Advertisement
Published: April 20th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Lady Liberty
Give her a wave, immigrants! After spending a long day checking out the monuments in DC and doing a bit of admin it was up at the crack of dawn to catch my 7:10 train to the Big Apple. With the sounds of Sinatra crooning about the city that never sleeps I wandered through the streets to the Metro station as the sun rose about the capital of the United States. It had been a nice few days, and I was wary of what New York was going to be like. The hostel had mixed reviews, and after the safe bet of a YHA it was like a jump into the darkness going for the Continental Hostel on W96th and Broadway.
I got to the station at 6.15 and settled in to wait. I could tell that this train journey was going to be infinately better than my last, simply because this time I had no headache.
The Northeast Regional set off on time and the journey was nothing special, with a minor delay causing us to arrive about 20 minutes later than expected. I stepped off the train, clutching my bags tightly, and plunged straight into a maelstrom.
Now, armchair travellers or
New York Minute
Times Square, hectic as always those who are taking a break from their own adventures, don't get me wrong. I knew New York was going to be busy - its impossible to imagine otherwise.
I hadn't realised just how quickly everyone walks though. That may well be how the uppercrust, high-end Manhattan-ites stay in shape - they bloody well run everywhere. I walked through a large section of Penn St Station to reach the 1 Train heading Uptown, and noticed with alarm that I was being overtaken constantly by speed-walking suited and booted businessmen and women who were literally legging it around the station. One almost knocked me over at one point.
Assuming this would be the speed of life in NYC, I adapted quickly and became easily irritable with slow people. And this my friends, is the massive irony.
Despite everyone in the city RUSHING around trying to get everywhere, I can guarantee that the moment you end up behind someone at the MetroCard machine to buy your ticket for the train, the New York minute will suddenly grin to a mesmirising, frustrating, unbelieveable YEAR.
The old woman at the machine spent a good 10 minutes trying in vain to get a
Manhattanite
Moi, fitting in quite well, non? ruddy card for the subway, and it was only when I took a sneaky over-the-shoulder peek at what the hell she was doing that I realised that despite being a lady of Hispanic ethnicity and there being a Spanish option (as well as French, German, Italian, etc) on the machine...she'd chosen English and didn't understand it. This led to numerous 'cancels' where I hoped she'd finally choose the Spanish option but instead opted again for English, shaking her head in frustration at her inability to understand what on Earth it all meant. I was almost as though she had determined to teach herself English at this machine with no Spanish prompts. Bless her.
With that ordeal over, and the old woman satisfied with her 2 dollar purchase on the machine, I strode triumphantly up the stairs with a 20 buck MetroCard clasped in my now clammy palms, heading to catch the Number 1 Train Uptown to 96th Street.
Some 10 or 15 stops and a hoard of dirty looks, "sorrys" and disapproving nods at my bags (I swear they were just looking at ZenDog. What a let down) I stepped out onto the wide expanse of Broadway. But
My true love
Cheesecake....yum yum yum not the famous Broadway, the Broadway further up that no-one cares about and where the big feature is a Dunkin' Donuts.
The hostel was nearby and alarm bells rang when on the door was a massive notice banning further construction. Below was a handwritten note assuring that the hostel was still open. Not a great start. But couldn't get any worse, surely?
Not quite. I was told that check in wasn't until 3. Standard procedure. Are there any lockers to dump my bags? Yes in the basement.
Down some spiralling, dangerous, seemingly cardboard stairs. Fab. I dumped the bags (avoiding certain death) and headed out to explore for a bit. The local area was mostly shops and fast food places, so I went back to the basement and chilled out with my Ipod and a book until 3. When I did finally check in, I was glad to find that the room, tho small, was comfortable and clean, and met Jess, a future lawyer from Holland who I got chatting to.
Still tired after my battle with the fatal disease in Washington and the early start, I hit the hay.
The next morning I met
Grand Central
Art deco in abundance the other occupants of the room - 3 guys from Worthing and a girl called Heather from San Fransisco. Best to mention now that Heather won't be making another appearance in the blog - she kept herself to herself and outright avoided us for the entire stay, so she isn't really of much note.
The guys from Worthing - Joss, Sam and Mike - were pretty cool, and invited me to hang out with them in the basement in the evening. I spent the day wandering the city, taking pictures of all the usual touristy stuff and walking from the bottom of Battery Park to Times Square - a considerable chunk of Manhattan real estate lies between so you'll understand my position when I say it took me over an hour to walk it.
On the way I saw the WTC memorial site, still under construction, as well as the massive Debenhams that everyone raves about but I think is pants, Macys.
Ending up in Times Square, I got myself tickets for a show the next night and then the subway back to the hostel to collapse. After an evening chilling out with a few bevvies with the English
boys I hit the hay.
The next day followed a fairly similar pattern, ending with me seeing Blithe Spirit, a Noel Coward play that had ol'Ange Lansbury and Rupert Everett and was damned funny old chap, even if the fat Canadian woman sat next to me let off a MASSIVE fart at one point and then gave me a dirty look as if it were I that was guilty of such a henious crime.
Checking out the Natural History Museum, and being disappointed that Ben Stiller wasn't there, sums up the day after that, but on my last full day in NYC Jess and I headed out to Liberty and Ellis Islands to do the Immigrant thing. It was pretty cool. Then in the afternoon was the event that I'd been waiting for since I left Hammond -
- I had tickets to see a Yankees game at their new stadium. Their second game at the new stadium, in fact. Which they won. Excellent. Even in the nosebleed section fans were jumping around and going wild! It was fantastic.
In the evening Jess invited me to a comedy club she had free tickets for, so off
Take me out to the ball game
Yankees new Stadium. Excellent! we went. Unimpressed by the first act, the night was made by a Hispanic comedian doing an impression of an Indian NYPD cop. Genius. You have to see it to understand why, to the distress of the others in the Internet Room, I'm crying with laughter while typing about it.
When we got back to the hostel there was a note waiting for us from the Worthing lads.
Mouse invasion.
Balls. This was China all over again.
I packed my bags and went to track the guys down while Jess stressed out (for a girl planning to move to New York next year she really needs to stop being surprised about rats. And Mexicans. Incensed that there were so many Mexicans in the city! She needs to be a bit more careful...) and found them with a present for me - a rather large bottle of bud in a signed paper bag. Legendary.
Being the gent that I am I went to rescue Jess from the Killer Mice of Doom and she relocated to another area of the hostel. The rest of the night then was spent drinking and chilling out with the English (le shock, le
You can always tell a tourist...
...because they're looking up. The Empire State Building horreur) who I'll more than likely meet up with in Frisco when I get there.
Good stuff. So here I am in Penn St Station once again, worn out and only half ready for a 17 hour train ride.
C'est la vie. Allon-sy!
LTYM
Peace out
xxxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.051s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 12; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0303s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb