I misplaced my camera charger and my camera ran out of gas right when we got out of Grand Central Terminal Station. I took some pics with my cell phone but they're so...bad.
But I got a couple of new pics with my cam. Went to NYC today...I'm pretty amazed. Saw a lot of the sights in downtown. We saw a ridiculous amount of stuff and we didn't even do anything, which feels like a contradiction.
First off...these mother fuckers pay for this on a regular basis? Gotdamn.
A round trip ticket cost 25 bucks. Which is what I was expecting, but then I looked at the monthly rate.
Between the four of us, it took 100 bucks to get to NYC.
Wanted to take photos of Grand Central. I thought my cam would last the trip if I conserved shots but...nope. It petered out right outside Grand Central.
It's got me down in the dumps.
Things we did:
- Take a grey line tour of all of Downtown. Cost 44 dollars.
- Visited Harlem, explored it quite a bit, walking down the various streets, especially Malcolm X Blvd.
- Saw Apollo Theater. Really wanted to go in...
- Bought I <3 NY hats
- Drank coffee at Dean and Deluca's...best coffee ever
- visited Empire State Building...jogged a few floors to see how high up we could make it without keeling over and dying.
- visited St. Paul's Chapel and observed the various things inside. The letters from the kids were really heartwarming and cute.
- visited 9/11 Memorial. Pretty sad.
- Saw the Statue of Liberty. I was moved.
- Ate lunch at Shake Shack. Holy shit.
- Saw McGruber at a movie theater in downtown
- Went to Times Square...wished we were rich
- Had a hot dog at a vendor. Was alright. Was more impressed by the fact they made the mustard spicy mustard than the hot dog itself.
Notes about NYC itself as it's my first time visiting:
- Place seems pretty liberal. It's fast-paced, it's got lots of action. It's my kinda place and I really want to live here.
- We were betting on how long it'd take to see the freaks of New York. No sooner than right outside Grand Central we saw: a bunch of Asian dudes in tight pants and cowboy boots and hipster vests with spiky hair, I'm sure Tokyo is like this; dude with a guitar digging his hand in his ass with his butt exposed in public, was sure he was homeless but not too sure; lots of cute girls in spandex and 80's clothes. I want to live here just to see all the characters you encounter. In fact, on the train ride to NYC some guy sat next to me and he's making jokes about serial murders and shit...and then suddenly brings up wrestling and we had a 30 minute talk about pro wrestling. It was so random and weird.
- I have never seen such a diversity of people in my life, even though I'm from Houston, Texas, reportedly one of the most diverse cities in the USA. But you never see so many different types of people in one place in Houston. In NYC I saw: more asians than I've ever seen at once, tons of black people, lots of Jewish wearing those skull caps and even the old Amish type Jewish guys, tons of Muslims, and a variety of white folks. In fact, I've never seen so many people all at once in a city. In Houston and LA and all the other cities I've been to, even in downtown...people walk, but not this much. Over in NYC everywhere I went there was a batch of people and yet I wasn't overwhelmed. I actually feel comfort from this for some reason.
I want to live in NYC so bad.
I don't know if I'm just being starry-eyed here or if NYC has actually lived up to the hype I've built it up to be my whole life.
We had an eventful day and we didn't do, well, anything.
