The Big Apple

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I just arrived in Manhattan!

I stopped for four hours in Sydney and a couple of hours in Los Angeles (It's really really big) to clear customs, and then arrived in New York city (which is also really really big) right on schedule at 5:30pm local time. I'd like to thank Paul and Danielle from Sydney for getting off at LA so I had three seats to myself for the LA-NY leg. I slept about three hours on that flight, which was the most I got on any trip.

When I got off the plane at JFK airport in NY, I claimed my baggage and got in a black cab with a well dressed sneaky looking driver. Some pearls of wisdom from my friendly New York City taxi driver:

"So your parents earn a lot of money?"
"You should have caught the bus man"
"Check out that piece of ass!"
"Hoochie Mama!"

and of course...

"Yo"

He then charged me $135 (including tolls and tip) for the cab ride which took a little under an hour. (I should have caught the bus...). Anyway I got to my hotel quickly and safely which is the main thing. My hotel is half a block (about 100m) from Times Square, which was really busy even on a Monday evening. The hotel's pretty dingy. A local in the elevator told me to "make sure you check your bed before you lay in it".

Which I did. It's fine.

I then went to pick up my Greyhound ticket for tomorrow morning, got a steak sandwich from "Kosher Delights" (it was pretty greasy), and bought some breakfast, bottled water and an alarm clock for tomorrow morning from the 24 hour pharmacy.

It looked like there was a band setting up above the entry to the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square so I'm gonna go check that out now.

Hope all is well in Perth.

Renan.

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Comments

[Sam]

Taxi
You idiot. Why would you get a taxi? Aren't there cheap shuttle busses?!?!? Was that $135 USD or AUD? Let us know about Hard Rock. We went to the one in Sydney, and we're gonna go to the one on the Gold Coast too. We went to Hooters last night. I didn't even know we had them in Australia.

[gemma]

I miss you!
Glad u arrived safe i miss you already ren ren, Your Renican just doesnt cut it!

[Ryan]

Heya
Gday Mate, Good to see you've arrived safely, all be it a little jet lagged! Cheers for putting in such a big effort on saturday night :) Remember by goal for you... find all the good places for me and scott to go visit ;) Have fun mate.