Seatac to NYC

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First day of a new adventure! I was up and showered by 5:30am and ready to go. I said my goodbyes to Mom and Diana (Mom saw me off to the shuttle, in tears, as always :D) and I was on my way. Security was smooth and was sitting on the plane before I knew it. I lucked out and sat next to 2 really cool UW alums, Marilynn and Brian. Marilynn was a talker, which suited me just fine. Their daughter had just gotten married and Brian had taken a ton of photos, but Marilynn had no idea how to use the digital camera. She asked me to figure it out and I showed her how to change the different modes. She was very grateful. The whole flight she kept telling me what a great young man I was, and shared some almonds and trail mix with me. Marilynn and Brian were flying to New York to catch up with some old friends and family they haven't seen in a long time, they were both in their 60s. We landed a half hour early and fetched my pack, everything was intact. I put my pack into storage (my essentials were with me in a smaller backpack) and was on my way.
NY subways smell. Like piss and barf. It's kinda gross. But they're fast and efficient, and the E train got me to where I needed to be... Harlem. Oh yeah. Home of the Apollo Theater and more cheap Chinese food restaurants than you can shake a chopstick at. I got off one stop late and had to walk from 125th to 113th, but even that wasn't bad. I think Harlem must have cleaned up, because I only felt unsafe once, when I stopped to take a pic of the Apollo Theater. I stopped and pulled out my camera and it was like, boom, all at once everyone knew I was an outsider, and all these signals went off in my head. So I quickly moved on and everything was fine. The hostel was alright, I met some cool Europeans and we talked about different places in the world. I have a lot to see, in due time. After watching some Olympics and eating some cheap stir-fry, I was off to bed. Tomorrow I was going to explore New York.

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Photos

The Wanderer's Inn
Like something out of Tolkien