New York was pandemonium with a big grin on.
- Tom Wolfe
1. Greyhound
I'm not at all looking forward to writing about my trip to New York. So much happened and with so many experiences it kinda sucks that I embarked on the blogging-boat a couple of months ago. We were 7 people who traveled down where I before-hand only new Johannes, a German from my French class. The others were mostly from Polytechnique as well and of French, Brazilian and Swiss origin - where the only two girls of the company were from the two latter named nationalities.
We took the Greyhound night-bus down, estimated to a 9-hour ride, we were hoping to get some sleep on the bus. Boy were we wrong. After 2 hours we hit the border and everybody were forced to get off the bus, stand in line, and later get back on the bus. After 3 hours we were awakened again because we had hit Albany, the capital of the state of New York, where our bus was to be serviced for half n hour so we just stood around waiting for the bus to finish getting serviced. After that it was another 3 hours down to New York. Geez, next time I'm gonna carpool with somebody.
2. Katz's Delicatessen
Unlike the others, I had made big-ass baguette, with two different types of meat, Swiss cheese, cucumber, tomatoes etc. for the trip down and man it was good! But upon our arrival the others were starving so they started to look for this one particular Jewish-Deli called Katz's Delicatessen, supposedly renowned. Upon entering, it did seem familiar and even if it didn't, the large number of famous people on the wall with pictures with the owner in front of Katz would have convinced you. The interiors were arrayed with celebrities and politicians alike including former president Bill Clinton.
Don't be too surprised if you recognize the place yourself. It does star in a classic - namely, When Harry met Sally. The sign outside the doors says, "Katz's - Where Harry met Sally - have what she had!"Moreover, they did make the most amazing pastrami-sandwhiches and even though I wasn't the slightest bit hungry I'm glad I engulfed one of those bad boys. How tempted aren't you?
You don't have to look all that hard to see it's the same place!
3. Hostel 99
I learnt quite a bit of New York geography on our way to our hostel. New York consist of 5 burrows, each of which is basically on its own but since we were only here for a weekend we'd stick to Manhatten (although we did end up visiting Brooklyn and Staten Island for short trips). Our hostel was located at the upper-eastern end, in Harlem, a hoody area that resembled downtown in no way and where white people were a definite minority. It was pretty alright though, people seemed straight, and our hostel was very clean and well-worth the 14 bucks/night but the biggest disadvantage was the location - that it wasn't in downtown - but it was only a 20-30-minute metro ride down.
4. Guggenheim Museum
We hit the town after having settled in and we had, like the rest of the East Coast this weekend, crap weather. Our first stop at Central Park didn't last too long due to the cold and grey so I'll have to swing by there during spring or something instead. One thing we did have on our To-do list was located nearby, the Guggenheim Museum - or as I like to call it, the bloody shooting scene from The International. We must have spent around 3 hours there and I got all into the art of Kandinsky that were being exhibited. The reason the Guggenheim is circular and contains no steps is because they usually portray the art of one artist at a time, with his or hers earliest pieces of art to the later ones. Therefore you basically follow a painter's life through their paintings and life is continuous!
5. Greenwich village
By now it had already turned 6-ish and seeing it was a Friday night it was time to start to experience New York nightlife. We hit up Greenwich village which was supposed to have a long chain of bars somewhere in cozy quarters. It turned out we got off the wrong metro station and we'd have to walk for like 20mins, no problem, we started to walk. After 20mins somebody else told us that it was an additional 20mins away and we got a little frustrated and decided to go into the nearest bar and have a beer and then continue towards the "bar-hub" and that is what we did. We found one and head inside...
I go up to the bar and ask for a pint of Blue Moon... they have no pints of beer, only bottles. Weird. I ask for a bottled one then and while he's reaching for the beer in a cupboard I notice the very colorful shirt he's sporting - I guess it looked good. He was extremely kind and wished me a good night and I thanked him and turned around looking for my company. I notice that my company stands out pretty well since as far as my eyes see, they're only macho black guys all over. I head over to my gang and while I'm heading over I also notice that there is not a single girl in-sight. Woah. That's strange! By the time I reach my gang they're all staring at the wall and I slowly turn to see a wall full of portraits of naked black men. That's when it hits me - I'm in a black gay bar. We start to chuckle and some guys around us start to chuckle since they realize that we just realized where we were. I got a look around once more and saw the strangest sights ever - big buff black guys standing 2 and 2 all over the place sipping on bright yellow mangotinis. A weekend highlight indeed! The initial shock passed and we enjoyed the rest of the beer and talked about how we had shattered some of our personal prejudices within 2 minutes.
We did continue on later to where we were supposed to go and did hit up several bars. One of which was very Coyote Ugly-like where the bartenders would from time to time get up on the bar and stepdance for a minute or two. Neat!
6. The NBC Experience
The following day I decided to part from my crowd who were on their way down to Times Square and Ground Zero. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to visit those two places too but I had something much higher up on my agenda. The Apple Store in New York City and Rockefeller Plaza. I actually needed to purchase a thing or two for my Ipod so I thought it opportune to do so while in New York. The Apple Store consisted of a glass cube above ground with a large hanging apple and tourists were taking pictures of it simply due to it's beauty and simplicity. Once you entered you were taken by a flight of stairs down to the large underground store with swarms of people all over the place. It was so large I couldn't bother looking for the specific items I was looking for so I went up to a salesman..
"How can I help you?"
"I'm looking for a wall charger and headphones with inbuilt mic for my Ipod."
"Alright, follow me."
We walk like 20m.
"Here you go."
"Thanks, where's the counter?"
"You can buy it through me, it'll be 60 dollars."
"Oh ok."
I give him my Visa. He runs off screaming "Mike! I got a card let's bounce!!!" ... no I'm just kidding. He takes out his deluxe-Ipod and swipes my card on the back of his.
"Raoul Joshi?"
"That's right."
"Is this your email adress?"
"That's right."
"Alright thanks. I just emailed you your receipt."
"So I'm set?"
"You're all set. Have a nice day"
Two minutes after having entering the Apple Store I'm standing in front of it thinking, "What the duce just happened?" By far the most efficient purchase I've ever made.
The second point on the agenda was Rockefeller Plaza. As a TV nerd, following NBC shows such as House, Heroes, 30 Rock, Friends, and Conan O'Brien I had to visit this place, home to NBC headquarters (Rockefeller Center).
7. Peaches
I was running late. I was to meet the others for a couple of drinks before we head off to a Peaches concert. A band I had never heard of and wasn't too sure if I'd enjoy the music. They told me 49th and 7th at Times Square (crossing of 49th street and 7th Avenue) and I thought a good start was to head over to the station Times Square. Big mistake. Times Square is insanely huge and While I may have been on 7th, I was on 42nd street. 7 blocks would be do-able in no-time anywhere else but in the middle of Times Square on a Saturday evening was friggin impossible. I'm gonna be there for New Years and already dreading the crowd...
I stumbled into another Swede, from Gällivare, after the show and she, her German friend and I went out for a beer after the show before heading home. We took a cab with an Indian driver and with a couple of drinks in me I felt confident enough to speak Hindi with him. So for 20 minutes I spoke Hindi with the driver, Swedish with the Swede, English with the German and French with my friends over the phone letting them know I had ditched them. (Yes, don't party with me, it's very likely I'll ditch you :p). At this point they all stared at me and were like, "any more?"
I wish I could say that we did go and watch a Broadway show on Sunday but unfortunately, after all the cuing at Times Square for last-minute tickets they turned out to be a tad too expensive for some people in the group. I'm definitely gonna watch one when I go down next time though! Sunday turned out to have wonderful weather and to hang out in Times Square was pretty comfortable. Even though Times Square by night is something to experience, I preferred its lax ambiance during daytime. The two shows I really wanna see are Billy Elliot and Rock of Ages but I think I can only afford one...
9. Staten Island
Since there were people who hadn't been to New York before, they really wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. I tagged along Sunday afternoon not to keen since if you've seen it once, you don't burn to see it again. It's like when our family took the sightseeing tour last time around and we passed the Empire State building. Once you've seen it, you don't go longing back to see it again. But I guess it's good to have done it once. However, I was delightfully surprised by our ferry to Staten Island (which is free) passing the Statue of Liberty. We had a stunning sunset to observe from the deck and made it into quite the experience.
10. Brooklyn
When we got back we found a nice Italian restaurant and real good food. Just thinking of the food is making me hungry now. It was a pleasant dinner on the south side and after that we head up to Brooklyn for another pub crawl. I was however, exhausted and head home around 2-ish, the earliest time I had returned that entire weekend. All of Sunday consisted of our bus ride back to Montréal, where absolutely nothing worth mentioning happened unless I can indulge you with 9 hours of intermittent sleep.
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