before i took off i felt i needed a bit of reading material. Sylvia Plath has been popping up in my life quite a lot recently, well, not literally she's a bit dead to be doing that, but just in newspaper articles and songs etc. i've never really read much poetry but i thought i should check some of her stuff out so i got a selection of her work chosen by her ex husband Ted Hughes. i found that a bit interesting in itself because she commited suicide because of Ted's wandering eye. i got chatting to a guy that worked at the book shop about it and he said that Ted never spoke of Sylvia until he released a book of poetry called 'birthday letters' just before he died. apparently its about there relationship, so i brought that book too. as i was leaving to go to the airport a guy at the hostel finished 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac and said that i should read it so he gave it to me. so it looks like i'm going to be a very busy book worm in the next couple weeks.
the flight was pretty good, nothing to really report. food was rubbish, but i would be shocked if i recieved otherwise. i touched down into New York and to be honest, i was a bit worried that they wouldn't let me in. they have upped there security since i left for my trip, so i had to to fill in a form online filling them in on the in's and out's of everything, things like are you a terrorist? and what kind of underwear do you wear? pfft! like a terrorist would tick the box saying that he was a terrorist anyway! oh and incase your interested, i wear grey underwear... and brown ones when i know i could be in dangerous situation! anyway, i had to carry this piece of paper on me at all times or something. as i was standing in line at customs i was overwhelmed at how patriotic the airport was. i had hardly step foot in the country and i was being bombarded with stars and stripes and words like 'pledge' and 'pride'. anyway, after a little bit of a drilling they let me into the country. i collected my bag and got the bus to my hostel so i could begin being a new yorker.
in a stroke of luck my mate, and fellow traveller, Byron who i met in Cardiff (click here to read the Cardiff post) was in New York staying with a mate of his who was studying film here, so we caught up and checked out a lot of the sights together. actually one day we checked out some sights dressed up as sailors and recreated Ol' Blue Eyes & Co singing 'New York, New York'. don't believe me? check out the photo below.
i was actually quite surprised that one really cared less, we hardly got a comment and no one really took a second look. i guess New Yorkers are kind of used to eccentric behaviour. as you can see from the photo we went to the Empire State Building which, to me wasn't as big as i thought it was going to be, probably because the buildings around it were quite tall too. when you get up the top, the view is quite amazing, but so windy... especially if your wearing a sailor outfit.
after that we walked to Time Square, which i found such a bizarre place. not because the lights are flashing everywhere, in someways it reminded me of Tokyo. no, it was that they had deck chairs set up everywhere so people could sit and watch the advertisements. isn't funny that we spend our lives, channel surfing to get away from commercials, then you come to a place to watch them? heres a funny little fact. originally it wasn't called Time Square, it got its name after the first ad for The New York Times appeared.
from there we caught a ferry to Staten lsland, mainly because its free and it goes right passed the statue of Liberty. i figured that there's no point in paying the $40 to go to liberty island because you can't climb the statue anymore. so cruising passed the statue was good enough for me.
heres a hot tip for anyone going to NYC on a budget. i brought a ticket pass they lets you get into a lot of the main art galleries and various attractions around NYC, it was $70, and i think it was worth every cent.
i went to the Met which was quite good. they have a bit of everything, italian, french, american they had some great Egyptian stuff there that i liked. they had a great art collection too. George Seurat's 'a sunday afternoon on the island of la grande jatte', some Warhol and Chuck Close just to name a few of the stuff hanging on there walls. also they had Damien Hirst's 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living' which is a shark in a glass container filled with formaldehyde solution. it certainly lives up to its title, it scared the shit out of me (it was lucky that was the day i wore my brown undies!) my only complaint is that the museum is SO big! it takes hours to get around to see everything.
i visited the Guggenheim too, which means i've completed the Guggenheim grand slam! they had an exhibition on Frank Lloyd Wright who was the architect who created the New York Guggenheim, which was kinda cool because it kind of put a lot of his work into context, but it meant that i couldn't see a lot the famous works of art that they have there. oh well, it was a pretty cool building to look at. but i have to say when i go through a building i think about how i walk through a space, and i have to say i felt it didn't work that well. its built like a spiral that you walk around in circles from the bottom, right up to the top, which is good because you see an exhibition in order, but then when you get to the top... thats it, you have to turn around and walk back, which i found annoying because i hate backtracking. it wasnt just the Guggenheim, i found that a couple of times. the Museum of Natural history was the same, but what it offered was quite good. they had an film projected on a roof of a room, on how our solar system was created and how earth has changed over the years, all narrated by Mr Robert Redford. it was pretty amazing. there was a point at the start when Robert said something around the lines of 'Hi, i'm Robert Redford and i'm about to show you how our earth was created...' and then a little kid piped up and said 'but didn't God create it?' i guess thats kind of cute and innocent, but heres something thats not. i heard that something like 40% of politicians in America still believe that god created the earth and not the 'big bang' theory. kind of scary, don't you think?
for me MoMA was probably the best, mainly because i like modern art. they had interesting art work with some pretty big names in there too. but something i liked about it was it had furniture, architecture and other creative things there also, which i found refreshing.
of course, you don't go to new york and not go for a walk around Central Park. to be honest you can't really miss it, its massive! its a really enjoyable to walk around in too, with its big trees and lakes, its kind of hard to believe its all man made. they generally have people playing music scattered throughout the park, as well as its fair share of yuppies going for a run at lunchtime. there are plenty of little stalls in the park, which is quite a good spot to get a hot dog. speaking of food, i got told before i came here i should go to a deli and get a sandwich, good thing i remembered - they were amazing! Byron and I had them so often that the guy who owned the store knew us by name in the end. on the weekend they shut down a lot of streets (even the big ones) and have lots of little markets, they sell all different types of food there too, as well as clothing and other bits and pieces.
there are some pretty famous residence of New York. not far from Central Park is the Dakoda building. not only is it the most expensive apartment block in New York it was also where John Lennon lived with Yoko Ono and was also the place he was fatally shot by Mark Chapman. i was surprised to hear that Yoko still lives there today. also not far from the Guggenheim is the little apartment Andy Warhol used to live in. it looks pretty humble from the out the front, but i noticed it was for sale for about $4.5 million so i imagine its quite nice inside. i also saw one of the factories he used to create his work in, which was pretty cool.
i had a couple of brushes with celebrities while i was here. on one evening while i was walking to my hostel i saw Jermaine from New Zealand Comedy duo 'Flight of the Conchords' walking down the street. which i thought was pretty cool, then i walked a little further and i saw Keanu Reeves having a coffee. i don't normally ask for autographs, but since i've been traveling i've been carrying a little note pad just so i can jot down little ideas i have or things i want to research later, also i stick in tickets and stuff like that to compare designs from around the world, but mainly just to keep memories, so i figured that i should get him to put his name in it. i imagine being a celebrity and people asking for your autograph must get tiring after a while, but he was really nice actually.
i was walking passed the Ed Sullivan theater and put my name into the ballot for tickets to the Late Show with David Letterman. i didn't really expect to get called up, but amazingly i got a ticket and a spare ticket for Byron, which was very lucky! i thought Byron was going to wet himself when he found out the news. at first we thought we the guests were Bill Cosby and Paula Abdul, which i personally would've got a laugh out of Paula trying to resurrect her singing career. but we got the friday night taping, which they do on the monday night, so we got Paris Hilton and comedian Steven Wright. David was in fine form and subtly ripped into Paris, which was gold! mainly because, lets face it, Paris shouldn't be famous at all.
being the Seinfeld fan that i am i couldn't leave without seeing a few sights. apparently Kenny Kramer, the guy the Kramer character is based on, does tours, but he wasn't doing them yet so i had to do it myself. first stop was the Soup Nazi's kitchen, unfortunately 'no soup for me!', it was closed, which was a bit shattering. anyway, i so got over it and when up to 'Tom's Restaurant' which is the restaurant that they used to eat at. i was surprised that the out side was still the same after all these years, but the inside was totally different to the TV show, ah, the tricks of TV land.
its funny, you walk around and you see stuff and your like 'oh, yeah thats that!' you know, things like street names, Madison Ave, Broadway, 5th Ave etc, New York is filled with so many iconic things like: Radio City Music Hall, the 'LOVE' statue by Robert Indiana, Rockefeller building, Carnegie Hall, Wall St and Grand Central Station. while i'm on the topic of Grand Central Station, i'm a big fan of a group called Improv Everywhere, who do stunts through out the world, mainly they do things with large groups that are a bit shocking like riding the subway with no pants on. but probably there most famous stunt was at Grand Central Station, check out the video below to see what i mean.
i wanted to go to a baseball game while i was here, and i guess Yankee Stadium is pretty much the holy grail when i comes to baseball. Byron and I tried to get tickets but they were really expensive so i had to give it a miss. when we got there, i was surprised to find that there were two Yankee Stadiums, built right next to each other. i asked around it it turns out that they build a new one so it could fit in more people, and obviously make more money. i asked what would happen to the stadium full of history, the stadium that created baseball legends like Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio - the original Yankee Stadium? i was shocked to find out that it would be pulled down. which i thought was a real shame how money gets in the way of history, i could never imagine the MCG getting ripped down. anyway, there are a couple of baseball teams in New York. the Yankees are probably the most well known, but i like the underdogs - the Mets. they don't win as much, but i'm used to that, i've been following the Richmond Tigers in the AFL for years now, so i'm used to the beatings.
New York is broke up into different 5 boroughs i mainly checked out Manhatten mainly because thats where most of the sights are. i spent a lot of my time in the East Village, Greenwich Village and SOHO they're full of restaurants and cool little shops.
when i first got here i was staying in Harlem, which is a little bit rough, in fact while i was ordering chinese food from a hole in the wall (seriously, it was a little hole in the wall) that was just up the road from my hostel. before i could put my order in a guy came up to me and said 'what kind of after shave do you wear?' i told him that i didn't wear aftershave but that didn't stop him from producing some hot goods to flog me. i told him that i wasn't interested. i wasn't sure how he would take it, but he was ok, actually we ended up having a chat about crime in New York and how he did a bit of travel himself (probably strapping large amounts of heroin to his chest, i'm guessing he didn't know the difference between traveling and trafficing).
after a couple of days of fearing for my life i decided to move hostels. to be honest, the majority of people i met in Harlem were quite nice but there were a couple of loose cannons that made me want to move. i ended up staying in the east village which is an area i really liked and an added bonus was it was right near where Byron was staying.
though its a bit of novelty to used a 'dime' and 'quarter', i find money and buying stuff over here pretty strange. the notes, or 'greenbacks' as they call them, all looks the same so i never know how much money i have in my wallet, but also when you buy stuff, sometimes it will have the tax included and other times it doesn't. also something i've had to get used to since i've gotten to the states was tipping - i never know what to do! everyone that isn't from Australia is probably saying 'what a Terry Tight-Arse!' but the reason i find it kinda tricky is because in Australia you don't really tip. the reason you have to tip is because the minimum wage is appauling (something like $6 an hour). i guess the only positive is you get good service. i find it really strange that the government don't lift the minimum wage, when you think about it, if people have a better wage, quality of life is lifted and perhaps we wouldn't have people flogging stolen goods in Harlem. just a thought.
i was really surprised at the size of cars over here, they're MASSIVE. i haven't seen one small car on the road. its a little bit excessive to be honest. having said that, while i was here General Motors filed for Bankruptcy. they had a piece on it on the news and interviewed a so-called expert. he was saying that 'America makes the best cars in the world' and argued that the government weren't doing enough to help export the cars overseas. but to be totally honest, having just come from Europe, there is no place for an American car in europe, they all drive small cars that are fuel effiecient. i'm already starting to get that feeling that America really does think that 'big is better' when clearly, its not the case. to be honest the main reason that they have gone under is because of the workers. now, i'm all for paying people well and retirement funds, but the General Motors employee package is ridiculous! they get paid something like $50 an hour to work on an assembly line, then when they retire i heard they get something like, a new car every year plus a huge retirement fund and health care for them and there family. crazy!
i went to the site where the two towers once stood, and i was surprised to see that its still a massive hole in the ground. there is a memorial not far from the site to the victims of 9/11 but there are a number of memorials around the city as well. there was one in the east village (i think) that i really liked made of tiles that people had decorated, i felt it was touching. September 11, 2001 changed the world forever, in some ways we'll probably never be the same again. so imagine how it has changed the city it happened in. New Yorkers have a bit of a reputation of being a bit abrupt, but i heard that 9/11 has changed the people quite a bit, making them a lot more friendly to others. i guess in times of trouble people stick together.
while i was here I got invited to Byron's mates 21st in Long Island. it was a bit of a hike but we finally got out there. Long Island is really quite nice, well at least the area i was in anyway. it was kind of like the movies, picture perfect houses with nice lawns and it seemed that every second house had an American flag hanging out the front. you know how you watch films like 'American Pie' and you get an idea in your head about what American parties are like. ok, the party wasn't as wild as they make out in the movies but there were definately a number of differences to the parties back home. for intances: they play heaps of drinking games that actually involve skill. they played this game called 'Beer Pong' where you had cups of beer lined up like bowling pins at both ends of a table, then you would have to try and throw a ping pong ball into a cup so that the other person would chug it down. it was way too skillful for my liking. call me simple but i prefer something a little home grown like 'Goon of Fortune' where by you hang a bladder from a cask of wine to a hills hoist. spin it. then who ever it falls on, that person has to chug. i never said the game was classy, but it does the trick.
i also found girls at the part to be really forward. in my opinion its generally its the guy that will go speak to a girl, but here it was the total opposite. there was a couple of stereotype though. i met a girl called Britney who, i think was probably a cheerleader at one stage, and they do have red plastic cups. i did noticed that when i was walking through a university it was also full of sterotypes. like: the goths, the cheerleaders, the jocks, the alternative people playing hacky sack, the guy in a trenchcoat that could have a gun. it was borderline hilarious.
the next day feeling we were all feeling a little seedy and i clearly wasn't thinking straight. we had the bright idea of going to a beach that was close by. my head was so fried that i forgot to put sunscreen on and before i knew it the rest of my body was fried. i haven't been that burnt in a very long time, it was sure to make the train journey to montreal a painful one. but more about that in the next blog.
i was here in New York for about 10 days and i feel i only scratched the surface. bi have to say i loved every minute of it, so much so that i would love to live here one day. at least now i can wear one of those 'I heart NY' t-shirts and actually mean it.
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