I can't help but smile as the New York skyline rolls closer. A wall of sky-scrapers light the night sky. I am rolling as well, to my hotel - in a black Chevy Suburban so big it may as well have eaten the Super Extreme Dodge for breakfast. I cant help but wonder if we will detour to carry out a drive-by on the way. Wait, that's not fair. We might just go for a cruise downtown blasting the snoop dog and check out some "bitches, yo."
We do neither.
I meet a German at the hotel. Found him banging on the door at 1am trying to get in; the clerk had gone walkabout. Lukas, the German and I make plans to have a nosy at the Puerto Rican parade tomorrow that has all of Fifth Ave closed. I'm far from about to go to sleep, though. this is NYC, baby, the city that never sleeps- so why should I.
Currently 2am.
Sitting outside the 24hour Apple store on Fifth Ave waiting for my new MacBook to be built. Why? Because I can.
Also wondering the cause behind the steam that rises from the sewer vents in the road. Perhaps the worlds biggest cigar room?
Hungry.
Think I'll try a curb-side "hot dawg."
$3.
Tasty. Could be made of anything really, still, better than airplane food.
For a big city, people are friendly. Taxi drivers may not say much but they aren't shy about undercharging you if they get messed around by road closures. Strangers chat to each other. The occasional person stares as me as if they are waiting for me to strike conversation. Sometimes, I do.
Now about to go to bed, I feel bad for doing so. It's now 4am and people are still out having coffee, walking their dogs, hell, even buying macbooks while they walk their dogs - this really is the city that never sleeps. If I had been older when my family was looking to live here, I would have missed it a lot. I would have found myself back here much sooner.
Looks like I'm about to give in to feeling bad.
Hardly for long though. 3 hours, one email from a mother missing her favourite child, and, a near heart attack thinking my morning 'number two' was about to send a brown tidal wave over the floor of the shared bathroom later, I've discovered what must be considered gold in NYC. Coffee.
Already keen for my second cup by the time I've typed this, I've decided that trying to 'unplug' is going to be a good thing. I like being disconnected.
But I'm not really, I never am really ‘disconnected’- not like James and Chris, anyway. These days you're never far from WiFi and it's easy to download a map if I need one even if it does cost me a cup of coffee, but I have no phone and no constant access to emails. That's disconnected enough for me I think. From here on in I will try to use less i-products to do the days medial tasks, and more I-ingenuity. Sort of. Still had to print off directions to the camera store from Google maps seeing as no one keeps a road directory any more. And if I'm totally honest, I did illegally download some software using the hotel WiFi. And read a copy of Time magazine on the iPad whilst on the can. Anyway, got to start somewhere. I'm going to liken this to a smoker trying to cut back on the amount of cigarettes he smokes each day. Why? Remember that 'kid at heart' business? I'm like a kid in a candy store when it comes to Apple. Steve Jobs is my God and without encouragement I will sheepishly go and buy everything he makes, cyber-pray at least 20 times a day by logging onto my gift from my God, and defend his honor until the day I die. Or he does.
Back to NYC.
I decide, in a somewhat clouded sense of nutrition, to skip the 2nd cup of coffee and go for a Berocca tab. You know, the ones that are the same color going in and coming out of your body. I also make some decisions on what to spend some of my hard earned cash on. The same hard earned cash that has to last me until I find a job in a city whose language I know not so well (Montreal). Probably a financial decision I may regret, but much like buying an i-product, if I don't do it, it's going to keep nagging me until I do. So to silence the voice inside, I plan my first outing of the day.
BH Photo Video on 9th has about 60 people queued up at the door. Its 10 minutes before opening time and apparently its quite the norm. New camera in hand. What better place to test it? Actually, I can think of a couple..
Lukas and I hit the streets on foot in search of the parade. It's fairly warm and sticky today and there are street closures everywhere. There are also about a million Puerto Rican flags in the streets. A relaxed 45 minute walk gets us downtown to Fifth Ave where the action really is. The parade is huge. It's loud. Sounds more like a rock concert. We stay for as long as we can before turning Puerto Rican ourselves and head for some late lunch in an Irish bar where we also witness Australia embarrass themselves against Germany in a world cup group game.
Sleep has finally caught up with me by now and plans to rest my head for an hour turn into a 10 hour sleep-a-thon. Hopefully this will put my body into North American time for the next two full days in NYC - I've got some exploring to do, tourist style.
And that's what I did. A boat ride on the Hudson river with an unfortunately clouded view of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty, a bus tour uptown through Harlem, and a bus tour downtown through the infamous Wall St, Ground Zero and Times Square. A visit to the Rockafella tower and a little bit of wandering around, and then, accidentally, another snooze. I think only when you've done something like this can you begin to appreciate how damn huge New York City actually is. It is MASSIVE. You need years to truly discover this place. I'll have to come back to get some good shots of the city - it's just too big to wander around looking for good view points.
Ways to shit your pants #1: log on to your bank account to see the balance at $0.00 while overseas.
Bank error, crisis averted. I should send them the dry cleaning bill for my now-brown underwear though.
30 hours left in New York before I board a train to Montreal and hunt frantically for a job. I still don't quite feel as though I've adjusted to the time difference, but then I could just be finding it hard to sleep on the hotel supplied brick disguised as a pillow.
I do some more shopping.
I take a walk, eat some food, which in turn presents another problem with New York: if I stay here, I will get fat. The food, for the most part is pretty rubbish. Just fatty, salty American crap. There are a few spots where the food is more to my liking, but you can expect to pay double the price.
Time seems to move faster here in NYC. It just seem to run out so quickly.
I head to Macy's, which pride themselves on the worlds biggest store. Turns out it's closer to the worlds biggest disappointment. Then I stumble upon Ground Zero, which is now just a construction site for the new Freedom Tower. I discover a few other things about this area of town, the Financial District; there's a McDonalds where all the staff wear tuxedo's just because of the location. Keeping in tune with the amount of money flowing around New York, there's also a McDonalds in Time Square that is so flashy and bright, they employ someone purely to change light bulbs. But then, it is Time Square. I find out there's actually a law- if you want to setup shop in Times Square, at least 18% of the front of your real estate has to be covered in lights. And here's some money facts for ya, every time the Toshiba building changes it's huge advertising screens, which is about every 10 seconds, they make $3million!
In the World Financial Centre I find something rather cool. Some smarty pants has planted 18 huge palm trees indoors, in a kind of God-size greenhouse, so even in winter, you can sit in here, surrounded by palm trees, and watch the snow fall.
As soon as I head out onto the harbour side walkways and parks here, the busy New York all of a sudden gives way to something totally different. It's relaxing, all I can hear are birds and the waves, I could be anywhere. 20 minutes of walking and I'm back to the New York I'm familiar with.
After a quick evening visit to the Empire State Building and Times Square again so I can see just how bright it is at midnight (it's almost like day time), I am beginning to find another problem with New York. It's so full of tourists, ALL the time, I wonder if any one actually lives here. I wonder if I could live here, given all the tourist. It's THAT bad.
Trains. Truly the gentleman's form of transport. The 10 hour ride to seems to pass fairly quickly. Helps when you befriend a couple of other passengers of course.
So I'm here. Where I've wanted to be for almost two years now.
Montreal.
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