|
Day 01 - New York here I Come! I had a really nice morning
hanging out with Andrew and doing a few last minute things in London.
But I had no idea that the day would not end until 6am the next day.
I got away from Earl's Court a little after 2pm to head to the airport.
And Heathrow Airport is such a massive place! They were renovating
parts of the airport so there was no airconditioning. I headed into
the American Airlines Admiral's Club for free tea and biscuits... I
stuffed myself silly and surfed th net for while. Now the
process for travelling to America is a little more full on than other
countries. Everything gets searched.... Everything!
But I expect this now. Boarding of the massive Boeing 777 took
about 1 1/2 hours. Eventually we took off about 30 minutes
late. I don't know why but the 7 hour flight seemed to take
forever. I think I watched 8 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond.
It was probably because I was squashed into the middle section and the
flight was full.
When we arrived at JFK we had to wait almost an hour to move to the
arrivals gate. And then it took ages before I could work out how to
find the Super Shuttle into the city. Eventually the Super
Shuttle dropped off everyone at the other end of Manhattan and then took
me to my hotel at 2am. I was so tired! But I was
lucky that the hotel guy was really helpful and even worked out how I
could get 90 bucks of my bill. I had a really strange night's
sleep. I kept waking up thing I was in a cave and couldn't work out
which way to get out. I think I started yelling out to people
at one stage... which I'm sure would have made my neighbours
happy. So I am going to try and move to another room today.
This one has no sink when it should. It helps when the bathroom is
shared to at least have a sink in the room. And then I'm
heading out to do some exploring. The city sounds so quiet from
here.
Day 02 - Shopping in
New York:
I am having no trouble at all finding a
Starbucks so I can get internet access.. they are on every corner
here! My day started at Joe Junior's diner which is just around the
corner from where I'm staying. It's a greasy little diner which does
a great brekky... and cheap too... an omlette with
potatoes, toast and tea was just 5 bucks. I suspect I'll be
having breakfast there each day... its just easy. And I
love the regulars who go there, most of them have something a little
freakish going on. Later I got in contact with Stephen who
also arrived yesterday from Melbourne. We met up and took off
downtown on the E train to find Century 21. I don't know how but we
fluked finding it, as well we happened to walk past the World Trade Centre
site. It was a little spooky and it seemed strange that after all
these years it still looks like a construction site.
But back to Century 21. Stephen and I were amazed at cheap the
clothes were! I bought Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss and 2xist undies for
just $US 6 each! I also picked up some Evisu jeans for
just $US70. Stephen tells me these things are almost $500 at
home. I wasn't planning on doing any shopping but who could resist
these prices! We didn't end up getting up to SOHO as
planned but instead headed back to our hotels. I had to find Charles
for our dinner date. Charles came in from Boston to have
dinner with me. We went to the beautiful Veselka Cafe in the
east village for dinner and afterwards we went to an amazing cake shop for
dessert. I was starting to fall asleep by this stage so I went
back to the hotel and slept. I'm meeting Charles again early
in the morning for brekky. Later I'll catch up with Stephen to plan
our Friday night in the big apple.
Note: People in New York are so friendly now! We were lost
several times today and people would volunteer directions to us. I
am really amazed in the change from when I was here last in the year 2000.
It's going to be a really nice stay in New York.
Day 03 - East Village
Schleping:
I finally got a good night's sleep and met
Charles for breakfast in Chelsea. Another greasy breakfast
under my belt and it was off to shop for a mobile phone. I'm having
trouble getting a working mobile phone for my stay here in the US. I
have now bought a new phone but it doesn't seem to want to work.
It could be because I paid 50 bucks for it.
I wandered a bit lost for most of the afternoon and then went back to my
room to sleep some more. And good thing I did... its Friday
night in New York! I decided to go meet Stephen and have
dinner at the Dallas BBQ Grill over near Chelsea. And boy were
the meals huge... and so were most of the customers!
Afterwards we walked across town to the East Village to check out Opaline
and the Cock. Opaline was a really cool bar.
Good music and a really fun crowd. The shows there were quite
strange. People were being plucked from the crowd, stripped naked
and massaged on stage. How odd. And then we headed along
the street to see the Cock. A bar which has been around for years
and is about to relocate. We didn't have as good a time there
as we expected. It had a very strange crowd. So we had
one beer and left. I was disturbed that we had paid $10 for
each of these places and then they charge 6 or 7 dollars per beer (plus
tips). Talk about trying to make money quickly!
So we jumped in a cab and headed back across town to the very large Eagle
bar on west 28th street (i think that's correct). There
we loads of people there and pretty friendly too. I think
there had been something on there earlier in the night. No cover and
the beers were only 3 bucks. Eventually I left at 4am and
walked back to my hotel about 40 minutes away. I'm a bit
hungover and tired now. I'm sitting here wondering where
Saturday night will take me.
Day 04 - Splish
Splash:
Saturday in the city doesn't seem too
different to any other day when you're travelling. Except in New
York there are more people hanging out rather than rushing to work.
I have been hanging around the Union Square area quite a lot. It's close
to my hotel and it's my point of reference to cross over to the west side
of town. I've also noticed that Union Square is busy 24 hours
a day. When I came home from the Eagle bar at 4.30am there were
skaters practising skating tricks in Union Square. And again
this morning the place was packed with guys on those tricked up BMX bikes.
I really like the fact that you can go out at any time here and something
will be happening.
But back to the technical part of my trip. After many false starts I
now have a mobile phone in the US. I was spooked by the fact
that I had to come up with at least $3 of quarters everytime I had to call
a mobile phone. So this makes keeping in contact so much
easier. I also got my haircut by a Russian barber in the east
village... $8.99 plus tip... what a bargain! And
then I headed to the Old Navy sale where they now have really cool
t-shirts for 5 bucks. I am already filling another box to send
back to Melbourne.
So... Saturday night in the city... I
started with a beautiful dinner at the delicious Veselka Cafe on 2nd Ave.
The place attracts all sorts and I love the appropriately aloof wait staff
they employ there. It's also in a great place to sit and watch
the unusual east side crowd walk by. I've gotta say that I really
like it on this side of town. I haven't worked out what to
compare it too yet, but it does have a San Francisco feel about it.
I met up with Stephen at the Splash bar on West 17th Street around
midnight. The place was already pretty busy, and there were go
go dancers on each podium and bar. Well... when I say go
go dancers, I mean muscle boy kinda squirming around. And p0rn
was playing on the big screens. I think it was a special
night. But it is downstairs that you have to experience.
They have a wall of showers where you can sit and watch people shower.
I didn't actually see anyone in there. Maybe it happened much later.
But I do have to mention the toilets. This is the first place I have
ever seen where you have one long urinal and cubicles built around it.
So you can be peeing into the same urinal but not have to look at the
person next to you... unless of course you choose the one cubicle
that is made of glass. How interesting.
Stephen managed to get on the sweet side of the barman who gave us free
beers and shots all night. We also had stacks of guys coming
and parading around us. I thought that was pretty funny. Fresh
meat perhaps?
Eventually I loaded my new mobile phone with new phone numbers, left
Stephen to his barman and got the hell out of there. It was so nice
getting to bed before 4am.
Day 05 - 4th July
Long Weekend:
I've discovered that Dunkin Donuts offers
free net access so I'm now eating bagels for breakfast each morning so I
can get connected. And it's just down the road from my hotel
(in fact everything is just down the road). After breakfast I
went and paid my $25 for a workout at the NYSC (New York Sports Club
I think). The gym was pretty crummy and I was told later that
it is usually much busier but a lot of people are out of town for the long
weekend. I met Henry at the gym who later took me around some
of the East Village where he lives. I then continued to walk all the
way down to Canal Street where the crowds of tourists were out in their
droves! Little old women walking around manically saying DVD!
DVD! DVD! and holding in front of them every movie that is currently
playing at the cinemas. 5 bucks each. There were people
selling everything from the I Love New York t-shirts to fake Louis Vuitton
hangbags. I found it all a little bit crazy. I actually was
looking for Canal Jeans but didn't find it. Actually I gave up too
easily. I then got on the wrong train and headed off to
Brooklyn. It wasn't long before I worked out I was going the
wrong way and swapped back to an uptown train.
Now here is the strange thing... my hotel clerk said that if I
turned up at 6pm with cash for the total of my stay at the hotel I would
save $90 on my stay. So I did... and he came through.
I thought it was all very odd. And Sunday night around 11 I
headed down Avenue A again to check out Boys Room. A small bar in
the back of what seems like someone's old house. It was pretty
full and was mostly black guys. The music was pretty good and
there were guys dancing naked on the bar. (For tips of
course). When I went to check out the backroom I quickly felt a
crowd around me and a hand reach down my pants for my wallet.
It kinda freaked me a little and I got the hell out of there.
Later another guy told me that it regularly happens there that guys are
looking for money in your pockets. And wouldn't you know it...
the person that I get chatting with is from Sydney! I was home
by 2... early night.
Day 06 - America's
Birthday:
I was pretty lucky to end up in New York on the 4th of July.
I'm told that a lot of New Yorkers actually head out of the city for the
weekend. My morning started at Dunkin Donuts again for the free net
access and delicious egg and bacon bagels. My colon hasn't
seen any fibre in a week now! So it's time to do some
touring. I found myself on an express train hurtling towards 86th
Street to go and check out the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition at the
Guggenheim Museum. The weather is absolutely perfect today!
Afterwards I went for a walk through Central Park. I was amazed at
all the beautiful bodies out jogging, riding, skating and sun baking.
Another big pastime here in New York is throwing the ball to each other.
It's like everyone here is practising to play basketball. I've
seen it all over the city now. So I stayed a while and got
some sun as well. What a great place! I'm sure that Central
Park is much larger than the central business district of Melbourne.
Once I'd had enough sun I finally found my way out of the park and walked
all the way down Broadway to Penn Station to pick up my Amtrak tickets for
my ride to Toronto on Thursday. I also wanted to se where I have to
go to. While I was in the area I also checked out Macy's and
the H&M store.
All week they have been advertising the Macy's 4th of July fireworks over
the eastern river and over near Jersey. I headed over about an
hour early and the place was already packed. Oh... and
there were some bizzare characters there as well. The
fireworks I have to say were amazing. They went continuously
for 30 minutes and some of the displays I had never seen anywhere before.
The guy's standing near me said it was great that Macy's put this on, but
then said that they make some huge profit from one store each year.
They said it must be from tourists though because locals don't shop there.
I was as equally amazing afterwards to see what looked liked hundreds of
thousands of people flooding back into the city. I was too
tired to go out again tonite so I got a pizza and went back to my hotel.
Fear Factor:
The latest fear campaign happening in America is all about identity theft.
I haven't learnt much about it yet. But it's where someone
steals enough information about you so they can go about conducting some
business or scam in your name. There are loads of TV
commercials suggesting products you can buy to stop this from happening.
And yesterday I saw a woman walking out of Circuit City with a new paper
shredder... renamed to an "Identity Protector".
Like everything else this trend will eventually come to Australia.
Day 07 - Live P0rn on
Stage:
Another crazy day in New York. I spoke to some guys that
wanted to interview me about my website and do some photos with some big
photographer here in New York. So we went and did the interview
(video) up in the Riverside Park along the Hudson River. It was so
nice to spend the afternoon out in the park. Later in the day I met
up with Craig who I'd met through this site. He showed me through
the beautiful Ansonia building where Bette Midler got her big break and
earned the nickname Bathouse Betty. What an amazing building to see
in the middle of Manhattan.
Afterwards I headed back down town to meet Stephen for dinner at Better
Burger in Chelsea and then we were off to see Owen Hawk's p0rn night at
the X-Lge bar. It was quite a funny night. They were
drawing a prize at the front door where you could win a year's worth of
free p0rno videos from Dark Alley Media. The only catch was that
they have only made one film. The night promised a free live
p0rn show. So we got front row seats and started guzzling the beers. NOw comes the uncomfortable bit.... two guys cam out on stage
and started kinda rubbing up against each other wrapped in towels.
They looked so uncomfortable... and then Owen Hawk came out and gave
them shots to drink and started to try and get them to do something which
might have looked remotely erotic. It didn't work. Then
the next 2 hours were full of 3 guys doing some bar top dancing and
collecting all of our dollar bills. Just after midnight
Owen Hawk whispered something to the performers (which I'm assuming was
"we're not making any money here") and they started taking down all
the signs from the bar, got dressed and left.... all in full
view of the bar. It was so funny! That had to be the
most entertaining part of the night! I asked the barman when
the show was going to begin... he pretended to have mis-heard me and
said.. we're open till 4.
We then walked home in the driving rain. Time to prepare for
my last day in the big city.
Day 08 - Goodbye New
York: I've decided that even though I didn't do a lot of touring
here I did have a pretty amazing time in New York. Not the
time I thought I would have but it was pretty good. On the
first morning I woke up in America my sore throat and hayfever had
disappeared. It felt like the first day of my holidays again.
My last day in the city was pretty busy. I started at Joe Junior's
for breakfast and then to Starbucks to check my emails. I had
a 2pm appointment over on the far west side of town for a photo shoot with
Eva Mueller in her amazing studio
overlooking a large part of Manhattan. It was a pretty funny
time. There were assistants running all over the place moving things
around. It must be amazing to have this as your full time
occupation.
Afterwards I went looking for Stephen and found him buried in shopping
bags back down at Century 21. I wandered about for a while
waiting for him to finish shopping and then walked halfway up Broadway
having dinner and doing some window shopping. By the time I
got back to the hotel I decided not to go out again. I had to be up
at 5am to get to my train to Toronto in the morning.
New York was great because I got to meet some really nice people.
Hanging out with Steve was the best. We had some prety funny times
checking at the bars by night and shopping by day. Hanging out
with Issey Nini was pretty cool too. He has invited me to stay at
his apartment next time I come to New York. Meeting Craig and
getting to checking out the beautiful Ansonia building was something I
would never have thought of doing. All of these are experiences that
are making this a great trip. I wish I could come and spend more
time here again sometime.
Disappointment.... I didn't pick up a I Love NY t-shirt.
Next time...
Day 09 - Pergatory:
The area between the USA and Canada in which the Amtrak train sits.
The trip from New York to Toronto ended up taking 15 hours. A
few more hours than scheduled. The train ride was okay but
there wasn't much to see along the way. I ended up watching
lots of episodes of 6 Feet Under and Prime Suspect on my laptop, and
eating loads of junk food. The healthiest item to eat (on the
American side) was a cheeseburger. The train was already
running over an hour late because of track works going on outside of New
York. But then when we arrived at the US side of the border the US
customs officials stopped the train for an hour and started searching the
train and some people's luggage. It was an interesting
exercise in that there were just 4 guys checking the whole train.
And then 2 miles up the track we went through the process again with the
Canadian customs officials. It was pretty crazy. We had
heard that something big had happened in London so increased customs
checks were being done. But I was mostly annoyed at Amtrak because
they did not make one single announcement to say that why we were stopping
for so long, why they had closed the dining car for 4 hours during all of
this or that we were going to arrive much later in Toronto. Luckily
I had my mobile phone so I could warn Marc not to be waiting at the train
station.
Travel Update: I
have cancelled the car trip from Toronto to Cleveland. For
some reason the car cost has doubled from $400 to $800 for the 6 days.
So I am now working out what my movements will be for the next week.
I will probably get to Cleveland by bus late next week so I can still be
there to see the guys over the weekend and stay in Toronto a little
longer. I will arrange this over the weekend in Montreal.
PHOTOS
Brekky at Joe Juniors |
The World Trade Centre site |
Stephen shows me how to shop at Century 21 |
Waiting for the subway train home |
Yummy food at Veselka |
Shopping at Virgin - Union Square
|
Morning snoozing in Union Square
|
Virgin Store
|
|
The Dallas BBQ - Chelsea
|
The last days at the Cock
|
Busy Union Sqare
|
Hotel 17
|
Empire State Building in the distance
|
Shopping at Old Navy - $5 t's
|
Mister Softie...mmmm
|
A single engine fire station
|
|
Henry shows me the East Village
|
The street used regularly on Law and Order
|
No wonder the guys here wear their caps
sideways... it's the mannequins fault!
|
East Village street art
|
Gus's Pickle store
|
Filming in New York
|
|
What?
|
|
Anything can be bought on Canal Street
|
|
Hanging out with Charles
|
|
The beautiful Stuyvesant Square |
Guggenheim Museum |
|
Inside Guggenheim |
|
Central Park |
The beach? |
|
|
Throwing the ball |
|
|
Sheep Meadow in Central Park |
Icecream anyone? |
|
Colombus Square |
|
What? |
Broadway |
Times Square |
|
|
|
MTV on Times Square |
|
The huge Toys R Us on Times Square |
|
|
Times Square |
It's ending?? |
I witnessed a car crash on Broadway |
Mmm.. Macys |
4th July Fireworks |
Issey Nini... my New York photographer |
The beautiful Ansonia building |
|
The view from the top of the Ansonia
|
|
|
X-Lge Club |
|
|
The view from Eva Mueller's studio |
Issey in the studio |
Shopping at Century 21.. again |
Customs checking out the Amtrak train |
|
|
