A couple of weeks ago I went down to New York to meet up with my friend Nicole. We'd been planning and plotting this trip for a few months and I was very excited to have the day actualized.
I headed off on Wednesday night on the over night bus, I wasn't my usual organized self on the lead up to the trip so I hadn't had much sleep in the previous few days. This boded well for my sleeping on the bus, I passed out pretty much once we left Toronto, and I was in a deep sleep when we had to stop and get off in Buffalo for the border check. Then we stopped in the buffalo station and picked up people and I had to give up one of my three seats (yeah I'm selfish- so what) for a couple of hours. Finally the person left and I was able to stretch out again and get some sleep.
Our final pit stop was at a McDonald's somewhere about an hour out of the city. The sun was shining brightly and it was - warm! At least to what I've had to compare it to- it must have been gosh at least 8 degrees. This made me even more excited to get into the city and get out in the sunshine.
We finally arrived and I made my way to the Pod Hotel. I highly recommend this place to stay if you are going to New York- the rooms are small, but if you are hanging out in your hotel room the whole time and you haven't been struck by the plague (more on that later), well.. you are lame.
I was able to check into our Pod early as I arrived at the hotel at about 11.30ish am. I dropped my things and headed back out into the light- sans a winter jacket. Talk about excitement! I walked down third and about towards Grand Central, which I had not been to before and then found a little deli to buy some lunch. For eating in New York, the deli's are tops. They have these massive hot and cold tables where you can find pretty much everything under the sun and you aren't forced to have a sandwich or fries or anything greasy. I had a mixture of a a few salads and a coffee and took them to Bryant Park to eat. I Actually ended up eating in front of the New York Public Library (aka heaven) and doing some people watching until the sun went behind the building. After that I wandered inside the library and had a look around. I saw a couple of great exhibits- and the Guttenberg Bible, which is amazing. That book was the beginning of the print revolution, for which I will always be greatful as it paved the way for inexpensive and mass produced books. I dont' think I could imagine a world wear I couldn't read anything I wanted, whenever I wanted.
I stopped for a while and did some online reading in the Art History room on one of my favourite artists Vermeer. But the sitting and reading made me realize how exhausted I was. So I made my way back to the hotel and got myself settled in, showered and relaxed. Another reccomendation I can make about the Pod. AMAZING showers. They have the rain showerhead that comes directly from the ceiling and combine it with two side nozzles. Deluxe.
While waiting for sleep to come I did some writing in the Pod and talked to my Nanny. The city is so inspiring, I think it would be hard to not accomplish great things there. I finally fell asleep for a while and was awoken by Nicole arriving!!
It was great to see Nic after hardly seeing her at all for a few years, she seems really happy and was just as giddy as I was to be in the City. We went down to a diner for some food and to catch up before heading back to the Pod for a sleep.
The next morning brought on grey weather, which was slightly disappointing, but we got ourselves all sussed out and headed to the Empire State Building. Shockingly we didn't wait in line at all to get to the top. We literally waited in total for about four minutes. I let Nic know this was completely lucky. I mean to wait an hour is lucky.
Afterwards we had a coffee and warmed up a bit, it was ridiculously cold at the top, and windy. We then walked to Times Square and looked around a bit. There were a couple of sample sales we popped into on the way which was great, picked up a couple of necklaces and pashminas for very cheap.
We had some lunch at a deli and then it started to rain, and did it RAIN. We booked it back to the Pod as quickly as we could walk, but we were still drenched. We rested for a little bit and then went out to MoMa for their free (FREE) evening. MoMa is definitely one of my favourite museums on the planet. I could probably live there.
It was still torrential downpour on the way to and from the museum and we got resoaked, so we went back to the Pod and wrung ourselves out and then went to Dos Caminos for dinner, which is a fancy Mexican restaurant on 52nd and 4th I think. Although the name reminds me of El Camino, which makes me think of losers in high school who thought those were cool. But it was a nice enough place, $12 for a guacamole, but it was tasty. Although the spicy that I got was not spicy enough. I have a high spice tolerance I think. I keep telling the Indian place where I sometimes get takeaway to make it very spicy, but I think they are afraid.
The next day we awoke to still torrential downpour. I know that the wet coast has been completely washed out of me because of the strength of feelings against the rain. Rain is horrible, horrible stuff. It gets in and makes everything damp and unhappy. At least snow is like little fluffy bits of heaven that you can brush off you. At least though, rain meant sightseeing had to take a backseat to shopping. We hopped on the tube and headed down to the World Trade Centre site. It was interesting to see, but more interesting to me (again, I'm shallow) was Century 21- which was right across the street. Designer items at discount prices. Naturally I beelined it for the purse secton. I found some great deals- Cynthia Rawley for only $100 and Matt and Nat for under $40!!
After a couple of hours there we headed over to Canal St to look at cheap knock offs and I guess this is the Chinatown area of the city. It was pretty neat. I bought a few more bags- but some were gifts so I think that it is entirely reasonable that I bought 6 in total. I find that in New York the neighbourhoods are neat, but that Toronto's ethnic areas are bigger and better.
After that shopping excursion we went back to the Pod and I noticed I wasn't feeling all that well- I blame the rain. Completely. So I had a nap and Nic looked up some adventures. I was able to drag myself from bed to head to the East Village for some late night Frittes. In the subway we saw some great breakdancers! I had to make a pit stop in a Duane Reade for some sort of cold medicine. I've been trying to not use anything not natural for illness, however I left all my remedies at home (that will teach me). So I started chugging Dayquill or something like that. We had a bit of a wander around before heading back to the hotel.
That night it became quite apparent I was very ill, I was up most of the night with a fever and chills and had probably three showers to try to warm up. The next morning Nic went off for an exploration of the Park and the Upper West Side, and it was nice and sunny out, but I could not get out of bed. Sucks to get the plague while you are on vacation- again I blame the rain- stupid, stupid rain.
I finally peeled myself out of bed midafternoon and met Nic in Times Square so we could buy rush tickets for a Broadway show that night. We managed to get tixs to Mamma Mia, although they were a bit more expensive than we thought they would be. We got all fancied up to go there, all the while I was chugging liquid
betterness trying to feel normal. When we got to the theatre we realized what luck we had. The seats were amazing row Q in the orchestra so we were 16 rows up from the stage. The show was spectacular~ so high energy and all the songs were by ABBA.I seemed to sleep a bit better that night, and the next morning we had to check out- all good things come to an end so quickly, hard to believe the end was nigh. They were able to let us keep our bags a the Pod while we went out for breakfast at Ess A Bagel, the best bagel I've ever had, although I swear they put a pound of cream cheese on it. Kind of gross. But still. Then we went downtown to Chelsea and walked to Greenwich Village and ended up for lunch in the East Village again.
Manhattan is funny, it's really a very small place, but it feels huge. Particularly coming from somewhere like Canada where most towns are so spread o
ut it's hard to imagine a map actually conveying something small. It was a quick walk from Greenwich Village to the East Village, we walked by the NYU campus. Then it was back to the hotel and Nic was picked up by her Shuttle to JFK. I went and found a snack and waited for my shuttle as well. There are no subways to La Guardia, which is kind of lame, because it's only in Queens. We gave it an hour to get to the airport but it took under twenty minutes.I checked in and was put on standby to go an earlier flight, which I actually got so that was lucky, because I had just finished the Dayquill stuff before I went through security and I didn't know how much longer I was going to last.
I made it home with minimal drama- although navigating two suitcases kind of sucks. And then I crashed, for about 24 hours. I wasn't even conscious for Tuesday, enough to call my night job and tell them I couldn't work at all.
All in all though, the trip was great. It was wonderful to see Nic and I love the City so much. It would be impossible to have a bad time in New York I think. I can't wait to get back there.
