A little more about New York
I'm in a crabby mood right now and therefore not really in the mood to write, but I wanted to blab some more about my trip to NYC -- because someday it will be nostalgic, and because a couple of people actually asked. Plus two weeks have already passed.
Let's see, where did I leave off? Lunchtime, Wednesday, two weeks ago (our first day in the Big City). Lunch = awesome Mexican food at a cheap place in the East Village!
After lunch, Missy and I (window)shopped for a couple more hours. We came across Stuyvesant Park at one point and hung out there for awhile. It felt good. The humidity seemed REALLY bad that first day, so it was nice to take a break from walking around and just kick back and people-watch. The park was a quiet one, near a hospital. There were a lot of hospital employees there... and a lot of dogs! Mostly small ones. In fact, I kept seeing Yorkies throughout my trip, which made me miss my little Katie!
Anyway, when we were ready to get up and explore again, we enjoyed a bit more of the East Village, and then for some reason decided to eat dinner. That was sort of piggish, being that we'd just had lunch less than three hours ago, but I was craving Shepherd's pie and there just happened to be an Irish bar in the neighborhood with $10 Shepherd's pie. I think what we both REALLY wanted, though, was something to drink, thanks to all that heat! So we went in, I ordered my Shepherd's pie and Missy ordered Bangers 'n' Mash. I downed a couple diet cokes while we were waiting. The food came and it was yummy, but we were both too full to finish (then a fly landed on my Shepherd's pie, which didn't exactly make me want to finish it anyway).
Finally, after dinner, we headed back to Hotel 17 to check in. One thing about the hotel (which is guess is common for New York) is that private bathrooms... do not come with the rooms. But the shared bathroom wasn't too bad, all things considered. It was clean, and as private as a shared bathroom can be -- no bank of stalls or anything -- basically it just looked like a regular hotel bathroom, the only difference was that it wasn't just ours.
Missy claimed the bathroom closest to us first and took a shower, while I lounged around in our room and drank in the view (big buildings with fire escapes, yay!). Then I took my own much-needed shower. After we were both all clean, we decided to see what was on New York TV. There wasn't much, but she found something and not too long later we both lazily fell asleep. Except for that short time on the plane, I hadn't REALLY slept since Monday night, so I relished my afternoon nap!
We woke up around 7:30 pm, ready to "hit the town", but somehow we got distracted by that epitome-of-a-guilty-pleasure show "America's Got Talent" and decided to watch that stupid thing. Then we left and headed toward Union Square, a small yet lively park about three blocks from our hotel. We'd briefly stopped there earlier in the day. It was pleasant then, but now it was hopping! There were people just hanging out, people walking every which way, and a big crowd watching a trio of horn players. Missy and I watched them too for a few minutes, but our main reason for being at Union Square was to catch the subway, so we made our way down the dirty stairs to brave that infamous mode of transportation for the very first time.
Actually, it wasn't really my VERY first subway ride. I've been on L.A.'s subway plenty of times, and rode the BART a few years ago when I was in Berkeley. I don't remember having any major problems with those (especially not L.A.'s) but it took much longer to get onto New York's subway than we anticipated!
At first, it was because my sister was having trouble with the machines that were selling Metro cards; after several tries, the machines wouldn't accept her credit card. (I was able to buy my 7-day Metro pass right away from the customer service window, but they only accepted cash, and Missy only had her credit card plus a bit of change.) So she finally decided to use her change to buy a $2 "one way" pass (with the idea to buy her 7-day pass at a different subway stop's machine) -- only the thing that you slide your pass into to get through the gate cheated her! It did not say "go" (it said "please swipe again") yet somewhow it implied that she'd already used her one-way pass. At this point, I was already through the gate, but my sister just couldn't get through... so I went back through the exit gate and joined her. She was getting mad, and I couldn't blame her. FINALLY, though, the machine accepted her credit card and she got her pass. I went through again, but the machine kept telling my sister to swipe her pass again! So I exited again to help her... but when her thing finally said "go", and I tried to swipe MINE, it said I'd "just used" it!! Now I was QUICKLY losing MY patience (wasn't this pass supposed to be unlimited for 7 days?). But we talked to the customer service person, and learned that we had to wait 18 minutes between swiping the card. Goody.
Well, we hung out in the subway station for the remaining 15 minutes or so, and then at long last we were both able to swipe our passes with no trouble and make it through the gate, onto a (hot) platform. A subway came right away; we figured out it was headed uptown, and climbed on (and after all the trouble getting to the platform, the ride itself turned out to be quick, air-conditioned, and really not so bad).
We got out at Times Square. And I'll write more about that later. Ha ha, I'm still on my first day, but I've been in the Evergreen computer lab for hours and need to go home. More coming!
Let's see, where did I leave off? Lunchtime, Wednesday, two weeks ago (our first day in the Big City). Lunch = awesome Mexican food at a cheap place in the East Village!
After lunch, Missy and I (window)shopped for a couple more hours. We came across Stuyvesant Park at one point and hung out there for awhile. It felt good. The humidity seemed REALLY bad that first day, so it was nice to take a break from walking around and just kick back and people-watch. The park was a quiet one, near a hospital. There were a lot of hospital employees there... and a lot of dogs! Mostly small ones. In fact, I kept seeing Yorkies throughout my trip, which made me miss my little Katie!
Anyway, when we were ready to get up and explore again, we enjoyed a bit more of the East Village, and then for some reason decided to eat dinner. That was sort of piggish, being that we'd just had lunch less than three hours ago, but I was craving Shepherd's pie and there just happened to be an Irish bar in the neighborhood with $10 Shepherd's pie. I think what we both REALLY wanted, though, was something to drink, thanks to all that heat! So we went in, I ordered my Shepherd's pie and Missy ordered Bangers 'n' Mash. I downed a couple diet cokes while we were waiting. The food came and it was yummy, but we were both too full to finish (then a fly landed on my Shepherd's pie, which didn't exactly make me want to finish it anyway).
Finally, after dinner, we headed back to Hotel 17 to check in. One thing about the hotel (which is guess is common for New York) is that private bathrooms... do not come with the rooms. But the shared bathroom wasn't too bad, all things considered. It was clean, and as private as a shared bathroom can be -- no bank of stalls or anything -- basically it just looked like a regular hotel bathroom, the only difference was that it wasn't just ours.
Missy claimed the bathroom closest to us first and took a shower, while I lounged around in our room and drank in the view (big buildings with fire escapes, yay!). Then I took my own much-needed shower. After we were both all clean, we decided to see what was on New York TV. There wasn't much, but she found something and not too long later we both lazily fell asleep. Except for that short time on the plane, I hadn't REALLY slept since Monday night, so I relished my afternoon nap!
We woke up around 7:30 pm, ready to "hit the town", but somehow we got distracted by that epitome-of-a-guilty-pleasure show "America's Got Talent" and decided to watch that stupid thing. Then we left and headed toward Union Square, a small yet lively park about three blocks from our hotel. We'd briefly stopped there earlier in the day. It was pleasant then, but now it was hopping! There were people just hanging out, people walking every which way, and a big crowd watching a trio of horn players. Missy and I watched them too for a few minutes, but our main reason for being at Union Square was to catch the subway, so we made our way down the dirty stairs to brave that infamous mode of transportation for the very first time.
Actually, it wasn't really my VERY first subway ride. I've been on L.A.'s subway plenty of times, and rode the BART a few years ago when I was in Berkeley. I don't remember having any major problems with those (especially not L.A.'s) but it took much longer to get onto New York's subway than we anticipated!
At first, it was because my sister was having trouble with the machines that were selling Metro cards; after several tries, the machines wouldn't accept her credit card. (I was able to buy my 7-day Metro pass right away from the customer service window, but they only accepted cash, and Missy only had her credit card plus a bit of change.) So she finally decided to use her change to buy a $2 "one way" pass (with the idea to buy her 7-day pass at a different subway stop's machine) -- only the thing that you slide your pass into to get through the gate cheated her! It did not say "go" (it said "please swipe again") yet somewhow it implied that she'd already used her one-way pass. At this point, I was already through the gate, but my sister just couldn't get through... so I went back through the exit gate and joined her. She was getting mad, and I couldn't blame her. FINALLY, though, the machine accepted her credit card and she got her pass. I went through again, but the machine kept telling my sister to swipe her pass again! So I exited again to help her... but when her thing finally said "go", and I tried to swipe MINE, it said I'd "just used" it!! Now I was QUICKLY losing MY patience (wasn't this pass supposed to be unlimited for 7 days?). But we talked to the customer service person, and learned that we had to wait 18 minutes between swiping the card. Goody.
Well, we hung out in the subway station for the remaining 15 minutes or so, and then at long last we were both able to swipe our passes with no trouble and make it through the gate, onto a (hot) platform. A subway came right away; we figured out it was headed uptown, and climbed on (and after all the trouble getting to the platform, the ride itself turned out to be quick, air-conditioned, and really not so bad).
We got out at Times Square. And I'll write more about that later. Ha ha, I'm still on my first day, but I've been in the Evergreen computer lab for hours and need to go home. More coming!