My Trip to New York

I went to New York City over my wifes Spring Break. It was very exciting to see the New York Skyline out of the window on our journey into the city, especially because out the other window was Newark, New Jersey. We drove into the city through the Lincoln tunnel. We timed it right because I hear during rush hour it's called the Lincoln parking lot. Once on the other side you enter New York city. That's when the bumper car ride starts. I don't know how they teach people to drive in New York, but when I learned I was taught to drive defensively. In New York I'm pretty sure they are taught that every other car in their line of sight has no right to occupy any space in the universe. That ideal is demonstrated when they drive their car as fast as they can straight at you and then slamming on the breaks to come to rest within mere atoms of your car. And then yell and honk at you for simply being right where they want to be, even if they ran a red light and killed several pedestrians to get there. We only had to travel 2 miles from the Lincoln tunnel to our hotel. I spent the entire car trip actively scanning for ballistic vehicles trying to kill us as well as trying to navigate the many one way streets all the time uttering the first half of a few swear words under my breath. When we finally got to the parking garage for the hotel we were asked to leave our car and the keys with the parking attendant. Upon doing so I was pretty sure we would never see our car again. (Fortunately we did. All in one piece.)
We stayed at a nice hotel in Korea Town. Not because we were at all excited about Korea Town, but it was adjacent to the Empire State Building and 2 blocks away from Times Square. Once we were settled in it was off to see the sites! We walked the few blocks into Times Square and were immediately assaulted by advertisements. I expected this from all the pictures and movies taken in Time Square. But I don't think any picture or movie can convey the massiveness of billboards and lights. Everywhere you looked you could see nothing but signs for plays, television shows, coke, Chevy, movies, shops and everything else you can imagine. It was pretty much a sensory overload. Add to that about 300 million people all walking as fast as they can straight into each other. After walking around for some time we decided to take a break from the billboards by getting dinner in a near by Olive Garden. When we got to our seat we found our view to be, more billboards.
After dinner we walked to the Hersey store. Earlier this year we went to Hersey Pennsylvania to see where the Candy comes from. It was a very big disappointment. Yes there was candy there. But it was not unlike going down the candy isle in your local grocery store but on a larger scale. Kinda like Ikea for Candy stores. I expected a lot more out of the place. In fact I expected it to be a lot more like the Hersey store in New York. This store was more like Candy and Disneyland. It was very cool.

We called it a night after that and went back to our hotel. The next day we walked back to Times Square and hoped on the Gray Line Tour bus. It is a double decker bus that runs several tours around New York City. It has a "Hop On Hop Off" feature which lets you get off the bus to see any of the sites closer up. This was a great feature for stops like The Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty, but not so great a feature for stops like Hells Kitchen or the creepy parts of Central Park (Pretty much the whole park). We started our tour of the downtown area of New York. This took us from Times Square down to the Statue of Liberty, where we got off, then back up to Times Square. The tour lady pointed out many exciting points of interest...to her. Like, her building, where her kids went to school, where the episode of Law and Order she was on was filmed, including what Jerry Orbach is like. I have to admit, this was the best way to see the city. Being so high above the street in the upper deck was a good way to feel separated from the hustle and bustle of the city, except for the many many moments spent thinking there is now way this bus is going to fit into that gap in traffic, or I'm pretty sure we're going to hit that group of people. It took about 2 hours to drive around in the bus seeing the sites including many tall buildings that have some sort of historical importance, Ground Zero, and the bar where Steve McQueen used to work. We got off the bus at Battery Park where you catch the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. We decided the name Battery Park is a horrible name, but it fits that park because you can easily imagine someone committing battery in the park. We decided we didn't feel safe, or feel like standing in the 200 hour line to see the statue and decided that since we could see it from the shore we were on, that was good enough for us. Later in the afternoon someone was killed in Battery park (we heard it on the news latter that evening). We took the bus back up to the Empire State Building, where our hotel was. Our bus tour came with tickets to the observation deck of the Empire State Building so we decided to take in the view.


This building is an iconic sight for New York. It is the tallest building in the city. I was not impressed. The line you get into to see the building wasn't long, but it did wind around about 4 thousand velvet ropes and through about a dozen rooms. A few of the rooms were under construction and looked horrible. The entire trip up to the top takes you past several people trying to profit on your being stuck in a line. They try to sell you popcorn first, then an upgraded observation deck view, then a map of new york, then a audio device to give you an audio tour, which I'm pretty sure would be the thick accented voice of a Brooklyn resident pointing our interesting things you can see from the roof. "Over 'dere is Queens, dat's Brooklyn, dat's the Bronks, youze can get a (expletive removed) nice pie at my cousin Vinnies Pizza joint which youze can see if you look straight down." Two elevators later we were at the top and gazed the grandness of one of the largest Cities. The view was breath taking. It was a lot like playing Sim City. We found a building that looked like the building used in Ghostbusters. When we were discussing wither or not it was, smoke started biloing from the roof of the building in question. I'm pretty sure Gozer the Gozarian was about to show up, so we split.

We ended our day and decided we would cut our trip short. The next day we got up early and hit the bus again for a trip up to the upper part of the city including, Harlem, Columbia University, The fancy smanshy condos and apartments overlooking the Park, including the very spot John Lennon was killed. Our tour guide this time pointed out all the famous people's apartments as well as giving us a breakdown of rent prices and the concept of Rent Control. Saw very many New York landmarks, like The Apollo theater, the Guggenheim building as well as a few other museums. We decided not to stop and check any of them out. At this point we had decided that we did not in fact "Heart" New York and were anxious to get back to the hotel and out of the city. This tour was also two hours and we got off at the 5th avenue side of Central Park so we could take our daughter to the FAO Schwartz store. I must admit, it was Awesome! They had so many toys there it was like a Kid in a Candy Store...or I guess you put that kid in a toy store and get the same effect, also you could replace kid with me and...well you get it. It was incredible. I really wish at this point that I had some kind of an income. There were too many great and wonderful things to see including a HUGE stuffed dragon that no one not living in a mansion could fit in their homes. Seriously, this thing was about 20 feet tall. We looked in the store for about an hour, then packed up our junk and went home.

To sum up our trip, we saw New York. We saw the sights and the people. And they can keep it.