Anywhoo, I went to New York City for the long weekend, it was my first return since I was in middle school. Between a 5 hour flight and the 3 hour time difference, it was already like my entire Friday was spent getting there. But since it was NYC, I figured I'd have to dig down deep and find some energy. I was staying with my sister in SoHo and using her apartment as a base of operations. The weather was amazingly in the 60's the first day so we walked around and grabbed some Thai food for dinner. After a pre-funk we went out to the bar to meet up with some friends. It turns out everyone who we met up with was a fan of the blog (I'm huge in New York). This was great because we could converse on how awesome the blog used to be, but it wasn't so great when every time I would try to tell a cool story people would say "yeah I read that story on your blog". But we persevered on to bigger and better bars.
In New York many bars stay open until 4AM. Some even stay open until 6AM I hear. I wasn't about to go all the way to NYC and not take advantage of a gift like that. We stayed out until 4AM, which was really awesome at the time. I think that someone should still come around at 2AM and remind everyone that nothing good is going to be accomplished in the next two hours and they are all fools for still being around. I mean if you can't close a deal with a girl by 2AM what makes you think that another hour is going to do much? But so is life, and I helped close down the bar at 4AM.
As you may have guessed, I still got up at 7:30 to spend all day vanning and museuming. Ha! That was a gullibility test. Because I didn't arise until 2 the next afternoon. At that time NYC had become a windy cold weather vixen from the planet Miserablapious. My sister and I braved the elements to go to a Carnegie Deli and get our Ruben on followed by being cold around Times Square. We then went down to The Village to watch an inspiring Michigan Basketball win. I still felt like a hot ball of garbage but I manned up to drink a few brewdoggers during the game.
After the game I decided that I should travel across the river to magical Hoboken, New Jersey. I got some dinner with an old Michigan friend and some other people from Hoboken. Oddly one girls there said she had once met me at Rick's when she was visiting Ann Arbor one time - I had no recollection of it, but then again, it was at Rick's. We had a marvelous night in Hoboken and it turns out one of my friends out there had went online and became an ordained minister. He has marriage certificates at his house and is totally legit (minus the online part). He absolved me of all my sins right there at the bar. So I have that going for me, which is nice.
I came away pretty impressed with Hoboken, although I didn't really know what I was expecting. Lot's of well-maintained and classy row-houses and bars and restaurants. It has a really high population density and does so without the need for tall buildings.
Sunday I grabbed a slice of NY style pizza pie and then went shopping with my sister. What's a trip to New York without a shopping spree - amiright ladies? I then went up to the upper east side for dinner with a friend at a really classy Italian place. Monday, the sister and I went down to Chinatown for lunch. You would be amazed at how many designer bags fall off the back of trucks right around Chinatown. The food there was really good though, and we split three entrées between the two of us and it was still less than $10 a person. Pretty good for Manhattan. Then I got on my flight and headed back to the great Pacific Northwest to continue my life with a newfound revere for the Big Apple.
Some notes:
- In the 4 days I was there I probably only saw 2% of the city. I didn't even check out any of the other 4 boroughs.
- Less bums than I expected
- It was much dirtier than I had thought it would be. It was the dirtiest major city I've ever been to. There was litter and trash everywhere and I would walk down the street and taste the dirt in the air.
- Everything happens later in NYC. People get up later, go to eat later, go out later, stay out later and thus get up later. I'm beginning to think that the pace of a city is determined by its bars closing time.
- Not as many pigeons as I expected.
- For such a big city, I was glad to get to see some of the neighborhoods. I had always just taken all of Manhattan as one big built up monstrosity, but each area has a different feel and in some cases unique area. Then again I could only see a handful in my short time.
- I really liked terminal 4 of JFK. I was wowed.
- I was surprisingly intimidated by the people that lived in Manhattan. I think this was because I took them to be more cultured than me. I got that old money vibe a lot.
- The rent there is insane. What you pay vs. what you get is unreal. It makes me glad I live in a small town.
- Overall NYC felt to me as a place I would like to live. I don't think for more than a year or two, but despite its cons, there were lots about the city I really liked. Maybe someday it will happen.
