I have recently found myself to be in New York, a surprise as I have not left the confines of Berlin for some time. The fact that I'm here, in itself, is great (especially if you're found of the sound of car horns). The downside to this is manually going through every person in my contact list and telling them what I've been doing. Tedious. I had a thought, there must be an easier way to do this! A central place where I can describe the amazing cool things I've been doing, with too many attached photos and a little sarcastic wit, then send it to everyone at once. Ah, yes, there is such a thing, a blog.
Honestly, I had almost forgotten that I even have a blog. One, they are rather 2003, especially a blogger blog, and two, I'd not touched this one in four years, allowing it to seep from my memory.
But, enough waffling about a blog being a blog.
Journeying to New York
Also known as the worst part of any trip. As I am currently suffering from a bad back I'd decided to upgrade myself to the 'Economy Premium' section of the aircraft (using airmiles that have been sat in my 'executive' club account for years and years). Now, you're probably thinking "wow, an upgrade! how fancy!" and true, they did give us a glass of sparkling wine upon boarding and they gave us actual metal cutlery (rich people who can afford upgrades are allowed to take over a flight by murdering with a fork). In general it was pretty much the same as any flight, just with an inch or so more leg room. But, I was happy enough, munching away on my rather bland looking special meal.
 |
| food must be individual and unadorned for the gluten-less |
After consuming said meal I needed a stretch of the legs, so I decided to go for a wander around the plane. I pushed my way through the velvet curtains of privilege back into the cattle section and suddenly felt like I'd entered an episode of the twilight zone. There were about 15 heads visible amongst the rows, a few ghostly lights from seat screens and a single 6 year old child wandering around scavenging for blankets. As I trepidatiously progressed down the isle I started to notice that there were toes poking out from the rows (un-socked) and that entire rows of seats were only taken up by a single individual. Almost all the passengers back there had converted the central four seats into beds and were having a lovely time of the flight. I did a little loop of the area, slightly in shock at how spacious it was, then arrived back at the 'premium' section, which was packed to the gills, full of farting noisy grumpy people. Upgrade indeed.
Accommodations
Thankfully, after my first ever Uber ride with Rudy, I arrived at my AirBnB. It is rather nice, nice in that "it's still a New York apartment that hasn't been renovated since 1934 so has some real worked in grime that can never be removed" charming way. The corridor on the way up to the apartment did give me some concern though.
 |
| a little 'sombre drug den' vibes perhaps? |
Plus the shower seems to have a very teeny tiny bath tub in it. Perhaps made for bathing multiple tiny dogs or a singular larger dog (or for capturing shower dribblings, but that's less amusing to think about).
 |
| two terriers or one border collie |
American Flags
After managing to get a fairly decent night of sleep (minus being woken every 14 seconds by a car horn) I ventured out with a mind to get some coffee, eggs and hash browns (my favourite of the american breakfasts).
I ended up in this place and, by virtue of their being a giant fucking american flag on the ceiling, I thought I was in the right place.
 |
| it is a little excessive right? |
My first concern was that the menu only mentioned something called 'Home Fries'. Hmm, I have no idea what the fuck a home fry is, but it sounded quaint enough and the person behind the counter assured me that they were the same as hash browns. I was dubious though, as he seemed to be a moron, but I ordered anyway. At that point one of his colleagues, in a difficult to achieve combination of being 'non-interested in the middle of doing something else' and vaguely aggressive shouted "home fries are not gluten free" in a hushed tone. Presumably he'd had to deal with said moron many times before. So, my home fries were swapped out for salad. Salad I tell you. How disgustingly un-American.
 |
| can I have a side of bland with my bland please |
What arrived was alright I guess, not the greasy heaven I had anticipated, but I'll live.
Also, their home fries are not hash browns, some other plates in my vicinity had little cubes of fried potatoes on them. Idiots.
New Yorking
The rest of the day was spent bumbling around New York, drinking the odd coffee, eating the odd cheese melt and stuffing the odd cupcake into my face. I'll do my best to avoid slapping food pictures all over here, so here's some of the randomness I encountered.
 |
| slinky oyster man |
I also managed to stumble across the most Berlin looking alley in New York.
 |
| it smelled less of pee than you would think |
and, of course, fell in love with the building views
 |
| sliver |
The day ended with my first Chinese meal in over five years (thank you general tso) and a glass of what I believed to be cider, in that it was cider that arrived as it was cider that I had ordered, but it more resembled a rosé.
 |
| Americans don't really get what a cider is |
No comments:
Post a Comment