New York - Day 3 - Windy Wanderings and Pizza

Morning Coffee

By the third day, I'd gotten into a little bit of a routine.  Awake after a mostly restless sleep and wonder why someone had been punching my legs all night long.  Realise that it was due to the fact I'd walked 500 miles the day before, then get up and showered.  Escape the confines of the hostel and make my way to the next coffee shop on my long list.  This morning it was 9th Street Espresso, reportedly the best in the city by quite a number of people and sites, I was quite excited.  On the walk, two tasty visual morsels greeted me, brightening my day.

 1. The fact that someone had taken the time to write this AND draw some balls to acompany cheered me up greatly.

2. As I'm English and this is written in English, the literal meaning in English is how I'm going to read it.  Therefore I must assume it is an instruction for pedophiles to not stand outside the school when it is in operation.  Seems sensible enough, but why you'd let them hang out there after hours is beyond me.

But after a while (and a brief walk through a turd hole), I arrived.

 Ordered and received this (although, in real life, it wasn't quite as oddly yellow looking).

It was most delicious and right up there with the best coffees of all time, I'd give it an 8.5 out of 10 on my NYCS, just what was needed to wake one out of the morning funk.

The place itself was a little drab and such, but they (like seemingly a lot of places there) had an interesting ceiling.

The rest of the morning was spent wandering a little more around the east village and then to the lower east side.  One thing I did notice everywhere is these signs.  And they irritated me significantly.  New York has too many rules and signs telling you what to do everywhere.

I mean, what does it even mean.

C.C. Renta! Plus pointy hat dog walking man.

Of course, a drag show theatre and a funeral home.  Perfect neighbours.

Gluten Freeness

After the disaster of the day before, I went pretty much straight away to Pala Pizzeria.  Its a regular restaurant and they definitely do gluten free all the time, so, they should be open and I could get the famed Gluten Free Pizza, plus I'd been told it was one of the best.  I arrived there around 12.30, middle of lunch time, and this is what greeted me.

Yep, you guessed it.  It was closed.  There was no sign of anyone inside and no clue as to what there actual opening hours were, just a couple of magazine articles telling me how amazing they were.  Fuck them, useless twats.

At this point I was pretty worn out from both the previous day and the mornings walkings and the jetlag gremlins were making their way back into my skull.  Fortuntely there were two places that saved me.  The first was another partially gluten free bakery.

If you can't read it, yes, its called Babycakes.  Walking inside of it is like stepping inside of a ukulele playing girl's mind (infact, my balls poofed out of existence just from being there).  But, they did make a rather good zimt donut, yum (again, lack of photos due to fact that eating dounts is better than taking photos of donuts).  This fended off the jetlags for a little while, but more importantly made me feel very homery as I've not eaten a donut in a very long time.

Partially fueled by my dount, i traipsed back up to the east village, all the while crying and whailing to anyone that would listen that I may never eat a gluten free pizza for the rest of my life (people were sympathetic).

But, in my final hour, I found this place. And was saved.  Behold, Cafe Mogador.

I was seated in its rather busy dining room, perused the menu and ordered myself an apple cider (I don't care if it was only early afternoon, holiday time is alcoholic time).  Although when it arrived, it was very flat and murky and seemingly very limited in alcohol content.

America does get some things wrong (even if it was rather good, I can still complain at the lack of bubbles).  The meal itself was Haloumi eggs and it was fucking amazing, perhaps one of the best meals I had in the whole trip.  Who cares about fucking gluten fucking free fucking pizza?????? (me).  The little dish to the top right was full of some red chilli goop, straight from satans bum hole.

45% happier and fuller, I set off on one of my main sights to see in New York.  The Ghostbusters firehouse! OMFG!!

I was quite excited to see the place, I mean, a huge portion of my childhood was taken up with everything and anything to do with Ghostbusters, I even built myself a fully working proton pack out of cardboard and lots of wires (ok, so it may of just been lightbulbs and not a proton stream shooting out, but it was close enough for the 10 year old me).  Now, this is the actual place, THE headquarters of THE ghostbusters!  But, again, it was a little underwhelming, where were the stands selling ghostbusters crap?  Where's Ecto 1 screaming into the place?  Where's Bill Murray, why doesn't he camp out there to greet fans?  Meh.  But, yes, it was still freaking ace.

Afterwards, it was time to walk and explore more, this time around the lower west side and all its cool buildings.

Now this is my absolute favourite building in New York.  Look at it.  Its like some giant obsidian command tower for keeping the ignorant populous in place.  Awesome.

Afternoon Coffeeing

As you may of guessed (routine is good remember) it was time for an afternoon coffee, my choice for the lower west was RBC (directly opposite my favourite overloard building).  Tiny and not what you would think of as a good coffee place, but it was the first to have actual comfy chairs to sit on and read.

The coffee itself was rather good, around an 8 out of 10 and in a nice big cup for slow drinking.

For some reason I can't quite fathom, for entertainment they had two tv's.  One with CNN on (ok).  The other with a live feed from the pool next door.  The pool for the dog exercise centre (yes, they exist).  So during my entire coffee experience there was a woman in a pool with a small dog swimming it around in the doggy equivalent of arm bands.  Doesn't get much better than that.

After basking in the comfy chair for a while I moved on down through the financial district, the only time i stopped was to take this pic.

That was it.  The sum total of things to see down there.  And to be honest, the only thing I was thinking when stood there was "hmm, is that the little corridor of buildings that Godzilla munched his was down in the rather crappy but fun 1998 americanised broderick version of the film?".

Next on the walk southward was the former site of the World Trade Centre.

This place left me feeling a little odd.  Not because of what happened there, but the shear number of people posing for photos infront of and the touristy gaudiness of it all.  But, saying all this, I was walking past it taking a photo, so who am I to judge.

After a little longer though, I'd arrived at my destination.

If you don't recognise it, its the Staten Island Ferry.  Apparently something one should ride, its free and is interesting and such.  I pretty much walked in, walked on and it set off.  Awesome timing.

I quickly made my way to the front of the boat and discovered out on the water it was around -30degC and there was a force 500 gale blowing.  But me and a few other hard Newyorker types toughted it out.  Turned out to be well worth it.

 Robot Giraffes.

I even saw the statue of liberty.  Although it was much much much smaller than I thought it would be.  Like, tiny (and yes, I understand what perspective is, I know its bigger than 2cm).

Proof I was there.

On the way back it was just as the sun was going down so I got some great shots of the skyline.

I escaped back onto the mainland.

 Jumped on the train and realised I was really hungry and fooking tired.

Me, "Fooking Tired".

At Last!

But, I had a plan.  I wasn't giving up on the dream that is Gluten Free Pizza.  I headed north to Risottea again.  This time the motherfuckers were open.  I sat.  Ordered a cup o coco, a Pizza, and waited.

Then.  Out of the blue, like a flash, the waitress plonked down this glass with two stick things in it.  I was about to protest that I'm gluten intollerent when I realised I was infact in Gluten Free restaurant.  She sensed this and smugly boasted that they were infact, Gluten Free!  They were quite yum.

 Hence why theres a big bite out of one of them before the picture was even taken. (be thankful they lasted long enough to have a photo taken of them).

Then.  I waited.

And waited.

And then.  It arrived.

Now, don't get me wrong here, it was rather yummy indeed.  But, I think the pizza had a case of the obama about it.  Not its fault, but it could never live up to the expectations I'd set out for it.   Still, I left feeling full and quite happy.  I didn't even have room for desert.

 Although i was intreauged as to what a Winkie was (in England, a Winkie is what a small boy would call his little manhood).

I moved on to my favourite bar/cafe again.

Ordered a bottle of Cider.

 HARD!

Had a wee drinky and then at the end of the night, stumbled homeward.

The journey was mostly uneventful.  I just tried my best to not fall asleep/mong out on the train like this girl.

New York - Day 2 - Coffee and Gluten Disappointments

Jetlagged Morning

I awoke after a moderately restful sleep (as much as one can have in a hostel with other people wrecking balling their way in and out of the room at all hours).  Sat up in my cramped bunk bed and thought to myself "I want to see the city, I've not seen it in the daylight so far.  I know, I'll look out of the window which is right next to my bed!! What wonder!".  This is what greeted me.

The pigeons hung around for my entire stay, they seemed to like it there.  I had a different opinion.

So in a fog of jet lag i quickly escaped the hostel and made my way down to one of my researched places, a juice bar hidden in the back of a organic supermarket.  The height of yuppie-ness you may think, what I actually found was this.

Now, yes, it may not look like the most appealing place in the world, and yes it looks like someone has taken to liberally sprinkling the floor with urine and that there are some new lifeforms growing on the till keyboard.  But, one is traveling, opening the doors to new experiences, I'd never had botulism before, so what the hell.  The crazy and friendly guy behind the counter recommended a purple concoction, mostly consisting of pineapple, banana, blueberrys and apple. They did have a fancy name for it, "Jizzy Delight" or some such ridiculous name probably, I can't remember.  But after a few minutes of him franticly working away, i was presented with a plastic cup full of purple goop (if you've seen ghostbusters 2, you'll know what i mean).  I was then instructed to "Drink it up big man!  I got plenty more where this bad boy came from!".  It seems he makes a large batch, watches you gulp down two thirds of it and then refills up to the top and sends you on your way.

All of this would of been a terrible ordeal but for the fact that it is the most delicious amazing smoothie I've ever had in my entire life.  Yum indeed.

After this I went to get my first coffee of the trip, the jet lag gremlins were bouncing around in my brain and I needed waking up.  Joe's - The Art of Coffee, surfaced, even if they do have a rather pompous name (and equally goatee'd bobble hat wearing twat employees).

The coffee itself was somewhere from ok to good.  Infact, as I'm going to be mentioning many many coffees, I'll invent a NYCS (New York Coffee Scale), this one rated at a 4.5 out of 10, good, but not amazing.  (for your easy reference, a Starbucks americano rates as a 1).  Yes, I'm a coffee snob, deal with it.

It was after the first few sips, settling into my surroundings that I realised that I was a little too settled.  As in, all I could hear was German ("just like home!" my brain was thinking).  Turns out, after some digging in German, that the family that were sat next to me were from Berlin and on holiday in New York.  This was my first non shop/hostel worker conversation in the trip, and it was with Germans, in German.  I was quite happy with this fact though.

After this I decided to go for a little sight seeing and wandered down to the 'Friends' building.  Well, at least the one they used for the exterior shots, I'm sure its a shithole on the inside.

This took all of 1 minute.  Stand, look at building, take a picture, realise its just a building and move on.  Least the area around there was nice.  I do have a certain fetish for tree lined streets though.

A little more walking and I found this.

And then.  The best and worst thing happened.  I walked past a puppy store.  With actual live puppies in the window.  I stopped briefly and played with them in the window (I couldn't stop for more than a minute, else I'd of bought them all).  Walking away, this is what I saw.

Oh My Fucking God, how could I leave this little cute fella.  I now realise that people who own puppy shops are sadistic evil bastards, put on this earth to torture dog lovers.  Arseholes.

Foody Disappointments

By this time, the jet lag gremlins were rattling around my brain and tapping on my eyeballs, food was needed.  Fortunately I'd spent a lot of time researching some really good Gluten Free restaurants in the city in which to have Gluten Free pizza.  I literally couldn't wait.  So off I went to Keste on Bleecker street.  "Gluten Free Pizza is only served on Monday and Tuesday", it was a Thursday, THE BASTARDS!  But, all was ok, Risotteria was just across the street, and that was a full blown Gluten Free restaurant!!! Amazing you'd think.  I walked upto the door and was greeted with this.

Unbelievable fuckers.  I stormed off in a huff, but fortunately found this place.

Sat down and rather grumpily ordered scrambled eggs and bacon.  Just that.  Nothing else was written on the menu, just "You're choice of two eggs with bacon".  Nice and simple, a little boring, but it will satiate my growling belly and shut up the gremlins at least.  This is what was laid infront of me.

Now, don't get me wrong, adding fries and salad were a welcome addition.  But, as a first American meal, it was somewhat fitting that they'd "added fries to that" without even so much as asking.  It was indeed "fucking tasty".

Sat there, again, I realised I was feeling rather comfortable.  It was again that I realised people were speaking German.  Two women, gabbing away on the table next to me.  I got chatting to them in my stilted German, meaning that so far, my New York trip was more of a German one.  The universe was trying to tell me something.  It was at this point that the guy from Short Circuit rode past on his bike.  Twice.  I didn't ask him if Jonny 5 was still alive.

I didn't get a photo of him, but, ya know, this is what he looks like.

Some more sight seeing was then done.

 On the list of my favourite buildings.

 They're very stern there.

 You remind me today of a small mexican chihuahua.

 Actual steam, coming from an actual NY grate!

(I'm a tourist, I am allowed to do this)

And then some tea was needed, this time in the V Bar & Cafe.  One of my more favoured spots in NY.

Mostly as it was a nice relaxed place and their bookshelf consisted of this.

Classy.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around the East Village until I found myself at a certain bakery, what is now perhaps my favourite place in the whole of the galaxy.  Tu-Lu's Gluten Free Bakery.

I had intended to take a picture of the cookie and brownie that I bought.  But unfortunately I ate them both in a total of 4.7 seconds, so did not quite have the time to get my camera out.

The afternoon ended with a little visit to the hostel I was supposed to be staying in originally.  I kind of wondered why they shut it down, was it due to bed bugs?  A chemical spill?  Explosion?  No, infact it was due to perilous conditions.

Well.  I'm glad I didn't stay there (plus it looked like a turd hole).

British Evening

The evening started at Tea & Sympathy, where I ate cottage pie and drank Dandelion and Burdock.  Again, there appear to be a lack of photos due to the extreme yumminess of the food.  Afterwards I went to see Simon Amstel who was performing 10 minutes down the road.

I proceeded to laugh my balls off for 2 hours and left feeling rather tired but very happy.  Then I was taken to a rather interesting Irish bar (with the Pink Pussy Cat next door one side and something to do with Birth on the other).

Where I was served two rather strong drinks (and was refused to have vodka and apple juice, as apparently, its impossible to drink such a thing in America).

By this time, the jet lag gremlins had gotten pissed off with me ignoring them and made me start to hallucinate slightly (nothing to do with the vodka atall), in that, "hmm, am I a zombie?", way.  So I spent the journey home looking at one of the two following views, wondering where everyone else had gone.

All in all a fun packed day.  I can't quite remember getting into my bed at the end of the night, needless to say, I slept rather well.

New York - Day 1 - The Journey

As some of you may know, I recently decided to take a little trip to New York.  I'm not sure where this sudden impulse came from, or why, but one midday afternoon I found myself looking at a ticket booking site.  10 minutes later I was going to New York.  I can't afford it and I can't really take the time off work, but, when have such things stopped me before.

So, let me start at the beginning, with the flight from hell.

The Traveling

It was with a somewhat heavy and excited heart that I left Berlin, I do have a habit of missing the place before I've even left.  But, the first of the two flights did give me this nice overview of the city to be all sentimental about.  The view inside the plane was a little less exciting.

But, it wasn't long until we were over England.  See if you can guess how I recognised this fact.

Yep, you guessed it, clouds.  Big old blanket of clouds as far as the eye can see.  Ahh, ok, so I did miss England just a little.

But, this little 2 hour first flight wasn't too bad all in all.  It was quick.  Easy, and I landed in a place which had lots of chocolate I'd not eaten for a while, people were speaking a language that I'm good at, signs were readable etc.  But, the main bad point was this.

See if you can figure out what was wrong with my 'Gluten Free' snack.

Homeland Security

I had a little fun in London though.  After arriving and transferring to the correct terminal (on a crappy bus) I walked upto the Virgin Atlantic desk to check in for my connecting flight.  Simple enough one would think.  The doddering old bald codger who was security checking people didn't give me much hassle and put a little sticker on my passport (which is impossible to remove), but when I got to the counter the little imbecile behind the counter had a confused look on his face.  Something had come up on the computer that his brain couldn't comprehend.  So I had to stand there while he called over someone else (ie. person with brain), who then walked off, transfered me to another counter and made me stand around for 5 minutes.  Not the end of the world you would think, infact, that was what I was thinking at that point.  That is until I heard two people whispering behind me, casting concerned glances in my direction and uttering the words "Homeland Security".  It was at this point that I became a little perturbed.  Just what could Homeland Security want with a fella like me?  What had I done to warrant such attention?  I was pretty sure I hadn't packed any explosives or burned any American flags chanting death to the west recently.  Was it because I was living in the former DDR and therefore was a Red Commie in Americas eyes?

Well, I didn't find out straight away, I was instructed to go and sit down on some green leather seats and be patient.  The guy behind the counter said he had to "contact a colleague about something" in the most unconvincing way ever, he might aswell of just said "we think you're a terrorist, so we've just got to ring up America to see what size of pineapple to shove up your arse and torture you with".

Ok, so, I may be exaggerating just a little.  But I was pondering whether some burley guys were on their way to cart me off to a small room with a two way mirror and pull a good gorilla bad gorilla act on me.  What did happen though is I sat there for 10 minutes and the guy came over and said everything was sorted.  Apparently I'd put DE as my starting location (as thats where I started from), but I should of realised that I had to put the UK because thats where my connecting flight was.  Meh.  It was so mundane I kinda wished I'd been mistaken for a terrorist.  It would of been a bit more exciting at least.

Hell Flight

After this, I was free to drink some crappy coffee, buy some lovely chocolate and then get on my 8 hour flight to JFK.  All seemed well at first, I had a nice window seat for a nice view of the flight.  Some random guy sat next to me, seemed ok enough, he said "hello" in a vaguely friendly manner.  All good.  The first confusing moment of the flight was this.

Now, just look at that.  You would think "holy fuck, we're above the Sahara desert" or some such thing wouldn't you?  Well, why then, did the map on the plane tell me that we were currently above the middle of Wales.  Where in Wales looks like that I ask you!

The Twat

It was shortly after this photo that the nice friendly man next to me had morphed into the antichrist.  In no time atall he decided that the arm rest was his and started off a 6 hour wrestle of control for it (which I say I won, but then I can as I'm writing this and can be as revisionist about history as I like).  He also decided at that point that farting noxious chemicals into the air every 20 minutes was a perfectly acceptable thing to do in a sealed metal tube at 35000 feet.  And then decided, that whilst watching the rather crap selection of films, he should laugh like a complete twat.  Imagine sitting next to someone who doesn't laugh for 10 minutes and then lets it all out in one giant violent HAAA!!  Waits another 10 minutes and then repeats.  To say that this guy was annoying is somewhat of an understatement.

But, I did watch Toy Story 3 that was kinda good, so it wasn't all bad.

NY Arrival & The Hostel

It took some time to get out of the airport, find the right exit, find the airtrain and then get on the connecting metro stop for the A Line.  Now, in my slightly tired brain toxified state, it seemed like a good idea to take the A line, it went straight to my hostel from the airport.  Not realising that it was infact the longest train line in existence.

So, an hour and a half after getting my bags, I was at the hostel.  Checked in, walked up to my room and discovered it was infact a prison.

Seriously, who thought the gun metal grey and dark dowdy corridor look was good?

But, the bed was comfortable enough and after a brief walk outside I fell sound asleep having excited dreams about all the adventures I was going to have in New York.

The Banality of Football

Tonight was the 'big' game between the USA and England in the tepid mundanity known as football.  I had originally wished to completely avoid the offence to one's eyeballs, but, as these things often go, I didn't have much of a choice.  Well, a choice between sitting in alone and being out in public with friends.  So I chose to go to a bar, what with its more numerous options to not watch the game than a friends 'football party' (such an oxymoron with the brain numbing turdness of the so called game).  So, I sat there, watching the vacuous morons, mouths open, aghast at the spectacle that was being displayed to them (a group of equally vacuous morons kicking a small ball around a field), feeling mostly bored and irritated.

When, it struck me that it was a prefect opportunity to perform a scientific experiment.  Would my hatred of the shower of shit being shown lessen in proportion to the amount of vodka I consumed.  A kind of beer-goggles for TV.  Fortunately the bar had some decent Russian vodka and after two rather strong concoctions I was rather tipsy.  So, in my inebriated state, I really tried.  I mean, I put some serious effort into watching the last 10 minutes of the game.  Like, seriously, it was hard work.

The end result, I hear you screaming to know, well, with one's brain numbed on alcohol, I didn't hate it as much.  It wasn't the usual screaming inside the walls of my own skull, trying to escape from it.  But, I also found it as dull as fuck. It was like sat watching a lit firework, waiting for it to pop and explode in exiting glory.  And it just fizzling out and not doing anything of the remotest interest.  I could of been staring at the wall and it would of been as fun.

In conclusion.  Alcohol numbs the experience of football.  But in the same sense that alcohol numbs root canal surgery.  In the end, its still a big ol' wank pie.

Peoples Relationship with the Weather

I've noticed recently (and also not so recently) that people have a tendency to really bitch and moan about the weather.  I thought that this was just a particular trait of English people (or more specifically people in Warrington), but it seems that its a universal, worldwide bitch fest.

I'll run you down what the average person seems to do (from my point of view) :

1. During Winter - "Its Winter!!!! AND ITS COLD!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!", "Its Snowing! Why isn't it sunny?  Why is there frozen water falling out of the sky!!", "This is so shit, when is it going to be summer again!  I'm COLD!"
2. During Spring - "OMG, this is the longest winter ever!!!! Why isn't it summer yet?", "We're not even going to get a summer this year!!  We had a couple of days of warmth last week, thats it!  I'm COLD!!!", "ITS RAINING!!!!!  WTF!!!! What is this, why is it happening!!"
3. During Summer - "Yay, its sunny and warm most of the time", "Why can't i be warm like this all of the time??", "It rained last weekend, I bet theres no clouds in the sky in Spain"
4. During Autumn - "Thats it, the summer is over, its winter now, completely shit until next summer", "Why did all the sun have to end!!!  Why is it COLD AGAIN!!!"

Now, this can all simply be fixed with a simple point of view change.  These facts illustrate my point :

1. We live in the northern hemisphere, we have seasons.  Deal with it or fuck off.
2. Spring is supposed to be a little warm, sometimes cold and mostly rainy with some hot days.  This is the way it is most every year, don't act like its a big surprise/end of the world every time.
3. You can avoid being cold for the 3/4 of the year it isn't summer by WEARING APPROPRIATE CLOTHES and not being a moron.
4. Sunshine and Warmth are nice, but they aren't here all year round, accept this fact and get on with your life.  Acting like it is summer because you want it to be won't help.
5. Embrace the changes between the seasons, they avoid the monotony of never changing weather.

Doing these simple things will improve blood pressure levels no end and will mean that I no longer have to listen to the whines of 99% of the population.

Fortunately though, its summer soon and I can have a little revenge by bitching and moaning about the excessive heat.  Its only for a few months, but blissful none the less :o)

New Guitar

Bought myself a nice new shiny dark red gee-tar.  Yes, it is as awesome as it looks.  Now I just have to remember how to play the thing.