men on the street corners, passionately fighting for the "truth" in this case. I hope they get the support and answers that they need, from the people who can give it.
Next we caught the Staten Island ferry (which is totally free by the way - my favourite word at the moment!) and cruised passed the statue of liberty, getting great shots of ourselves next to the NYC skyline... it had been a long day though, without any sleep on the bus... so after falling asleep on the ferry, we decided to head back to our hostel for a nap.
A few hours later, after the sun had long set - Karlos talked me into heading out for some drinks and fun times. We found a nice little bar on Amsterdam that served good strong drinks - so we stayed there all night. It was a lot of fun... but admittedly ended in being one of those "I'm never drinking again" morning afters. Why do I keep letting this happen to myself? They pour drinks really strong over here (truth) so I end up drinking more alcohol than I would in the same number of drinks back home (theory).
After a really slow start to the next day, and a hangover cure of McDonalds (pretty shitty goodness wherever in the world you are) we hauled our asses to Times Square, faught our way through crowds of kids in Toys R Us, as I avoided glares from Karlos as to "why the hell did we come in here," before finding ourselves on Broadway (like how I keep dropping these big apple place names? eh eh) in the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. That was a real laugh, in a nice air conditioned room - perfect to escape the city heat for a couple of hours and reminding me that the one thing NZ needs to get onto, is interesting museums for kiwis to get lost in... great way to spend an avo. Rather than explain the museum - I would be here all day - here is an interesting link: http://www.ripleysnewyork.com/buy-tickets.cfm?gclid=CN22i_Ci5qICFQ4EZgodrjEQww
Anyway, that night we were keen to see some live performances in NYC... and after figuring that Mary Poppins or The Lion King were probably not Karlos' style, we settled on going to see some standup comedy, off Broadway. This was awesome fun. Lots of african american men taking the piss out of themselves and all of us - and I spent most of the evening trying not to pee my pants laughing, or catch the eye of one of the comedians - just in case I get ribbed in some way. Karlos got a little bit of stick for his facial hair, but only in a "wouldn't wanna mess with you kind of way." Hahaha. He looks so hard these days, it's a shame - he's the sweetest thing to make fun of - those comedians missed out, I thought! Hahahaha. Anyway - the night ended with a big ol slice of pepperoni pizza and two happy chappys returned to our abode.
The next day we did the 'tourist must-do' visit to Central Park, which is waaaay bigger than I realised spanning over 50 blocks from north to south. Our first stop was of course to visit Strawberry Fields, to "imagine," and after that we wandered south to the Bethesda Fountain for a splash and a gawk at all the fit bunnies exercising down there (I hated them and their buff, tanned bodies the bints). We then listened to someone playing the harp as we mosied down literacy mile (complete with statues of various english and scottish writers, squirrels, joggers and their iPods, and thick green trees). This brought us to central park south where we then joined 5th avenue and wandered passed designers stores, had a nosey at the new iPads in the Apple store (want want want), bought a new pair of Aviators for $8 (Karlos sat on my last pair), and went into Trump Tower. We eventually made our way to Rockefeller Plaza and found a nice place for lunch - soup, salads, fresh bagels - gobble gobble. Eating in America can be healthy at times, but always cheap, so we were happy.
As if this wasn't enough for one day (we should be stick thin with all the walking we are doing DAMMIT) we headed down to the south street seaport to visit the BODIES exhibit. I am watching my tourist dollars, but this was worth the US$20 to get in. It was a science exhibit, basically consisting of a lot of different rooms with various human body parts on display. Not for everyone, perhaps. Grown men have aparrantly fled from the exhibit clutching their stomachs - but I found it thoroughly educational and interesting. Where else can you see an exhibit like this, I wondered? God I love New York!
It was very tastefully done - bodies had been dissected, drained of fluids etc, treated, and covered in a type of plastic so they were colourful and appeared less gruesome than you may imagine. The first room was various bones - so lots of different bones were on display under glass, and skeletons were also positioned around the room for you to look at (but not touch). Next room was muscles - same deal. One box would have a slab of human muscle and an arrow saying - these are your leg muscles - and so on. This time the skeletons around the room would still have tendons and muscles attached to them so you could start to get a picture of how the body is made up. Next few rooms were body organs, and it went on. I enjoyed the exhibit, learned a lot - but was grateful for the fresh air outside when we got out!
We had big plans to walk the Brooklyn Bridge next, seeing as we were downtown - but had already made plans to catch up with friends that evening, and had already seen so much that day - that a nap was in order! It was a good nap, and a good evening catching up with Tyson and his girlfriend Sarah (NZ friends of Karlos) followed it.
The next day was our last - we ventured into Central Park again, getting lost on the way to the MET, before we eventually gave up and caught a metro to Brooklyn to tackle the Brooklyn bridge instead. This was a great way to end our time in NYC - walking over the bridge towards Manhattan, watching the cityscape get bigger and bigger, closer and closer, with every step - until we were lost inside of it once more - making our way back to our hostel one last time, to collect our backpacks, and ride the metro all the way to JFK airport - for a flight out of NYC, and out of the USA...
*
Having had an intense 4 days exploring the city, I had yet another hard time on our departure - was the long list of things we managed to see and do longer than the list of things still to be done? Probably not, I figured. After all, this is a city that never sleeps. A place where there is a multitude of things to see and do at every corner, any day of the week, and any time of day. In order to fully appreciate NYC, I think I would have to live here for a lifetime. So dillemah over - I left NYC, and at the same time - the USA, realising that I/we had explored as much as we were able - and for all of the stuff we missed... we'll be back some
day.
~ Comet xo
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