Day Thirty

The New York post (not the New York Post - although the word count between this and that are probably pretty similar)

So it wasn’t really easy to get my laptop online in New York, hence this likely being posted in Philadelphia. Sorry for the delay, I’m sure I was missed terribly :P.

New York is an odd city, full of weird coincidences. I wasn’t in the city even three hours before I ran into some guy who disappeared off the face of Perth about eight years ago. Now we know where he went.

And then one time when I used the netcafe across the road, the computer I logged into had someone’s MSN still signed in. Before I had a chance to sign out, then some person messages “me” (ie messages the person signed in). I start chatting with them to let them know that they should really remind their friend to sign off from MSN before they log out of a netcafe, and it turns out this person (the one I was chatting to, not the one signed in) is someone in Perth!

Speaking of that internet cafe, the first time I was there I was in there for just over an hour, and you know how much it cost? US $10. Seriously!! Here I was thinking internet would be freely available pretty much everywhere in the city, and not only was it not, but it also cost a packet to access.

So what’s been going on here? I FINALLY got to visit MoMA (after it being closed for renovations in 2004), and it was everything I had hoped for. Some things that people call “art” are pretty damn obscure, and it’s fun to look at that kind of thing. Modern art is so much more interesting to look at that older art and history museums etc. So in that respect I loved it. Will post some pictures of some of the exhibits at MoMA.

I caught up with Christian, whom I hadn’t seen since my last visit in 2004, so that was awesome :). We went out to dinner and to some bar afterwards, and to the movies (Indy Jones) as well. Indy was good, apart from Harrison Ford looking so old, and the “reveal” at the end of what the kingdom was all about.

Finally got my act together for the Today Show in time to catch Alanis Morissette. She performed Ironic, Thank U, and her newie, Underneath. They also played us some instrumental versions of other songs like Uninvited in between, to keep us occupied when the actual show was on. By the end she had played each songs twice or three times, I guess for the internet versions as well. At one point she came out through the crowd to sign stuff, and she was standing no more than a metre from me!! I was so excited, didn’t get anything signed though. Lots of good photos and some video, will post that stuff too. Fergie was on earlier in the week, but I missed it :(.

New York was also where I first spoke to home again :). Mum wants more photos, so I’ll try to oblige. It takes a long time to organise photo uploading and posting though. They also wanted me to go out for dinner for them that night, so I went to something I’ve never been to before - a dumpling bar. I’ve had dumplings around the place every now and then, but this is like a proper restaurant that just does dumplings. I had chicken szechwan dumplings in a chili soy soup. And damn was the chili chili, even for me. But it was great, so I went back later on for the chicken and thai basil dumplings with a peanut saute sauce and asian greens. Down the road from the dumpling bar is “Australian Homemade Ice Cream”, although I have no idea what was Australian about it. All the staff were Asian, and the cones had a USA flag napkin wrapped around it. And there was no Vegemite flavour.

Food’s been pretty good here, especially as the hostel does free brekky every morning, so I get a big muffin and banana, a cup of coffee and a cup of orange juice, and that all keeps me going a fair while during the day.

There were two t-shirts I would have killed for from the Nintendo store. One was Mario and it saying “Made In The Eighties”, and the other was “I [Mario face] NY”. They didn’t seem to have any smalls though. This was on Monday, and they said they’d get another shipment Wednesday. I go back Wednesday afternoon, and they had sold out again, and told me next shipment was Friday. So I went back Friday, and they never got any in. So it must just not have been meant to be :(. Disappointing though.

It’s like there is almost always something being filmed somewhere in New York. I was just wandering down one street in the East Village not far from my hostel, and there was Minnie Driver, maybe 10m away, filming a scene for some new movie with Uma Thurman. Uma wasn’t there, but I spoke to some of the people around there, and the two of them had blocked off various parts of the neighbourhood all week with their filming. You just walk down a street and see movie stars.

This was all written in Friday afternoon, as I get ready to go out to see Xanadu on Broadway. I’ve also been recommended to see Avenue Q, and I like the looks of some murder-mystery musical comedy starring David Hyde Pierce (the name escapes me). Other than that Broadway either doesn’t have too much I’m interested in, have already seen, or isn’t starring the people I’d see to see it. Ie Wicked, probably pretty easy to get tickets to that now, but without Idina Menzel and the chick from Pushing Daisies it doesn’t seem worth the effort.

Monday is a public holiday here; “Memorial Day”, so not entirely sure what to do with myself then. Well, other than the Today Show again, because the B-52’s are going to be performing. Pics and vids of that to come as well.

I hope that people don’t still think the New York subway is unsafe. I’ve caught it a whole bunch in the last few days, and not once felt like there was any danger. Tonight I accidentally dropped a $20 note on the floor as I was retrieving my phone from my pocket, and I didn’t realise. But the woman sitting at the station next to me did, and pointed it out to me. She didn’t slyly take it. And no one then stabbed me knowing that there was a $20 note on my person. Yay!

I’ve now seen both Xanadu on Broadway, and that murder mystery musical comedy with David Hyde Pierce, called Curtains. Curtains sucked. It had nothing to offer other than it’s star power, and even he was pretty sucky for most of it. Xanadu, on the other hand, can only be described as pure fabulousness. I ended up buying the programme, the CD, and two tees. I had read about Cheyenne Jackson before, who plays Sonny, but didn’t know much about Kerry Butler, who plays Kira. Turns out she was Audrey in the recent Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors, which I had seen last time I was here! :D She was much better as Kira than she was as Audrey though. I was expecting strobelights though. Lots of them, and there were none. A hell of a lot of disco balls though!!

After Xanadu I went out to Splash, and had a great night there. Met a couple of British girls, and danced most of the night, not to mention the morning, away with them. Was feeling very sorry for myself this morning though. By the time I got up and was ready to head out it was about 2pm, and there was this random street fair on 3rd Ave (the one closest to my hostel), so that really helped perk up my spirits again :). After some further wandering I discovered another over on 6th Ave, AND one at Union Square. They close down whole sections of the avenue (ie it was about seven blocks on 6th Ave, from 14th through to 23rd St) and line it with stalls. They were great! I tried an “arepa”, which is this odd concoction of sweet corn and mozzarella cheese, then cooked on a barbecue. The stalls for the were everywhere, so I had to try one. It was, um, potentially an acquired taste that I just couldn’t for the life of me acquire.

I’m going to try for the Metropolitan Museum of Art tomorrow, because one of the guys here at the hostel mentioned that they currently have a (fairly small) exhibition of superhero costumes that were used in films - ie Superman, Spiderman, etc. Sounds awesome! Will take MORE photos.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was a waste of time. The actual exhibits were really, really boring (how many ancient Greek bowls can one look at?) - although an incredibly extensive collection, and you weren’t allowed to take ANY photos in the Superhero: Fashion and Fantasy exhibit. The exhibit itself was pretty cool, but not worth the $20 admission to the museum. They had the Batsuit from The Dark Knight, both Spiderman 3 suits, the original Wonder Woman and Superman suits, the Catwoman suit from Batman Returns, and, um, not many others. They were all complemented by displays of clothing inspired by these and other superhero suits by designeds like Armani, Thierry Muglier, etc.

Also took a loooong stroll through Central Park. Today was pretty damn near perfect weather wise. It was about 22 C and cloudless. I’ve never seen Central Park during “summer”time, and it was great, probably even better than it is in winter.

The B-52’s on the Today Show were brilliant. They really kick it up a notch in live performances, and did Love Shack, Funplex, and ROCK LOBSTER!! :D :D MY FAVOURITE. I have videos and photos, yet again. Also videos of what must be one of the B’s biggest fans - this guy in the front row who was dancing crazylike. And it wasn’t me. Tim stayed up to watch the Oz telecast of it, and apparently I was on there! Me! On television! Like in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, except I got to stay full-sized.

Aaaand I walked the Brooklyn Bridge. Not entirely sure why. Because it’s possible. And because a whole bunch of many other people were doing it. I don’t know what to say about it, it was a bridge, potentially with more strings and struts and stuff than most other bridges I’ve been on, but still, it’s just really a good way to get from Manhattan to Brooklyn and back again. That’s the thing about bridges, once you cross it, you have to go all the way back over it to get back again.

Avenue Q was a musical recommended to me by a friend at work, by jeebus, was it a good recomendation. At it’s most basic a send-up of Sesame Street (ie with puppets) based in some random area of New York, but it’s just completely hilarious. I ended up with the soundtrack, and a serious case of wheeziness from laughing so hard, so much.

My last full day was spent basically just wandering through Central Park. It was a good way to wind down considering the city is so hectic, constantly. I also went to Coney Island one afternoon, which helped - it’s like a mini-amusement park area bordering the beach in Brooklyn. Most of the rides etc were closed down and wouldn’t be opening until into June sometime, but it was good to just be somewhere fairly quiet, even though the beach itself was busy - it was a deeeep beach. Lots of beach space between the boardwalk and the water.

New York is really the kind of city you need to take your camera with you all the time. So many things I missed out on taking photos of - ie there was a bus full of the try-hards for some new MTV TV series about finding a new star for the Broadway version of Legally Blonde - so it was two floors of blonde girls in the pink Elle Wood dress, and screaming hysterically as they drove around. That kind of thing doesn’t get seen every day :P.

And the final night was the Sheryl Crow concert, which was the whole reason I stayed on an extra four or so days. Kevin Bacon was there too, just in the crowd like every other person. Sheryl was also pretty good, it was worth sticking around for.

So that’s it. New York in a very big nutshell. I’m really not going to bother with the photos and videos right now seeing I’ve just gotten into Philadelphia a few hours ago, just had a chance to check into my hostel and clear up all the emails form the past ten days or so. Over the weekend I want to have a look at the town etc, see all this history that Philly has (it seems I’m right in the middle of it - walking down I spotted the centre where the Liberty Bell is, and the National Independence Centre, which has a copy of the original US constitution), but maybe on one of my last days I’ll do something about the photos and videos.

One month down, four to go :).