So, it was part of a bigger trip that I'll get to telling you over the next few days, and it's the trip that all other trips have to live up to. A year before, Nick and I had met up in DC, only to add other cities onto it, and then the next year we decided to do New York and the rest of the upper east coast. I took a redeye into Newark, and Nick took an early flight out of O'Hare to meet me there, and after dropping our stuff at the worst hotel in the world, we tried to get back to the city. Now, this meant taking the horrible shuttle back to the airport, because that was the closest subway and that was not stated in the hotel's info but whatever, and then it finally get us out at Penn Station.
I stepped outside there, and I was so happy to be there that I actually got really emotional and maybe cried some. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because I almost moved there instead of LA and it's a Road Not Taken sort of thing? Or maybe it's just that the city just speaks to me, but I love it so, so much. We walked along the streets and saw everything. We saw street performers doing pogo tricks. We went through Times Square which is super tacky but I love it regardless. We saw Parson's School for Design and stopped in at Midtown Comics and went into 30 Rock and saw something filming outside Radio City Music Hall. We saw St. Patrick's Cathedral while it was under construction. We walked through a good portion of Central Park. We took the subway a few blocks when our feet were threatening to fall off and went to meet my friend Eva, who I met online when I was 16 and was never able to meet in person before. We had New York pizza (it's fine) and she walked us over to the Empire State Building, where Nick and I went up to the observation deck. For the record, it's got gorgeous views, but at least at that time of night it's severely crowded. You had to fight to get close enough to take pictures of the view, and people were taking selfies and there was a proposal and it's just a lot. Worth it, but a lot. And then the elevator broke so we had to take the stairs down en masse to a lower floor to catch another one, which was an interesting experience.
New York at night was very different from the day. It didn't seem as busy, which might've had to do with the fact that it was Thursday, but we were tired and had to get back to New Jersey, so we found a little spot to sit. A large section of the street outside a row of stores had been blocked off with a low fence in order to extend the sidewalk into said street. So we basically sat in the street in NYC at a little white iron table as taxis whizzed past us as fast as traffic would allow. Something about that might've been my favorite part of the trip. Even though I look exhausted in every single picture.
We got back to the worst hotel in the world, though we left early the next morning to come back to the city. We got pretty good at the subway, which is reassuringly easy to navigate, and tried to start out at the World Trade Center memorial. The problem was that at least at that time they had a strict bag policy, and I had a giant purse and Nick had a messenger bag, and since it seemed that we had to leave our stuff behind rather than just get them checked, we got pictures of Freedom Tower and started walking instead. We found a little dog park that was a fenced off area of concrete and watched the puppies. We went to Battery Park, where we got to hang out for a while and see the Statue of Liberty from a distance. And then we went back to the hotel to pick up our rental car (which was orange and we named Diego), we for some reason drove back in order to get to Brooklyn. We had other friends in New York, and wanted to meet Angela at the bakery where she worked, but we hit massive traffic trying to get through the Holland Tunnel and ran out of time. But we did have some time to sightsee there, including driving on the Brooklyn Bridge, and then checking out Brooklyn Bridge Park, which I loved and am kind of surprised I don't see more about when people talk about New York. We also walked a few blocks from there to find a little pub that I wish I got the name of, because it was just a great little place tucked away in an area I don't think I ever would have found without wandering. Update: Nick found it! It's Henry Street Ale House. I highly recommend.
Our big thing for that night was finding the Waystation, where we met our friend Karyn. It gets a lot of noteriety for being a Doctor Who bar, but it's really more just a geek bar that has a TARDIS for a bathroom. Seriously. A TARDIS for a bathroom. And I swear to god, it's bigger on the inside. There are characters from the show painted all over the walls, the trash can is made to look like a Dalek, and there's a framed autograph from Matt Smith hanging up that reads "Pee happily!" But besides this and some themed drinks, I find it hard to call it a Doctor Who bar when there are replica weapons from Firefly and I seem to recall swords on the wall, you know?
The only problem with this place was that it's small, so when they brought in the admittedly great live jug band (I mean, Brooklyn), I couldn't hear anything anyone said anymore. We listened to the music for a while, and then walked out into the neighborhood to find the car, walking past people sitting out on the stoops, with rap playing as a backdrop. It was kind of great.
And then we got lost in the dark for at least half an hour in Jersey trying to find our hotel because it was located in hell. I have nothing good to say about New Jersey.
New York, though.
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