Day 28

I realize I am running late. But I've been going like crazy. This is Saturday's entry. I will try and get caught up by tomorrow night.

OK. So I put the Amtrak stuff completely out of my mind and set out to have a great Saturday in New York City. We were up until after three on Friday and so we slept a little longer than we anticipated. But we were up by nine and dining at the hotel’s free breakfast. It was pretty lousy. But free. And free.

Out the door by10:15. And on our first trip to the subway we had our first problem with the subway. The train we needed to take into Manhattan was not running. So we had to take the train east instead, and then transfer to another line, which added confusion to our lives. But we finally made it to Manhattan and our first stop of the day.

And that stop was….Ground Zero! And it was one of the most awkward tourist experiences of my life. Hundreds of tourists with camera all hyped up with absolutely nothing to see. Which should not surprise anyone…after all, the whole point of this site is what is missing. But mostly the masses were just kind of standing around not sure exactly what they should be doing. So they took pictures of the hole in the ground. And so did I, but only because they were. I can’t picture myself ever looking back through my pictures and thinking, “Oh yeah! We saw this hole in the ground and not the World Trade Center!” Also, the whole time I was standing with this crowd of people watching construction workers dig in this hole in the ground (seriously, if anyone has any idea what exactly they are doing down there I would be really interested) I kept picturing Peyton Manning in the crowd yelling encouragement.

And of course there were the vendors, hawking their wares for the crowd. 9/11 necklaces. 9/11 snow globes (how fucking sick is that?) 9/11 postcards. Yes…they have postcards that are just pictures of the buildings crumbling. What do you do with these postcards? Do you send them to your friends saying, “Greetings from New York!”? Do you frame them? Who buys this shit? Apparently someone cause these guys are all over the place.

9/11.

Anyway, we got out of there and walked southwards. We snapped a few pictures of the bull at Wall Street. He has huge testicles. Then we stopped and got some great pizza. There was a party of 9-year-old kids watching the Yankees game in the restaurant and just going nuts about it. They kept making comments like, “Jorge Posada is only hitting .294 but he is hitting .321 with runners in scoring position and less than two out on Saturday afternoons.” Damn, I loved those kids. And then some kid saw my Cubs hat and announced to me that he used to live in Oak Park. So that was cool. And there was also a kid in a Sonic Youth shirt. Damn, New York breeds their hipsters at a young age. We finished our food and moved on, despite the birthday boy’s father’s insistence that we stay for the forthcoming birthday cake.

So we headed for the Staten Island Ferry. This is a ferry that takes you to Staten Island for free. There is nothing all that exciting about Staten Island but the ferry is known for having some of the best views of the city. And it did! The south skyline, the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island were the highlights. And the Brooklyn Bridge. Great photo opportunities of sites that we didn’t feel like paying for.

And then we were in Staten Island. We sat for a while because we were tired of all the standing and such that we had been doing. And it was so beautiful out. Then we devised a plan of how we could get to Coney Island quickly and painlessly. It was about a twelve step plan. The first step was taking the Staten Island Railroad (no, New York does not respect Staten Island enough to run the subway down there) a few stops down. And so we saw a bit of Staten Island. What did I take away from this experience? Shaolin sucks ass. That Wu-Tang Clan is full of shit. I saw nothing interesting the whole time I was there. I certainly did not see any cool Wu-Tang sword style shit. In fact, the best thing about Staten Island is that it has some good spots to view the other boroughs.

So the train took us to a bus that took us to Brooklyn, New York City (where they paint murals of Biggie.) We got off the bus and onto a train to Coney Island. Except we went the wrong way. So we turned around and went the right way. It was an ordeal. But we eventually got to Coney Island right around the time the annual Mermaid Parade was ending. So the Mermaid Parade is basically just an excuse for people to dress up in ridiculous costumes and act bizarre. And it was perfect.

Coney Island was perfect too. It was filthy and hot and beautiful and kitschy. It was as big a slice of Americana as I could have imagined it would be. Though some traditionalist is sure to disagree with me here. Our goal was to ride the Cyclone but we didn’t care to stand in line so we didn’t. Instead we just walked the boardwalk, had a drink, and watched people. And people are so fucking weird! Coney Island had close to the perfect mix of hipster brats and blue collar folks who must have been absolutely baffled by some of these hipsters and freaks. But everyone seemed to be having a great time with it! Isaac and me struck up a great conversation with a really friendly guy with a live boa constrictor around his neck and two teardrops tattoos. But he was so nice and he was enjoying Coney Island with his family!

Anyway, we eventually left Coney Island and headed up to Brooklyn Heights. After the noise and chaos of Coney Island, Brooklyn Heights was an excellent break. It was incredibly quiet and peaceful. We ate at this restaurant with all-natural and organic everything. It got to the point where we prefaced everything with all-natural. Can you pass the all-natural mustard please? You get the picture. They even had organic beer. Which tasted a lot like regular beer. This leads me to believe that somebody got the brilliant idea of slapping the word organic on their beer and marketing it to hippies. Hooray capitalism!

After dinner we went up to the bluff at Brooklyn Heights and watched the sun set over Manhattan. It was gorgeous. The lights came on all over the city. New York is a truly incredible town. It is just so enormous. There is so much to see and so much going on. So we headed back out and tried to see more of it.

Our next stop was Times Square. I think we had a few more subway troubles at this point. But then we got there and stepped out into the bright lights of the square. It is a sensory explosion to be sure. People everywhere. As bright as daytime. So many things to watch. And I don’t know what could be more American than this. Millions of people come here every year to look at advertisements. This is a complete tourist site built around the act of tourists being told what to buy. And it’s not that people are too stupid to realize this. I think they realize it completely. It is that they don’t care. It is fun and why should we have to think about it? The lights are pretty.

So while walking Times Square a fellow approached us with some passes to Jerry Seinfeld’s comedy club. They were ten dollars apiece. It reeked of a scam but he told us that Charlie Murphy was performing and so was one of the girls from The Office so we took him up on it. We took the subway up a few stops and found the club. And the line. And the announcement that we probably wouldn’t be able to get in, regardless of the fact that we paid for tickets. We also found out that Charlie Murphy was not schedule to perform, nor was the chick from The Office, nor was there any evidence that they were ever planning to. Then it looked like we would get in after all. Then a bunch of attractive ladies showed up and it looked like we wouldn’t. Then the manager pulled some strings, rearranged some chairs, and told us to enjoy the show.

And the show was great. Despite the fact that there was no Charlie Murphy, we got put through a runaround outside, and the two drink minimum drinks were eleven dollars, we were all very happy that we chose to attend this. One of the comedians, Jay something, was being taped for Comedy Central and he was just hilarious. I literally cried a couple times. And my sides hurt. Maybe I will talk about it later. Most of the other comedians were pretty funny as well, but the last guy was just horrible. All in all, despite the ridiculously overpriced drinks and the scam, this was an excellent way to end a very eventful day.

Except the day wasn’t over. We still had to have one of the worst train experiences of all time. All kinds of different routes were closed. I can’t give precise details because I still don’t really get it, but the bottom line is that it took us well over two hours to get back to the hotel. We were all fairly grumpy by the time we got back, at about 3:15.

Of course, I snapped out of it pretty easily once I got my shoes off, took a shower, and sat down at the computer for a few minutes. I mean…it was just an awesome day. Why let some train difficulties ruin it? Tomorrow is another one. And then more.

There is so much left to be done!