The blog is back! Hello USA USA USA!

Well after several months of inactivity, and a ridiculously fun and entertaining Canadian summer, I'm back on the road again, and having FUN! I decided several months back that it would be interesting to hit up the Eastern US for the beginning of my 2nd leg of my world wide adventures :)

After very little sleep and much excitement, I was on a plane to Seattle for a quick plane transfer before heading to Boston. When clearing US customs, I had a banana in my hand that I didn't think about declaring as importing fruit, as I was about to eat it anyway, and sure enough, after clearing the first round of security, I arrived down in the lower level and an immigration officer quickly approached me, asking if I had declared the banana, so I told her no, and asked if I should eat it on the spot, and she told me yes and went running off. So I peel this banana apart and start eating it, and another immigration officer comes running over with his drug sniffing dog, and starts yelling at me that I can't be eating that banana in here or disposing of the peel, and angrily grabs my declaration card and writes all over it some code and the word “banana” and walks over hastily.....so I'm standing there kind of laughing at the whole situation, and walk up to the next security check, where the woman sees my immigration card and send me over to the “inspection and quarantine” area. I arrive there, and the guy asks to see the banana, and I tell him I just ate it and put the peel in the trash bin, and offer to get it for him, but he tells me to not worry and just clears me through....ha ha ha good old US Immigration, always an adventure!

So I try and have a little catnap, before my next flight, and manage to grab a tiny bit of sleep before heading off to Boston. Flying into Boston is a real treat, as it is an absolutely beautiful city, with a wicked coastline, and several little islands dotting the landscape with beautiful homes and beaches. I arrive and hail a cab and am on my way to my friend Vanessa's place in the Dorchester area, which is just a bit south of downtown Boston. I arrive at the place and am happy to see a familiar face. I had met Vanessa in Vienna the previous year, as she's best friends with my friend Kaisa, with whom I was staying with in Vienna, and have met in several other locations around the world. I got settled in, and then we were off to a local dive bar in the Southey area, where there was a trivia night. Vanessa recommended me the steak bites for dinner, and we ordered several pitchers of beer and just enjoyed a few hours of trivia, and Boston sports talk. The first thing you really notice about proper Bostonians is their hilarious and awesome accent. I've actually been given a Boston Dictionary, and will just give you a few examples from it so that you can imagine how people here sound:

- Ahm: Paht neah the sholda. “If Jim Lonbowuhg hadn't had a tyuhd ahm, he would've beaten the Cahds in the '67 Series.”

- Ansa: Response. “When that tourist from iahland ahsked me wayuh South Dennis was, I couldn't give him an ansa. I mean, how do I tell him it's nawth of West Dennis?”

- Connah: Wayuh streets meet. “Saying what paht of Bawstin yaw from isn't enough. Like if you live in Dot, you hafta say which conna. You know, Fields Conna, Uppimz Conna..”

So yeah, basically the idea behind the accent is to open your mouth and say “ah” quite often and you start to sound more Bostonian. Anyway, I absolutely love the accent, definitely one of my favourite English accents. All the staff, as well as most of the clientele in the Southey bar spoke with such an accent, so it made for some good listening. After a few hours of trivia, and laughing at some of the funny questions I received from Vanessa's sister Amanda such as “so you speak two languages, are they American and Canadian?” we finished up our dinner, beer, and trivia, finishing in an impressive 3^rd place and winning $20. Both Vanessa and her roommate John had to head to work in the morning, and since they both worked for Jim Beam, and had a few rough nights out the previous few days, they just wanted to head back and catch up on some sleep, and I was fairly tired myself, so we just retired back to the place and called it a night. I ended up finding myself a ticket to the Kenny Chesney Countryfest that was going on the next day, and wanted to get the ticket from the guy in the morning, but he was quite insistent on driving over and selling it to me right at that moment, so I had to stay up a bit later to wait for the guy to come make the delivery, which to the casual eye, could have resembled a drug deal, as he pulled up in a dark car, rolled down the window, handed me the goods, while I handed him the cash. But I was set for the next day and excited, and off to bed.

The next day, after catching up on some sleep, I was up and ready to get out and partayyyy, so once Vanessa and John showed up, we loaded up the vehicle with lots of booze, bean bag toss, and myself, Vanessa, Amanda, roommate John, and Vanessa's b/f John and were on our way. The drive was fairly lengthy to Gillette Stadium, home of the Patriots, and I was a bit surprised at how out of the way it really is from Boston, it must be a fair bit of a headache commuting out there for games on a regular basis! The funniest part of the drive had to be when we drove by a sign that said “Entering Sharon”, as the dirty minds started to work, and we all figured it would be a rather funny idea for me to try and find a Sharon at the concert grounds during the evening. We arrived at the parking lot, and setup our little tailgating area, and had several drinks while meeting numerous people, including one ESPN guy who actually knew where Regina, Saskatchewan was! Another funny observation from the tailgating party was when a few guys pulled up in Redneck trucks with antlers and Confederate Flags waving, revving up their engines and showing off their performance exhaust kits. It was such a stereotypical Deep South American kind of thing to do, but pretty funny. Although the State Police didnt' find it so funny and came over and gave them a pretty hard chewing out and threated to throw them all out if they didn't smarten up.

The Confederate Boys arrive, horns honking, exhaust pipes rattling

Bean Bag toss plus drinking plus tailgating oh yeah!

Stereotypical Americans eh

Arriving at Gillette Stadium

On the field for Tim McGraw

Brewski and Countryfestin' oh yeah!

After a few hours of tailgating, it was time to head inside Gillette Stadium, which is a rather impressive and amazing facility, where we arrived in time to catch Tim McGraw. We grabbed a few beers, and found our floor seats and proceeded to enjoy a pretty good show with Tim, which was then followed up by Kenny Chesney, who was wicked awesome! He ended up appearing on a side stage that was basically right next to us, so we were able to enjoy a fairly upclose performance for a bit, wicked! He then moved over to the main stage, but it was still a great performance, although we did end up losing b/f John, as he somehow got stuck in the middle of some people who were fighting and was part of a big group of people who were escorted out and not let back in. The guy is a Marine, and definitely wasn't causing any trouble, just in the wrong place at the wrong time, so we had to cut the concert a bit short and go get him and head back in town for the night, unfortunately without a Sharon to join us!

Kenny!

The next day Kaisa made her way into town, and we had our 5^th meeting in a different country, which was a pretty cool experience. We've now met in South Africa, Denmark, Austria, Singapore, and the US, pretty cool! After catching up a bit, we got ready and wandered into the downtown Boston core, where Vanessa showed us several areas including the Quincy Market, Hannover Street (the Italian district), the Waterfront, and Boston Harbour. I made sure to grab one of Boston's famous Lobster rolls from the Quincy Market, which was damn good! After wandering around for a few hours, Vanessa and John had to head off to a wedding in New Hampshire, so Kaisa and I decided to go check out the Red Bull Cliff Diving championships that were being held at the Boston Harbour. 

Quincy Market

Boston special, the Lobster Roll...delish!

Lovely Downtown core

The Connah Store in the Italian District

Wandering around the Italian district

It's about damn time!

It was a pretty intense event, with 13 competitors (1 dropped out), and with a huge platform build off the Institute of Contemporary Arts. I think the platform was over 100 feet, from which the guys would be diving. We didn't get there in time to get a decent spot where we could see the entire dive from top to bottom, but there were several jumbo screens where you could see the full dive. It was one of the more intense shows I've seen before, as it all started out with some guy who skydived down from 9000 feet in a kayak and was doing all these crazy flips and accelerating and coasting his way down before coming into the harbour and landing in the water at a crazy speed.

Once that quick show finished up, the divers did a few practice dives and then the competition began. It was an awesome event with some incredible dives, and some pretty nasty looking entries, with huge splashes and obviously painful moments for some of the guys, but still quite impressive. I have terrible balance, and am terrified of heights, yet here's these guys doing handstands on this platform and pushing off, doing 3 flips and 3 rotations from such crazy heights, wow. The eventual winner was some ugly English dude, who was a damn great show diver though, and as we were making our way out, some guy wearing a Microsoft shirt stopped us and told us there was a free Lenny Kravitz concert starting in 30 minutes just down a few blocks....well Kaisa couldn't believe him and figured we were getting scammed, but I was totally keen so we wandered down to this Pavillion, where Lenny Kravitz was getting ready to perform. Awesome! Microsoft also provided free food and drink before the show, and we got to experience a pretty awesome concert.

Can you imagine doing a handstand 100 feet in the air and diving off a building...thse guys are nuts!

8 time World Champion from Columbia, mid dive. He's just to the left of the chimney stack

Thanks Microsoft for the free Lenny Kravitz concert!

Near the end of the show Lenny actually started walking through the audience and it appeared he was going to walk right out of the gig and pass by us, but when he was about 10 feet away, he turned and went down a different aisle, so we didn't quite get to see him as up close as we were hoping but it was all good fun either way. Once the show finished up, we decided to go find some nightlife, so we tried to stop by two places that Vanessa had recommended to us, but being a Saturday and after these two big events, it was an hour and a half wait to get a spot, so we just walked all the way back down to the downtown core where I had spotted a bar that I thought a friend had recommended to me. My buddy Andrew had been in Boston awhile back, and told me to check out a place called “Greatest Bar”, where they were apparently kindly asked to leave one night, so I was curious what all the fuss was about, but unfortunately I couldn't quite remember the name of the place, and had spotted a place called Good Bar earlier in the day, which I thought was the place he was talking about. So we went in there, and found they had $1 beers and cheap fishbowls, plus they were showing the Red Sox Royals game, which was a wicked good game, so we stopped there for several hours, where I tried to get as rowdy as possible, and found that other patrons were equally as rowdy. At this point, Kaisa and I both started to question how the hell Andrew and his group had managed to get asked to leave such a place, and ended up leaving the place dumbfounded as to what their behaviour could possibly have been like to get asked to leave. Of course, the next morning when I double checked my message from him, I saw I had gone to the wrong bar but oh well!

So after numerous beverages at Good Bar, Vanessa had recommended Kaisa to take me to another place called Hong Kong, where you could get these Scorpion Bowls (big bowl, lots of booze), and meat on a stick for $1, so we wandered over there, and found another pretty rowdy place and had another great time. After an hour and a bit, Kaisa wanted to go find a place where she could dance off the booze a bit, so we went towards Quincy Market, where there was an Irish pub/dance club, but unfortunately they weren't letting anyone in past 1 am (strange Boston rule), so we had to settle for some other Irish pub for one last drink before the places were all shut down. For whatever reason, we figured that heading to the Italian district for some late night pasta or pizza was a good idea, so we walked down there, found a tasty restaurant, ordered some pizza and coffee and chatted the night away, before hailing a cab and heading back home for the night.

$1 meat on a stick at the Hong Kong bar, nice!

The Scorpion Bowl, with a little mailman

Chilling with Kaisa!

Just so you are aware, this is the Public Alley, as opposed to the nearby private ones...

The next day was a bit of a dehydrated day, but not terrible since American beer is actually quite weak! Roommate John mentioned something about the cold filtering process where they aren't allowed to remove the ice chunks that form when crafting their beers, whereas other countries of the world can remove these ice chunks to avoid water dilution of the beer...it was an explanation that I've never heard, but an interesting one anyways. So after getting some water, we decided to head down to the nearby beach, as it was a gorgeous day and that's what “Southies” do on a Sunday. So we packed up the vehicle and wandered down to the beach where we met two of Vanessa's friends and just chilled out there for several hours, enjoying the ocean, sun, and Italian Ice (some tasty snowcone like desserts that are awesome in the sun). Vanessa also brought out her paddleboard, and since it's been a summer of firsts for me, with trying wakesurfing (failed miserably), and wakeboarding (some success), I figured paddleboarding was next on my list. I'm terrible with balance on boards, and after getting up and paddle for a little while, as soon as I went to turn around and come back against the current, sure enough I bailed! Everyone had a good laugh at that, as it's damn near impossible to fall off the paddleboards, but I found a way to do it! Then, as if that wasn't enough, I found that I couldn't quite master the technique of going forward against the current, and basically ended up in the same spot for a good 15 minutes...although I didn't realize it until I looked towards the shore and saw that I hadn't moved at all! The guys on the beach were probably getting a good laugh at me at least, so that's all good.

Nice beach in Southey

Laughing about my fall off the Paddleboard

After finally figuring it all out and getting back to our spot, we just packed things up and decided to head back and grab a shower and head out for some eats, since we hadn't had anything yet. We went down to another great Italian restaurant, where Vanessa knew the staff, and was able to get 50% off all food and drinks since she works in the industry, what a great friend to have! After sometime there, we were ready to head to Castle Island for some ice cream, but found that she had picked up a nail in her tire, so John and I had to change this tire, which normally for me is a piece of cake, but the new Caravan that she had was such a headache. It took forever to figure out where the spare tire even was, and how to get it out, and then when we finally got all the bolts off the old tire, there was no way it was coming off, it seemed to be locked in or something. Normally I would just say I was just a weakling and couldn't pull it off, but John is a damn strong Marine, and he couldn't get it off, so we had to wait around for a technician which was going to take about an hour or so, very frustrating. But then we heard from the guy on the phone that we should try using the spare tire to smack the other tire real hard on the bottom, and sure enough it came loose. So what normally should take about 15 minutes to do at tops, took us about an hour and 15 minutes, brutal! But we got it all changed, and it was already getting late, so we just grabbed some frozen yogourt and headed back to the place for the night.

Boston Harbour

Downtown core at dusk

Kaisa providing much help with the flat tire changing

What a battle this was!

The next day was one of the most exciting days for me, as Vanessa had given us seats to Fenway Park for a Royals Red Sox game, and they were damn good seats! The girl has some pretty sweet perks for work, and Sox games is one of them, so off we were to the stadium with John, as he was going to be doing colour guard on the field at the start of the game. We arrived at the stadium, and after wandering around for a bit trying to find the entrance, were inside and up to the Pavillion box to grab a quick bite and drink before the game started. Unfortunately it took a bit longer than we expected, and didn't get back to our seats to see John on the field, and missed the first couple of minutes of the game. After grabbing a Fenway Frank, and settling in to our amazing seats, 3^rd row, right behind the Royals Dugout, we were treated to an amazingly sunny and clear day, and a pretty entertaining baseball game. After every inning that the Royals defense finished, they always had a ball in their glove coming back to the dugout, and being the only Royals fan in the vicinity I was sure I'd get one thrown my way eventually, but they kept passing them to little kids who were all Red Sox fans ha ha ha, damn them! I also had to laugh at the enormous guy who was sitting in front of Kaisa, and was so fat that his skin actually seeped over the back of his chair and blocked her cupholder....cupholder fail! After several innings of sun, beer, and a bit of heckling from some of the Boston fans (who are absolutely awesome and hilarious), I finally had a ball tossed into my vicinity and made a leaping grab to get it, much to the disappointment of the 4 guys behind me who figured they had it for sure. I had a little round of applause from some of the other fans in the area, and they were happy for me since the Royals were getting their asses kicked, and figured I needed something to cheer me up.

Lovely Fenway Park

Some Bawstin' Heroes

So much history here

Fat man's rolls blocking Kaisa's cupholder ha ha ha

Pretty kickass seats!

Royals lost, but at least they gave me a ball to make the pain tolerable :)

After enjoying the rest of the game, ball in hand, we grabbed a few more photos of this iconic stadium, and then made our way towards the Prudential Tower, which offers some amazing view of the city. We stopped by the skybar for a drink (16 year old Scotch for $16 not bad), and just enjoyed the lovely view. After stopping there, I had to try some clam chowder, since Boston is so famous for it, so we stopped by the Legal Seafood restaurant, and I had a big bowl of the delicious and creamy soup, mmmmmm. After hanging out there for awhile, we continued our walk, hoping to make it down to Boston Common or to one of the bars in the Quincy Market, but it was already getting late, and we were feeling pretty tired from the day in the sun and the drinks, so we just decided to grab the train back to the place. Kaisa had to head back to her parents place early in the morning, so it was a pretty quiet night. Unfortunately I didn't get to say goodbye in the morning, as apparently I was out like a light, but the girls left me a cute goodbye note with some Boston presents, which was such a nice thing to wake up to.

View of Boston from the Prudential

At this point I have to just throw out a huge thanks to Vanessa, Kaisa, and John for being so amazingly hospitable, friendly, and showing me the amazing town of Boston. While out travelling the world I know a lot of people often speak critically of Americans, saying they are so rude, pushy, arrogant, etc etc, but that couldn't be further from the truth. When you visit them here, they are so amazingly friendly and helpful, and some of the kindest people in the world, and I'm so grateful to have some great friends here who have been able to take me in and show me around.

Anyway, after finishing packing up, John was kind enough to pick me up and drive me to the bus station, where I found a cheap bus to New York City, where I was heading to stay with my friend Marvin, whom I had met in Cancun a few years back. I arrived in downtown Manhattan, and was immediately met by a feeling of awe and wonder at this amazing skyscraper jungle. The buildings, the people, the traffic, the food....everything just comes right at you and you're hooked right away! I quickly found a Tmobile shop, where I figured I could purchase a SIM card for one of my two phones I'm carrying, as I find it difficult travelling in certain locations without a phone, the US being one of them. Unfortunately, both of my phones wouldn't seem to work with the SIM cards being sold there (what the hell US, why do you have to make things so difficult for foreign phones!), and I had to laugh when the girl at the shop asked if I was sure my Nokia phone was unlocked (after all, I've used it in about 20 different countries now, so yeah I'm sure!). After dinking around there for awhile, and realizing I was getting nowhere, I just decided to find Penn Station and head over to Jersey to find Marv.

I found my way to Penn and made my first mistake of the day, as I purchased a week long ticket thinking I would be saving myself money, well I was dead wrong as it turns out that when you purchase a week long ticket in the Manhattan Transit Authority, they are valid from Saturday to Saturday, so I was already out 3 days of travel, since it was a Tuesday, damn! Also, once I purchased the ticket, I then realized it didn't cover all the transit options, so I was stuck with a ticket that was only valid between NYC and NJ Penn Stations, double damn! So I hopped on my train, nevertheless, and arrived in NJ and began my next big battle of the day. I found the payphones to call Marv from, but realized that I didn't have enough change, so I asked around the station to break a bill for some change, and of course, none of the cashiers could open their till without a purchase, oh great!

So I try using a collect call to call Marv, and after it's connected and we chat for about 3 seconds, the operator then tells me that his phone number can't actually accept collect calls, and I'm promptly disconnected. So then I try and make the same phone call, but try punching in my credit card number, and as I'm punching in the number, it again tries to make a collect call and then hangs up. I then realize that my credit card starts with a 5, and that's the key to punch to begin a collect call, so now I can't use either of my credit cards to call him, since they both start 5. Fortunately, I carry a third card, that began with a 4, so I was finally able to get a hold of Marv, and arrange a pickup spot. He arrived about 15 minutes later, and I hopped inside and we were off to his spot in a quiet suburb called Kearny (which I pronounced “Kerney”, but was later corrected several days later by locals, telling me it's pronounced “Karney”). I dropped my bags off and we just spent some time chilling out and catching up, relaxing a bit.

My Norwegian friend Kjetil had also arrived in New York City a few days earlier, and had mentioned we should try and meet up with him that evening sometime, either at a comedy show he was attending or a rooftop bar on 5^th ave, but since we didn't book tickets early enough to the comedy show, we just figured we would head into town and check out the rooftop bar and try and find Kjetil. But first, Marv took me for a little cruise around the area, showing me some areas close to where he grew up in, and explaining how much NYC has changed over the last 20 years or so. Marv has lived his whole life in the area, and was telling me stories about how he was out clubbing when he was 15 or 16 years old, and how the nightclubs never carded people, and it was a pretty wild scene, but then once Giuliana came into office, he really cleaned up the city immensely, which spilled over into the nightclubs, such that they began really cracking down on verifying ages. The clientele also changed, as it now as become more of a “who you know” or how much money you have, that gets you into the hippest nightclubs, whereas it used to be pretty free and open to anyone. Oh well.

Also, he mentioned how a lot of the neighbourhoods of the NYC area have changed immensely over the years, in the demographics and wealth distribution has drastically changed. Areas that used to be rough and dangerous, like Jersey City, Hoboken, even Harlem, has now changed to the point, where wealthy investors have come in, purchased the buildings, cranked up the rents, and forced out the poor, and brought in more wealthy rentors, which has brought down the crime, but forced the poor to leave their homes as well. It was also quite shocking to hear from him how he could walk away from his mortgage on two of his properties, and still collect rent from renters there, even though he wasn't making payments to the bank, due to a crazy law where banks can't actually take over ownership of a foreclosed property until no one is actually living inside the building at the time, so as long as he kept tenants living there, he could keep the property of the bank's hands...what a crazy country!

So after cruising to one of his properties to drop off some paperwork, we drove around Hoboken for a bit, checking out if the scene was happening there, but it was a pretty quiet night, and we ended up just driving into Manhattan and crusing around for quite awhile, with Marvin pointing out several of the famous areas, including Chelsea, Soho, the Meatpacking district, the Garment district, and of course Times Square and 5^th Ave. We eventually stopped by the rooftop bar Kjetil had mentioned, and hung out there for about 2 hours, enjoying the awesome view of Manhattan, including the nearby Empire State Building, and just chilling out. Unfortunately, we never did spot Kjetil, so after about 2 hours, we just hit the road, and went and drove around a bit longer, finally stopping at an area just north of the Meatpacking District, where we found a dive bar that had some karaoke going on, and numerous drunk students everywhere. One of the most appealing features of this particular bar, other than the giant doorman that looked nearly identical to the famous wrestler Andre the Giant, was the fact that they had several beer pong tables setup throughout the bar...yes, it was definitely college night! After hanging out there for a bit, we wandered around a bit more and found some blues bar, that was pretty much dead, so we just hung out for one beer there, and then headed back to NJ since Marv had to work in the morning.

I was up at an earlier time the next morning, as I had to somehow track down Kjetil to make sure he could get the baseball ticket I had bought him for that day's Blue Jays Yankees game. Kjetil had never seen nor watched a baseball game, and when I found out he was going to be in NYC when I was, and that there was a Yankees game I figured I may as well grab him a ticket as well. Marv had to head off to work for a few hours that morning, but was kind enough to leave me his 2^nd phone to use for the time being, and I eventually agreed to meet Kjetil down at the World Trade Center, and head off to the game together. Unfortunately, I hadn't actually accounted for how long it would take to catch a bus from Marv's place to the train station, and then the train into NYC and I was over an hour late, and unsure how to find Kjetil, but fortunately enough, I was able to spot him right away at the exit, so we caught up a bit, while running off to catch the metro off to the Bronx!

We arrived at the stadium, and were starving, and as much as I talked up Ballpark Franks to Kjetil, he wouldn't have any of it, and wanted to hit up the McDees instead...damn foreigner! After grabbing some grub there, we wandered into the stadium, and found our seats, which were actually pretty damn good considering I bought them for only $10 each, and they were face value of $20 each, and provided a pretty decent view of the stadium. After spending a few innings there, enjoying the game, and cheering for the Jays, unlike pretty much everyone else in the section, we ran off to the rooftop bar to meet up with my friend Jess that I had met at Oktoberfest in 2011. We met up with her and her friend for awhile, and caught up a bit, and then went down towards their seats, as they had some really good ones near the 3^rd baseman, and we eventually snuck down into a few vacant seats near them, but were then kicked out by the usher lady...damn! We hung out for a bit longer, as the Jays continued to beat up on the Yanks, and I continued to heckle a bit (so much fun being the outsider at games), and we once again tried to move down to closer seats that were all empty, but the Ushers wouldn't let us...damn them.

Yankees Stadium

Vamos Argentina I mean Blue Jays

Another gorgeous stadium, and pretty good seats for $15

Once the game wrapped up, we went and hopped in Marv's car, as he drove to the game and met us there, but the traffic leaving the Bronx was terrible...it took forever for us to escape but we finally made our way back to Manhattan, dropped Kjetil off, and went to grab a bite to eat at some wicked Mexican place by Madison Square Gardens ($7 burritos, $9 margaritas w/corona = win), before trying to find some event that Marvin was invited to come cover for his magazine that he owns.

Heading back into Manhattan

Cruising through Times Square

The New Year's Ball

Only recollection of where we parked ha ha

MSG

It took us awhile to find the venue, but we finally did, and were fortunate to have vip passes, allowing us open bar access and a pretty cool area up top of the club. The event was being held by a company that organizes Djs for parties, so it was a pretty good event with some good music, some hot babes, and a pretty cool crowd. We hung out there meeting a few new people, although Marvin was mostly networking, while I was just enjoying the open bar, before that all shut down, and we had to head down to the main area. After hanging out for a few hours, it was time to leave, and we started walking towards one of the main streets when Marv started talking to some girl and walking with her, and then came running back to us asking if he could borrow one of the phones to get her number since his phone had died, so his friend who I was walking with lent him his phone and he went running off. Then we waited and waited and waited, and never saw the guy for the next 30 minutes so we started walking around trying to find him, but with no luck.

So then we started using pay phones to try and call him on his friend's phone but no answer, so then we went to his friend's car and started driving around trying to find Marvin's car in case he was there, but I had no recollection of where it was parked, plus NYC is just a damn big city that after about 35 minutes of driving around to no avail, his friend just decided to drive all the way out to NJ to Marv's house and see if he was somehow there, so we drove all the way there, and arrived to find Marv not there. The only keys he gave me were for the inside door, not for the outside doors, so after trying to buzz the whole building and try and pick the lock with my debit card like the movies (doesn't actually work apparently) one of his neighbours happened to wake up and let me into the building at like 5:25 am...ughh!

So we get inside and Marv isn't there, and then he suddenly shows up 10 minutes later and doesn't have his friend's phone, so then his friend get so upset that he's actually crying about the lost phone, and Marv is thinking he blacked out and must have fallen somewhere as he had scratches all over his arm, and no recollection of the phone or talking to a girl...ha ha what a night! So they continue arguing and then I just decided to go to bed since I was tired and that was the end of the first ridiculous night.

The next day I had wanted to head in early and try and get a fair bit of sightseeing done, but by the time I woke up it was already near lunch time, Marvin had gone to work, having had only 1 hour of sleep or so, and I didn't feel the greatest but got a hold of Kjetil and agreed to meet up at the Museum of Natural History. It again took me a fair bit longer to get into the city than anticipated, but I finally made it up to the museum and had a good 2 hours of touring, although I didn't actually find Kjetil in the museum until about the last 30 minutes. It was a pretty good museum, although quite similar to some of the other natural history museums I've attended, such as the one in Bucharest Romania. After touring around, it was time to head out, so we left and started walking back towards the city.

Museum of Natural History

No need to go to Easter Island when you can find the guys in the museum instead :)

Central Park entrance

Since I hadn't had a good slice of New York pizza yet, we wandered down the Avenue of Americas and near Times Square until we found one of the more famous pizza shops called Rey's Pizza, so we stopped there for a few big slices of that fine New York pizza, mmmmm....

Pepperoni was great, Buffalo Chicken kind of blah

After grabbing the eat there, I was pretty wiped out from the lack of the sleep and the bit of a hangover, and Kjetil was kind of feeling the same way, so I decided to just head back to NJ to have a quiet night in so that I could have a productive day the next day, so I was off to Kearny for a good night's sleep. 

The next day I was off to NYC to sight see a bit, and decided to see if Kjetil wanted to meet up, but he had another big night out so was a bit slow going, so I just headed down to wander around Wall Street, the World Trade Centre, and Liberty Island, plus whatever else I could find. I figured I would go to the 9/11 Memorial but then saw signs saying it required a pass to enter, and I misunderstood the signage, and thought I could only get the pass online, so I just decided to wander around the area. I stumbled upon the remainders of the Protest Wall Street movement, walked by several of the investment banks and New York Stock Exchange, before making my way down to the waterfront for a little bit, and then down towards Bowling Green Park (New York City's oldest park), and then to Battery Park to purchase my pass to Liberty Island and go see Lady Liberty, plus Ellis Island. After arriving in Liberty Island, I ended up running into Kjetil there, so we just wandered around for a bit and continued to tour around those two historic sites. It was definitely pretty interesting to read a fair bit about immigration history, and to see some of the ridiculous tests they would administer to potential immigrants before granting them landed status.

WTC 1, soon to be North America's largest building

Remembering those who passed on the tragic day

The remainder of Occupy Wall Street movement...dying a slow and deliberate death

Canadian Bank taking one of the most desirable spots on Wall Street

Place where I make money to pay for travels :)

Brooklyn Bridge in the distance

New York Treasury...once held over 25% of the World's Gold Supply

ironic name for a cafe in the business district ha ha

Bowling Green park, NYC's oldest park

Battery Park

Leaving on the ferry for Liberty Island

Some famous Lady

Peace and Liberty

Ellis Island immigration museum

Idiots need not apply!

After our time wandering around Liberty and Ellis, we went and found the Wall Street Bull statue, took some funny photos there, and then went to look for some more cheap pizza, but couldn't find a spot that was serving any at that time of the day, so we just caught the subway back towards Kjetil's hostel, where there was a pizza place nearby called Amadeus Pizza so I grabbed a few more slices, which were excellent and even cheaper than Rey's Pizza. After grabbing the pizza, we picked up some beer and went back to his hostel to hang out for the night. There was a super fun group of people there, and the hostel was providing some free comedy shows, as well, although I didn't really check it out since there wasn't a whole lot of laughter coming from the other guests. We ended up hanging out for several hours there which included one slapbet between myself and Kjetil over whether Iceland has an army or not. I thought they did, but apparently they don't so he was able to slap me, although he just tapped me at first, much to everyone's disappointment so I encouraged him to actually hit me properly, so he did, and I was left with a bit of a ring in my ears. Eventually all the beers were done and the hostel staff made us leave at quiet hour (11 pm), so we all decided to go check out Brooklyn, as there's quite a few little pubs and bars there that don't have any dress codes and are a lot cheaper than Manhattan. So it was off to Brooklyn for the night.

We arrived over there, but the one Aussie guy who was trying to lead us to some cool area was pretty lost, so I just kind of gave up on him and started asking around the locals on the streets about cool places to go, so they directed us to some dive bar that we all ended up checking out. It was pretty much just a little cave, and the music was alright, but it was super tiny and not the greatest place, but we had a pretty fun group and spent most of the night there. I had been getting along really well with the one super cute Brazilian girl, so eventually several of us paired up, and kind of all staggered off back to the hostel at various times. After some making out for quite awhile, the Brazilian had to retire to her room, and I wasn't entirely sure where I would be sleeping that night, as Marvin wasn't answering his phone, so I didn't know if he was back home or what. After she left, Kjetil wandered up, and I ended up sleeping on the floor underneath his bed for the night ha ha. The hostel was actually pretty pricy, as it was $60 a night for a dorm room bed yikes! The sleep wasn't the greatest, but I think the fact that I've now crashed on two different Norwegian's floors and underneath their bed has set an interesting trend in my life (the previous time being at Oktoberfest in 2011 when I couldn't find a place to stay).

The next day I was still trying to secure tickets to an Electronic music festival called Electric Zoo, but was unable to get anything, so I just went and grabbed a New York bagel from a nearby shop (which I realized I could barely eat due to the considerable pain in my jaw from where I had been slapped), and then went for a wander to the Brooklyn Bridge with a German guy from the hostel. We stopped in Brooklyn and wandered around for a little bit before walking across the Bridge, which was an amazing walk and provided some incredible views. Unfortunately my camera was dead, so I never was able to get any pictures from the iconic structure, which was pretty sad times but oh well. After wandering around for about 2 hours, I just headed back to NJ so I could grab a shower and change up.

While waiting outside Marv's place for the bus to head back into the city, I was passed by an older woman who stopped to chat with me, and asked what I was waiting for. I told her the bus, and she started chatting me up, telling me how she was off to get some beer to get drunk. It was absolutely hilarious when she started rubbing my arm and telling me how nice and handsome I was, and her life story. It would have been a pretty funny sight for anyone driving by to see a 70 year old woman just standing there rubbing a young guy's arm and shoulder over and over, it was a little bit creepy but I had a good laugh until the bus showed up. I headed back in to hang out at the hostel again, and meet some new people. Much of the same occurred as the previous night, with beers, laughs, and travel stories being passed around before we headed off to a nearby Irish Bar, where we had a bit of an International Night going on with representatives of around 12 different countries. The pitchers of beer were 10 each, and the conversations were ongoing and music playing. It was another pretty fun night, but as time wore on, people started to leave until it was just me and the one Brazilian guy left, so we hung out for a bit longer finishing off our beers, before the Brazilian girl and one Canadian guy came back to grab us. We then all headed back to the hostel, where I just hung out in the courtyard on a comfy chair with the Brazilian girl, while we chatted with the Canadian guy until 5:30 am or so, and then just had some quiet but sleepy make out time for a bit before she had to go to bed. I tried calling Kjetil to see if I could crash in his room again, but he wasn't answering, so I slept in the courtyard for an hour until the staff kicked me out, so I made my way back to NJ.

After finally arriving around 8 am and waking up Marv to let me in, I crashed for a few hours, before getting up and heading out for a true Jersey thing, going to a diner on a Sunday early afternoon. It's a pretty common thing for people to do in Jersey, and the menu at the place was absolutely massive and shocking...I was a bit frazzled from lack of sleep and too many beers and such, so I had a hard time even trying to figure something out but eventually settled on some eggs Benny. In true American style, the serving size was ridiculously huge, and I could only finish half of it, but at least I had another meal for the next day. After our huge lunch, we just ended up vegging out for the day, although we probably should have gone into the city for some Brazilian party that a few of the Brazilians were talking about, but I figured it would be going on into the evening, but apparently it was only an afternoon thing.

Breakfast at New Jersey diner...way too much food could only eat half

After several hours of hanging out, we got cleaned up and ventured into town, first hitting up a place on 5^th Ave called 2 Bros Pizza, where they have $1 a slice pizza that is pretty damn good! After the quick stop we were off to a Germany Bierhaus in the Meatpacking District for some tasty beers and to meet up with a few of Marv's friends. We only stuck around for 1 drink though and wandered off to another pub where we spent the rest of the night, enjoying some latin dancing, some good music, and some good times until around 4 am, before stopping for some more pizza and heading home for the night.

The next day was just more of a sight seeing day, as I had planned a little date with the Brazilian girl for the evening, but she wouldn't be ready until 8 pm or so, so I had several hours to kill. I ended up grabbing a pass to the 9/11 Memorial, but it wasn't good for entry until 5 pm, so I wandered around lower Manhattan for a bit and then managed to get a hold of my Guetemalan friend Andres, who was living in NYC, and he was headed to the Museum of Modern Art with his parents, but could get me a $5 ticket to enter through his corporate pass. So I found a subway and arrived relatively close to the museum, although as per usual, when I excited the station, I really had no idea what direction I was supposed to walk. After wandering around past places such as Radio City, the NBC and Rockefeller Centre, and a few other landmarks I eventually arrived near the museum.

New York City Hall

Picasso, always an interesting artist

Andy Warhol

I was meant to be there around 3:15 pm and was several minutes late, but it worked out good since Andres was with his super slow walking parents, and was still on his way there. We met up, and saw each other for the first time since Poland in 2007, so it was a fun little reunion. I only had about an hour and a bit to wander around the museum, since I had to get all the way back to the WTC for my 5 pm tour. After wandering around and catching up, it was back to the metro to get down to the WTC.

I ended up taking the slowest metro possible, as it was delayed several times, and ended up showing up about 15 minutes late for the tour, but they still allowed me to enter. It's quite an emotional moment entering ground 0, imagining these huge skyscrapers being there and then within a matter of hours, thousands of people were dead, and they were reduced to mere rubble. I remember clearly the day of 9/11, as I was in Grade 12 and laying in bed, with my alarm clock going off and turning on the radio station that morning. I was laying there, not wanting to get up as per usual, and I recall hearing on the radio how there was a plane that crashed into a skyscraper in New York City. The news was so vague at the moment, and I imagined that it was a small Cessna or some other small plane, as that seemed to be a more logical thing. Then the radio announcer mentioned a 2^nd plane crashed, and I again just imagined these tiny little planes crashing, for whatever reason, and didn't think anything of it. I got ready for the day and made my way to school.

Upon arrival, our teacher immediately quieted down the class, and started to give some details about the crash, and I then realized that this was a massive deal, not just some simple and small accident. Then the Principal came onto the intercom and we had an announcement for a moment of silence for the people who had so far perished. We carried on with classes for the rest of the morning, but then as soon as lunch came, it was time to turn on the news and follow more closely what was happening. Wow, what a shock that was to see the massive damage and sheer terror occurring in one of the World's greatest cities.....That's kind of what I remember from the start of that fateful day. For those conspiracy theorists out there, there are some incredibly interesting videos about the events called Zeitgeist, they're posted on youtube and are an interesting watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_E4N5YIycI

So anyway, I arrived at ground 0, and you just start to take a look at the giant memorial and start to look at all the names, and a huge rush of emotion starts to take over. That site was a huge tourist location to begin with, and imagining how it could have been someone just like me, exploring that area on that fateful day is a really emotional and sad moment. All one can do is sit there and reflect, mourn the dead, and question what causes people in our world to perform such terrible deeds. I also thought back to the previous year, the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, when I was walking in Krakow, Poland and passed some guy wearing a shirt that had said “I H8 America”, and even then I looked at him and regretted not saying anything to him, for being so insensitive. At this moment, reflecting back on that moment, I really wish I had gone up to him and cursed at him and chewed him out for his insensitivity. Unfortunately, I'm such a reserved person and never get angry with people, and really blew that opportunity.

WTC 2 Memorial, where the base of the building was

WTC 1 being rebuilt, will be North America's tallest building

WTC 1 Memorial

Tree that survived in ground 0

Rock on New York

So after sitting around, reflecting, and admiring the rebuilding projects going on in the area, I had spent about 40 minutes in the area, and since the 9/11 Memorial Museum wasn't opened yet, I had spent enough time and was ready to move on from this emotional place. I still had a few hours to kill, so I decided to head uptown, towards the Empire State Building and wake past it, since I hadn't actually been near it yet. After making the quick trip down there, I made my way over to the hostel to pick up Veronica, the Brazilian girl, and take her out for dinner. We picked some Thai place near the museum, and had a nice dinner, chatting for quite sometime. I thoroughly enjoy going on these little dates with foreign women, as you get a new insight into women from other cultures, and their passions and interests. Once dinner was finished, I decided we should head over to the Rockefeller and try and head up to the observation deck to get a nice view of the city skyline, but unfortunately when we arrived, the box office was closed, so we couldn't get tickets up to the top, damn!

The other idea I had thought about was one of those horse carriage rides through Central Park, but she didn't think it would be as much fun, so we just wandered through Times Square, before finding a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum, so I paid for our entrance there and we wandered around for 1.5 hours checking out some pretty interesting and unique exhibits. It probably wasn't worth the $30 each, but there were a few interesting enough exhibits to entertain one for an hour or more.

Some Empire State building thing

Because it's completely normal to find giant cylinders of Nitrogen on the street corners??!

Times Square at night

I <3 Times Square

A cute Brazilian and an Albino Giraffe

This statue has over $1,000,000 in shredded US notes as a filling 

Made entirely out of dryer lint

Painting done on the back of a housefly

Just in case you're curious...

After the Ripley's I had to make my way back to NJ, since I had an early bus ride to Washington DC in the morning, so we said our goodbyes, and I was off to catch the PATH train to Harrison. Unfortunately, since it was a Monday night, the trains didn't run as often as I had hoped, so it ended up taking me over 2 hours to get back to Marv's place damnit! I still had to pack and figure out how to get my bus pass printed off, and by the time I finally fell asleep, I only managed to get about 1 hour before I had to get up and head off, ughh! As I arrived at Newark and waited for my bus, I realized that the saying that “New York is the City that never sleeps” is a very truthful expression. In my week there, I think I slept on average 4 hours a night!

I waited for the bus, and nowhere on my ticket or in the waiting area did it say I had to tag my bags if I wanted to store them in the luggage compartment, so when my bus showed up and I asked to put them below, the bus driver was super rude and angry about it, telling me I needed tags. Seriously, I've travelled on buses in probably about 20 some countries now, including 3^rd world ones, and have never had to put tags on a bag. Like really, how hard is it to throw bags into separate compartments for separate stops??! It was like they were completely incompetent and couldn't figure out how to arrange luggage storage. So I had to get on the bus, and try and squeeze my big bag in the upper racks, without success, so I had to squeeze it between my legs and seat, and then put my smaller bag on my lap. I had a rather sleepy and uneventful bus ride, although the bus driver continued to be a jerk to other passengers, yelling at people for talking on their cell phones even if they weren't being that loud, and getting angry at new passengers who also didn't have bag tags....yeah I don't think I'll be taking Greyhound again, what a shitty busline!

We arrived in DC an hour late, of course, and I had to find the metro station and try and figure out how to get close to where my friend Sarah lived. I ended up at the metro station sort of near her place, and then began the adventure to find a payphone to call her . It took me about 30 minutes to do that, including stopping at the Marriot and trying to use their house phone which didn't work, until I finally found a payphone. Then I went through the same battle as Newark, first with the payphone saying it was .50 cents for a local phone call, which I was making, and then once dialed it asked for an extra 10 cents, which I plugged in, then the damn thing just hung up and took my change. Then I tried to make a call with my credit card, but of course it wouldn't take my cards that started with a 5, as it would try and perform a collect call. Then, on top of that it also wouldn't take my card that started with a 4 either....I was ready to slam the phone and break it off the wall, I hate these payphones!!!!!

So now, I was over 2 hours past the time I told my friend I was going to arrive, and couldn't call her to let her know where I was. I found a dunkin donuts that fortunately had wifi, so I was able to use skype to call her, but was still quite frustrated. Fortunately, I got a hold of her and she came and picked me up, and had a laugh over my issues. We arrived at her place, and I was still exhausted, but wanted to go see the city a bit, since she had the day off, so we grabbed some bikes, and headed into town, checking out several of the famous monuments, including the Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln, George Mason, Washington, Korean and Vietnam War, and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorials. Sarah had actually been working for a little bit as one of those rickshaw bike drivers, so she had a whole bunch of flashcards with interesting facts on each spot, which was a pretty cool thing to have. What a great tour guide :)

Plane spotting at a park near Reagan Airport

Jefferson Memorial

Hanging with George Mason

Curious squirrel

Looking for toe jam maybe??

FD Roosevelt Memorial

Chilling with Frank's loyal companion

Sentiment many of us share

Michelle Obama fashion shoot! jk

Martin Luther King Jr Memorial

Amazing Korean War memorial, these are all sandblasted onto the stone

Korean War Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

They say you may be able to see Robert E Lee's face in the back of Lincoln's head

Lincoln's hands are using sign language to spell his initials

Hey friend, glad you made it 

Vietnam Memorial

Washington Monument, so lovely

FBI building...they're watching you!

After touring around, and almost getting run over by cars and such on the mean streets of DC, I was seriously dying from starvation and exhaustion, but we ended up heading into Chinatown and finding a Vietnamese place that had some good specials on. After dinner, we were both pretty exhausted and decided to just take the bikes on the metro home and arrived and just laid around, not wanting to go out or do anything else, so we just crashed for the night.

I caught up on a bit of sleep the next morning, while Sarah went off to work, and ended up chatting with her wild roommate Tanya for awhile. Tanya had just finished her night shift, but had a flight to Baltimore that afternoon, so she just wasn't going to sleep, and had drank a whole pot of coffee and was just buzzing, so we had a pretty fun chat, enjoying her energy levels. Eventually, the other roommate stopped by to pick her up and drop her off at the train station, and since I was heading the same way, I just caught a ride in with them to Union Station. After walking Tanya to her train, I went off to explore the Capital Building, doing a free tour through there, as well as checking out the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, Congress was in recess, so it was a pretty quiet scene, but the tour was still pretty good, as there was some great history lessons, and some interesting little features in thing such as one of the fired painters painting his face onto the trunk of a tree in his painting after he had been terminated.

Union Station, one of the more beautiful railway stations I've seen

Congress

Supreme Court

Old chambers of the Supreme Court

Fresco painted by an Italian...(not Michaelangelo)

Thomas Jefferson handing over the declaration to John Hancock

Congress from the front

After touring around the beautiful building for 45 minutes, I made my way over towards the White House, and got about as close as I'll ever get, which isn't very close. After that, I tried to walk down and catch the Air and Space Museum for a little bit, but unfortunately they weren't letting people in past 4:45 so I was SOL. I still had about 2 hours until Sarah was meant to meet me by the ballpark, so I just decided to walk there and hang out. I ended up sending her a message, asking if she could try and arrive a bit earlier than 7:15, like she had initially planned to, and just arrived at the stadium grounds, where I grabbed some food and a beer and chatted with some Canadian guy who was working for the USDA, and a few of his friends. As luck would somehow have it, Sarah happened to stop by earlier than I expected and wandered into the grounds and just happened to look over in the one corner where I was sitting and found me, which saved me having to borrow a phone to call her. We had a beer, and then went in and found our seats at the game.

Canadian embassy, which is the closest embassy to the Capitol

Alleyway where John Wilkes Booth escaped into after shooting Lincoln

Ford Theatre, where Lincoln was shot

Some famous house that was once Red, but is now White thanks to the War of 1812

Not too sure if they are made about the lack of representation or not?

Smithsonian Castle

Heading into Nationals Park

Nationals Stadium is another really beautiful stadium, and we had some pretty good seats, in right field, right behind Bryce Harper, who is the 19 year old phenom playing for the Nationals. That guy is so good, and he happened to hit 2 home runs that game, one of which travelled just over our head and to the left, so we just barely missed out on catching another ball damn! He actually just set a new record for most multiple home run games in a season by a 19 year old, phenomenal! I had to laugh at a few guys in our section, one of which seemed to have this huge crush on Harper and kept trying to wave and him and get his attention and such, and Harper would occasionally wave back. Then one inning he decided to throw a ball up into our section, but rather than throw it to the guy who was in love with him, he threw it over his head to some other fan. The look on the guy's face was priceless, I honestly thought he was going to cry!!! Ha ha ha, hilarious. Then some rather unattractive and larger girls strolled down to the railing area and tried their luck to get Harper's attention, telling him it was their birthday and such, but this brought no reaction either. Hilarious fans. Eventually the beating came to an end and it was time to exit the stadium, but not before grabbing a few pics then heading on back to the nearby grounds for one last beer, before heading back for the night.

Great seats, and for cheap!

The Phenom

Thanks to the usher for providing me with his sign!

I caught my cab the next morning to the airport and was on my way to LA. I was pretty exhausted and didn't really feel like getting up to a whole lot, so I basically just hung out in my hotel room for the day, other than grabbing some pizza and trying to get a decent's night sleep. If I had known some people in LA to hang out with, I may have at least tried to go find something to do, but I just didn't really care too much. I was up early the next day, and of course decided to grab breakfast instead of grabbing the first bus to the airport, and then missed the second bus by a mere minute, fml! I ended up walking down the strip for about 20 minutes in the early morning heat, before finally caving, and grabbing a cab and heading to the airport, where I checked in and was on my way to Mexico! And that's where I'll continue on from. 

Hasta luega,

Senor Rye