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went to new york
Oct. 27th, 2003 07:24 pmmystery and i went to new york this weekend. mystery expressed a desire to have some real sort of forced downtime. where all the problems would be far away from law school. she wanted to escape our cheesesteak smelling apartment for someplace exotic.. (our downstairs neighbors can only cooke one thing, cheesesteaks, and they cook them badly, charring the onions till they reek of a bitter sulphur stink that creeps through the vents and hangs out in our apartment like Kato Kaelin.) she also wanted to see new york, since we may never be this close to it again. i'm a pretty reluctant guy when it comes to doing new things, so i am a hard sell on going to new york... but the metropolitan museum is there, and it had a lot of art that i wanted to look at, and i'd heard that they'd improved this version of new york quite a bit since it's last release.
we went via "dragon coach" - fifteen bucks from chinatown in philly to chinatown in new york. we took the train down and barely made it in time, there were just a few seats left, and we couldn't sit together. I sat next to a fellow who slept the whole time, and mystery sat next to a gentlemen who spoke in loud french the whole way, interspersed by perhaps the loudes sneezes i've ever heard.
when we got there, we walked a few blocks in chinatown, and thought we might be adventurous and walk from chinatown up to our hotel just a block from the park. it wasn't that far on the map judging by what we had travelled. along the way we stopped at a place in little italy for a good, if slightly burnt espresso, then in the east village to eat at an all vegan place off the street. (since the indian restaurant we had chosen was closed... it was the Madras Cafe, and we had heard it was good, we never did eat there...) but the vegan place was really good, vegan food like they have at The Globe in seattle, just comfort food with veggies and lots of good stuff. at the end we got an orange cake with almond icing to go, and stopped and got some natural sodas at a natural grocery.
after we left we hit fifth avenue and walked up that to the park. fifth avenue is like a whole street full of the stores you never go into in the mall, punctuated by an attraction here or there. guys were pushing dollies down the street with big bundles tied to them, about twenty passed us buy before we saw one stopped, and talking to a lady on the corner. wanna buy a louie vatton original? thirty-five bucks... fifth avenue was all like that, just merciless yuppie shopping for miles. filled with things i don't want and the poeple that live for those things. fifty blocks started to be a long, long way. eventually we got to the park and couldn't find our hotel...
we walked around for a bit and found it, and we went in.... it was the Helmsley Windsor, owned by the same clan that produced Leona Helmsley, supposedly a three star hotel, but more probably a two star hotel with a bad hangover. at the desk an elderly lady was distraught that the "company address" area of her chick in form had been filled in already. "I don't HAVE a company." i began to wonder about the horrible things that had been done in our hotel room. the bed was covered with a bedspread that was assuredly a crime in some countries. we sat in the room and ate the orange cake and the sodas, and slowly, the hotel room began to impossibly fill with the smell of cheesesteak, we never found out where the smell was coming from. Fortunately we were very tired.
The next day we got up at weight to go to the park, we forgot about daylight savings, so we got up too early and had to wait around. we checked out the continental breakfast, and it was miserably sad, little mini croissants and stale muffins, no juice, just a stagnant coffee that smelled vaguely of cheesesteak. as we checked out, a little old lady was complaining about the hotel not being open when she wanted to visit in a few months. the concierge told her that in that time, the hotel would be closed. somebody was turning it into condos. bad condos.
the park was nice, stayed to the right, made only right turns, and ended up on the left side of the park... i'm still puzzled about that one. but we figured it out and went through the met. it is a great museum, lots to look at, lots of relevant and important art that you soon begin to get very tired of looking at.
after the museum, we wanted to head back... we didn't want to walk the whole way, so we walked to the subway down lexington (we should have walked UP lexington ave the day before, there were lots of interesting places on lexington) and took it to astor place. we got off intending to go to the madras cafe, as we wer walking there we found a place that sold Pomme Frites, the little belgian french fries. we'd seen it on food network, and mystery worships potatoes, so we stopped there. the guy at the counter gave us a large though we ordered a small (i always tip, and sometimes it pays off,) after eating the frites, which were great,wwe changed our minds about more fattening food at the Madras cafe, and we went to another vegan restaurant called Angelica's this place was very good, but very Vegan in the no refined sugar, no salt kind of way. this place was unique and very very good.
after eating we walked aback down to chinatown to catch the 6:30 dragon coach, we got there at 5:45 and learned why you DON'T travel by dragon coach. it becomes evident that there are more people waiting for the coach than the coach can carry. after waiting for the bus and enduring various rituals at the bus stop, (we were told not to stand by poles, told to hand over tickets so they could be checked and numbered,) the whole time,the three chinese girls running the wait for the coach are selling tickets to late arrivals, non-stop, and the crowd is growing, and growing ugly. the bus finally comes and all the rituals were for naught, everyone crammed their way onto the bus. Since mystery and i were not aggressive, we ended up waiting an hour, while the crowd slowly grew again. this time we were going to get on the bus or the world was going to see mystery "uncloaked" you could see the timer ticking. fortunately the three chinese girls had a better lock on things this time, (mostly because all the selfish assholes pried thier way onto the earlier bus, and the people left close to the boarding area were all the considerate people dicked over on the earlier trip. we got onto the bus without incident, feeling like we'd won a prize. the ride back featured the non stop complains of a small boy, clearly terrified by the earlier new york chinatown survival of the fittest reality show, saying "we aren't goin' back to China, are we dad? huh? we aren't goin' back, are we?" Years from now, he'll be tring to unravel his irrational fear of lychee soda and kung-fu videos to a shrink. so we came home. we got to philly in the middle of the driiving rain, we walked back to the train, and rode that home.
we went via "dragon coach" - fifteen bucks from chinatown in philly to chinatown in new york. we took the train down and barely made it in time, there were just a few seats left, and we couldn't sit together. I sat next to a fellow who slept the whole time, and mystery sat next to a gentlemen who spoke in loud french the whole way, interspersed by perhaps the loudes sneezes i've ever heard.
when we got there, we walked a few blocks in chinatown, and thought we might be adventurous and walk from chinatown up to our hotel just a block from the park. it wasn't that far on the map judging by what we had travelled. along the way we stopped at a place in little italy for a good, if slightly burnt espresso, then in the east village to eat at an all vegan place off the street. (since the indian restaurant we had chosen was closed... it was the Madras Cafe, and we had heard it was good, we never did eat there...) but the vegan place was really good, vegan food like they have at The Globe in seattle, just comfort food with veggies and lots of good stuff. at the end we got an orange cake with almond icing to go, and stopped and got some natural sodas at a natural grocery.
after we left we hit fifth avenue and walked up that to the park. fifth avenue is like a whole street full of the stores you never go into in the mall, punctuated by an attraction here or there. guys were pushing dollies down the street with big bundles tied to them, about twenty passed us buy before we saw one stopped, and talking to a lady on the corner. wanna buy a louie vatton original? thirty-five bucks... fifth avenue was all like that, just merciless yuppie shopping for miles. filled with things i don't want and the poeple that live for those things. fifty blocks started to be a long, long way. eventually we got to the park and couldn't find our hotel...
we walked around for a bit and found it, and we went in.... it was the Helmsley Windsor, owned by the same clan that produced Leona Helmsley, supposedly a three star hotel, but more probably a two star hotel with a bad hangover. at the desk an elderly lady was distraught that the "company address" area of her chick in form had been filled in already. "I don't HAVE a company." i began to wonder about the horrible things that had been done in our hotel room. the bed was covered with a bedspread that was assuredly a crime in some countries. we sat in the room and ate the orange cake and the sodas, and slowly, the hotel room began to impossibly fill with the smell of cheesesteak, we never found out where the smell was coming from. Fortunately we were very tired.
The next day we got up at weight to go to the park, we forgot about daylight savings, so we got up too early and had to wait around. we checked out the continental breakfast, and it was miserably sad, little mini croissants and stale muffins, no juice, just a stagnant coffee that smelled vaguely of cheesesteak. as we checked out, a little old lady was complaining about the hotel not being open when she wanted to visit in a few months. the concierge told her that in that time, the hotel would be closed. somebody was turning it into condos. bad condos.
the park was nice, stayed to the right, made only right turns, and ended up on the left side of the park... i'm still puzzled about that one. but we figured it out and went through the met. it is a great museum, lots to look at, lots of relevant and important art that you soon begin to get very tired of looking at.
after the museum, we wanted to head back... we didn't want to walk the whole way, so we walked to the subway down lexington (we should have walked UP lexington ave the day before, there were lots of interesting places on lexington) and took it to astor place. we got off intending to go to the madras cafe, as we wer walking there we found a place that sold Pomme Frites, the little belgian french fries. we'd seen it on food network, and mystery worships potatoes, so we stopped there. the guy at the counter gave us a large though we ordered a small (i always tip, and sometimes it pays off,) after eating the frites, which were great,wwe changed our minds about more fattening food at the Madras cafe, and we went to another vegan restaurant called Angelica's this place was very good, but very Vegan in the no refined sugar, no salt kind of way. this place was unique and very very good.
after eating we walked aback down to chinatown to catch the 6:30 dragon coach, we got there at 5:45 and learned why you DON'T travel by dragon coach. it becomes evident that there are more people waiting for the coach than the coach can carry. after waiting for the bus and enduring various rituals at the bus stop, (we were told not to stand by poles, told to hand over tickets so they could be checked and numbered,) the whole time,the three chinese girls running the wait for the coach are selling tickets to late arrivals, non-stop, and the crowd is growing, and growing ugly. the bus finally comes and all the rituals were for naught, everyone crammed their way onto the bus. Since mystery and i were not aggressive, we ended up waiting an hour, while the crowd slowly grew again. this time we were going to get on the bus or the world was going to see mystery "uncloaked" you could see the timer ticking. fortunately the three chinese girls had a better lock on things this time, (mostly because all the selfish assholes pried thier way onto the earlier bus, and the people left close to the boarding area were all the considerate people dicked over on the earlier trip. we got onto the bus without incident, feeling like we'd won a prize. the ride back featured the non stop complains of a small boy, clearly terrified by the earlier new york chinatown survival of the fittest reality show, saying "we aren't goin' back to China, are we dad? huh? we aren't goin' back, are we?" Years from now, he'll be tring to unravel his irrational fear of lychee soda and kung-fu videos to a shrink. so we came home. we got to philly in the middle of the driiving rain, we walked back to the train, and rode that home.
