Anyway so I have a friend who lives in Manhatten and offered a free place to stay as well as guide, and who could refuse this? Some of my pics didn't really turn out that great due to resizing, but what can ya do.
I flew into LaGuardia airport and my flight landed at about 10:45pm this past Thursday. From there I hopped in a cab and told the driver to take me to Manhatten. At this point I was pretty awestruck, but at the same time slightly nervous as I watched the fare meter balloon from $2.50 all the way to $34. By the time I got to Andrea's I had already spent ~$40 and I hadn't even been in New York an hour. Eek. Anyhow, once I got there I wanted to go out, so it was off to Times Square.
There wasn't very many people out because it was Thursday night, and well it was pretty dang cold. It was odd actually standing there after seeing it so many times on TV and in movies. Then we walked to everyone's favorite GOP headquarters, otherwise known as Fox News. You can look into where they normally broadcast, and since they don't broadcast anything after midnight there was no one there. I settled for a picture of the outside news ticker as well as the Fox News shadow on the floor inside (but it didn't come out so I won't post it).
After that we walked by Rockefeller Center. I apparently don't know how to take pictures at night so this is blurry. Sue me. We also saw the ice skating rink which is supposedly hideously expensive. Across the street from that was St. Patrick's Cathedral, which stood in stark contrast to all the buildings around it.
Also close by was the infamous soup kitchen of the Seinfield variety. Of course, it's closed for renovations but hey, I got to see it anyway. Come back, one year.
By this time we were both freezing, as it was rather windy. Walking back to her apartment we passed 54th Street, where apparently it is still Christmas.
Friday was go everywhere and be touristy day. I did more walking than I typically do in a week. I wanted to go see the WTC, as well as downtown. To get there we made use of the fantabulous NYC subway system. It's actually illegal to take pictures in the station, for terrorism reasons I suppose. I claim innocence in the name of ignorance, not to mention there was only about 4 other people down there anyway.
Once we arrived downtown, I walked out of the subway and took in the huge buildings all around. Across from me I immediately noticed a very conspicious empty space which should not have been there. It was, of course, the former site for the World Trade Center. It was crazy seeing such an empty place in the middle of downtown especially when thinking about what used to stand there, not to mention all the people who died on 9/11.
Erected out of scrap metal from the site was a cross.
Across the street from there was the church which was turned into a makeshift hospital on 9/11. It seems out of place.
After looking around we turned around and headed towards Wall Street. A lot of it was blocked off to traffic was some reason, likely because of all the construction going on down there.
Just up the street from this was the American Stock Exchange building, which strangely enough was located in front of a cemetery. I'm not sure what that's all about.
Just a block away from the ASE was the NYSE building. Scary looking people were standing in front, no doubt to dissuade vagabonds from entering.
Across the street from there was the place where George Washington was innuagurated as president. So, someone decided to make a statue of him.
By this time we were becoming hungry, so it was back to the subway with us. On it we encountered a bum sleeping on one of the seats. Just kidding, that's actually me.
Subway rides are actually pretty lulling if you have a seat. Anyway, we took a train to Soho, which is a distinct area of Manhatten. The closest approximation that I can make of it is that it's a NYC version of Atlanta's Virginia Highlands, except cooler since it's like, in NYC and stuff.
We stopped at a small restaurant called Milady's where I got a monstrous hamburger which was rather tasty.
After eating we continued north on our journey to see cool stuff. Here we stopped to fcuk around for a moment.
We were going to go in but it turns out we were on the wrong fcuking side. That name just lends itself to all sorts of stupid puns. But, I won't annoy anyone with my fcuking puns any further.
What trendy area of a city would be complete without a huge Apple store? I would make the argument that it's essential. Soho is no exception, and we just happened to go by an Apple store filled to the brim with trendy Mac users. It almost made me want a Mac for myself. But then my rational side reminded me that there's absolutely no reason to have one other than the effects you see when you minimize a window or something of the sort.
Also nearby was Chinatown. I wasn't impressed at all, and truth be told it was actually kinda lame. It wasn't much different from its surrounding area, save for the signs in chinese and a bunch of open stores selling all kinds of useless junk and whathaveyou. From here, we ditched all those crazy asians and got on the subway and headed to Central Park. Here we saw breakdancers. Before they started, they even told a knock-knock joke. The crowd asked who it was, and the guy replied 'Phillip'. "Phillip who?" the crowd asked. 'Phillip the bucket'. Hardee har har. Anyway, they were actually pretty good and I don't think that I ever saw anyone spin on their heads prior to this. This guy was pretty good at the back flip.
Anyhow, for some reason someone decided to set up a ton of ugly gates all through Central Park to hang some sorts of fabric from. They were bright orange. When we were there the fabric hadn't been hung yet so it was kinda useless (but I did see them with the fabbric from afar the next day, and they were still ugly.)
At least they didn't soil the mall with the ugly orange. Not completely, anyway.
Adjacent to Central Park is Columbus Circle and the Time Warner building. It was a rather impressive sight to behold. Trump Tower was next to them but I didn't take a picture.
We did all this in about 4 hours. Needless to say we were both pretty exhausted, so a bit of resting up was in order. Instead of going out for food we opted to get pizza instead. Then we went out to meet up with some of Andrea's friends at Rumor's, a nearby bar. I must say that NYC bars are incredible, mainly for one reason: no smoking. Instead of walking into a haze, the air is completely clear. Your clothes don't stink and neither does your hair. That's definitely something I could get used to, and I hope a similar law gets passed in Georgia (my apologies to anyone who reads this who smokes.) After that we we ended up at some club-type place called Calico something something. It was actually pretty fun. The people we were with were really cool also, so I really enjoyed myself.
I wasn't expecting to see pretty much everything on my list on the first day. However, I still hadn't seen the Empire State Building yet and it was on the agenda for Saturday. To do this required a lengthy walk. On the way I took a picture of Park Avenue cause well, it was kinda big and neat looking.
Anyway, I'm glad we waited until day 2 to do this because it took for-freaking ever. Once we came out of the subway, I was met with this view:
For some reason, silly me was thinking that you could just walk in, maybe go past security, get in an elevator and press '87' and go up. I was sorely mistaken. To go to the top you have to go downstairs and stand in line for an observatory ticket (which costs $13) and then go back upstairs two floors and wait in line again. Then they tear your ticket stub and you're herded into elevators and crammed in with as many others as can possibly fit very similar to sardines.
That being said, it was all very much worth it. Note the Statue of Liberty.
And my ugly mug so I can prove I was there.
There are two elevators - one that takes you from the 1st-80th floor, then a second one to go to the 86th. On the way back down, there was a line for the 6 floor elevator so we took the stairs. (I kinda wanted to take the stairs all the way down, just to say that I did it.) Once we reached the 80th floor, lo and behold was an open elevator shaft. Of course there were bars in front of it, but I couldn't resist getting a picture of an 80 floor shaft of doom and scariness.
Finally, we left the Empire State building. Byebye.
Rumbling stomachs prompted us to head back to Times Square to find food. On the way by we went past the New York public library, which looks more like a museum than a library.
The last one is the ceiling, pretty neat stuff. But, we didn't stay for long because of the aforementioned hunger. Then we made it back to Times Square so I figured I'd get a few daytime pictures.
This is where they film that god-awful excuse for a show called TRL. Blech. Luckily, there were no screaming teeny boppers present since it was Saturday.
After this we ate at Planet Hollywood. I don't have much to say about it because I'm not really impressed with places like this, but now I can say that I've eaten at Planet Hollywood on Times Square.
Much more resting followed, probably moreso than on Friday. Along the way somehow my left foot started hurting, and I'm not sure why. That night we went to a piano bar, which is humorously named "Bill's Gay Nineties." But on the way there, we stopped at a McDonalds to eat which was probably the fanciest McDonalds that I've ever seen. There was even a door man, but he was dressed in street clothes so I'm not sure what was going on with that. I'm only telling this story because while we were eating a couple guys walked by us and asked, "Can I interest you in a free cheeseburger?" complete with a thick british accent. We told him no and after he walked away we cracked up because it was somewhat bizarre. Anyway, back to Bill's Gay Nineties:
There weren't any gay people there. We were by far the youngest people in the place, and everyone else was probably old enough to have been our parents. But, this didn't matter because I have to say that this was probably the highlight of my trip. The place was really small, and we ended up sitting a few feet away from the guy playing piano who was really awesome. I heard a lot of classic piano stuff and it really put me in a good mood. He even played 'Georgia On My Mind' after we requested it.
(It was dark so I photoshopped a little more brightness).
There was also an old british couple sitting behind us, and the man cracked jokes the entire night. He obviously knew his music and often commented on the songs being a "marvelous piece of piano". He even talked to us some, and near the end of the night even bought us a round of drinks. I wish I knew of a place like that in Atlanta. It's hard to sum up what the atmosphere was like in words-at one point almost everyone in there was singing along.
The piano guy performed for at least 2 or 3 hours straight, which was a feat in and of itself. Finally when he was done we all said our goodbyes, I thanked the nice british man for the drinks and we went on our way. We stopped at Star Diner and I had the most delicious french toast ever (and it since it cost $15, I would have been pissed otherwise.)
And that's my trip. If you made it this far, good job.
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