New York - Day 6 - Giving in to the Inner Tourist

Wanksville

It was my last full day in New York and I could fight my inner wank tourist no more (thats a tourist that is wank, not a tourist of all things wank related).  I had to go and visit the main tourist sights.

The first, Rockerfeller.

The ice rink I've seen in a gazillion films.  Was kind of underwhelming, as real life often is when compaired to its hollywoodised counterpart.

 I did quite like the building though.

 And to be honest, I wouldn't of gone there if it wasn't for watching 30 Rock and seeing this thing all the time.

The next 3 images sum up around 45 minutes of my life I won't get back.

 Picture representation of 'America' in its worst (and yes, I know, Timmy Ho Ho's isn't really American)

 Indeed.

The Centre of Wanksville.

Basically, I walked through and got out of there as fast as was humanly possible.  I had THE Empire State building to go and see!! WOW!! Can't Wait!!!

I got there, and this is all I could see.

That could be ANY building.  It is indeed much shitter up close.  This appears to be a building that is best viewed from a distance.  I couldn't even go inside as there were 4 guys stood near the doorway with M4A1's trying to look mean.

Next was the last of my Ghostbusters locations.  The New York Public Library!!!  Alas, it was covered with scafolding so all I could do was go "oooo, thats the lion from the film" and take a picture.  Then walk on.

The worst part of MidTown done, I got out of there.  Quickly.  Can you guess what I went to do?

Afternoon Coffee and Angry Squirrel

Next on my list was Stumptown Coffee Roasters, just around the corner.  So off I went, got there, walked in and found a counter and lots of people in a queue.  This was bad for two reasons, one, I don't want to queue, and two, I don't want to stand and drink coffee.  I guess its a New York thing, but most places were setup more for walking in, grabbing coffee and drinking it, like a moronic person, walking down the street.  "My Life is far too busy to not walk and drink".

So, I went to leave.  Which is when I saw Toby Maguire stood in the doorway of the coffee shop making strange wooping noises to a twat wearing a twat hat.  Well, least he's pretty famous.

Birch Coffee on the other hand, was a much nicer place.  And they made me this, the best cup of coffee I had in the whole trip.  A 10 out of 10 on the NYCS.

Yum indeed.

Food was required, and as most coffee shops don't do anything Gluten Free (or so I assumed), I went off to try another recommendation.  Shake Shack.

Yum (even if the fries were a bit pap and they had no mayonnaise)

Although this squirrel had issue with me eating all of my burger and fries.  The little guy got up on the table, climbed into my empty box and eyeballed me after discovering it was empty.  Most unimpressed.

Then, to the last sight seeing of the day, fortunately next door to the burger place.

Again, "oh", picture, then walk on.

Found this building after a brief walk, it reminded me of Berlin and I got homesick.  So, I had some coffee (this was hours later btw, I didn't just walk from one coffee place to the next, even if that would be a good idea)

This time Irving Coffee.  I decided to try something a little different, what with them having strawberry and raspberry syrup on the menu.  Coffee + Strawberry syrup was had.  It was.... Ok.

But, look at this photo below.  What are these little brown patties of joy?

Gluten Free Cookies, sold in a normal regular (awesome) cafe.  Bliss.

Bored Meanderings

Wandered around the city some more, having now run out of interesting stuff to do that didn't involve eating or drinking and saw this guy crossing the street.

 Yep, its spock, just walking around like he's a regular guy, wearing a green hoodie.

After a while, I got bored and was stuck waiting for my belly to get hungry again, so I went to Grey Dog.  But, just look at these people, quiff boy on the far right has to be the worst.

And had a TEA, yep, already had far too much caffeine for one day.

 Then, it was Pizza time.  Back to my favourite Gluten Free Restaurant (and the only one I've ever been).

 I decided to try something different, and it wasn't quite as good.  I like my meat crispy.

 A late night drink of Cider at my favourite (ish) bar.

 With some final, end of the day sight seeing.

 Meh.

 Oooo, I've seen that on 24!!

 And aliens trying to abduct me.

I did see my first cockroach of the trip though, freaking huge thing.

New York - Day 5 - Large Sandwich n Brooklyn

No Soup for You!

Thankfully, the last 3 days of my trip were spent in a new hostel, one which didn't have that prison feel to it.  One downside was its location in the upper west side, but this did give me the opportunity to visit the area (for all of an hour).  Most importantly to visit this location.

The 'Seinfeld Restaurant' (exterior shots).  Wow!!  Now, don't get me wrong, again, it was good to see the place.  But theres something about these locations, where the only connection it has to the show is some camera guy once stood nearby and took some video of it.  The cast were never inside of it.  This picture is about all its worth.  So, another stand there for 30 seconds, go "huh", take a picture, and walk on.

The rest of the area was allright, nothing too interesting, although why they had to have such security for a church is beyond me.

 It was ok inside though (even if being in such a place leaves a bad taste in my mouth, plus makes me want to shout out things like "Sweaty Hairy Balls" as loud as possible.  I may have religion activated tourettes).

Although, why must they have signs everywhere telling you what you can't do.  Obsessive over control.

And why do you need a 4x4 for a taxi?

Plus, there were one or two million of these signs ontop of the taxis.  I didn't think stripclubs needed that much advertising.

I realised I was getting irritated with my surroundings and escaped the area.

Irrational Sandwich

Afterwards, sat on the train, I realised I was a little peckish and in need of brown liquid refreshment.  Time for a new Gluten Free treat, a 'Sandwich', in the most American meaning of the word possible.  Downtown I went.

Plopped myself into a seat at the back of the restaurant .

And had this thing flung at me.

They called it 'Coffee'.  Although it turned out to just be a close approximation.  Like you'd explained the concept of coffee to a simpleton and this is what they came out with after much experimentation.  NYCS 1 out of 10.

It did its job though and soon (after a long time studying all the gluten free options on the menu), this monstrosity arrived.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to have a Gluten Free sandwich.  But I mean, look up the word variation in the dictionary (and the phrase "really overdoing it like a fucktard" too), theres a good inch of meat, bread, inch of meat, tomatoes, lettuce.  Why not mix everything together?  Meat, tomato, meat, lettuce, repeat.  Its not that complicated.

Saying all that, it didn't stop me scoffing it all down, even if the bread was a bit crap.  They did plonk another couple of things down infront of me too, these were apparently additions to the sandwich meal.

Noms.

Afterwards I went for some cash and found this.

Who uses Windows for a cash machine, seriously?

Brooklyn

A walk across the brooklyn bridge was on my list of things to do.  So I did it.

 Walk, Walk, Walk. Look.

 Walk, Walk, Sit.

 Job Done.

Afternoon coffee was this lovely invention, a 9 out of 10 on the NYCS.

 The MPL you can see written on the side of the cup stands for fucking Maple Syrup.  Oh yes.

All thanks to the Gorilla.

An most pleasant afternoon of wandering the streets of Brooklyn was then had.

 "Brown Stones", seems to me that'd be like calling houses in the UK "Oblong Bricks".

A sit down in the park followed whilst some guy dragged a little girl around.  All mostly uneventful.  Really.  I know its just pictures here and not much text bu I lay on the grass and looked around, what more do you want me to say?

A little visit was had to one of the flea markets.

Which was held inside of an old bank.  Everyone was treating this like it was a perfectly normal thing, like walking into a room through this door to buy nick naks and bits of tat is an everyday occurrence (which I guess it is to them, well, every week).

The food court was a little haphazard.  But it did have the nice feeling of being one of the last few remaining humans, hiding out in a bunker from the nuclear fallout, eating out of bins with moody lighting (and FLEA written on them, which I like to believe had nothing to do with where it was but more what was in it).

 So yes, 'getting the fuck out of there' was done, and eating was later done here.

 Along with maybe a little drinky too.

 A late evening walk to the brooklyn pier, sit down, take in the atmosphere.

 Then wandered off and a giant spaceship came in over head.

The last event of the night was to go and see 55 Central Park West.  Yes, another Ghostbusters set!!!  Look, its the church that stay puft stood on!!!  (and yes, this counts as much better than the seinfeld place, because this was fecking Ghostbusters!)

I then collapsed in bed.  Bliss.

New York - Day 4 - Central Park n Proper Chips

Central Parking

Day 4 was a Saturday.  One, this meant that they'd be a gazillion people crawling around the streets and two, it meant that I'd been there for 4 days and was suitably knackered.  So, time for a walk in the park me thinks.

This was mostly pleasant and mostly uneventful.  There were many happy dogs running around and playing and lots of New Yorkers running around in way too tight fitting shorts (there are a lot of people there who seem to love doing this activity, it escapes me).

Sat around in the sun for a while and then tried to escape the park only to find myself stuck on the wrong side of a big lake and having to walk all the way around it.  When I arrived at the coffee destination for the day, I was in need of a sit down, and therefore was not happy to see this.

Yep, a queue.  But, it did reinforce the idea that I was going to the correct (ie. better) coffee shops.  In the mood for standing in a queue I was not though.

Neither was this guy.

He was just screaming at the top of his lungs for 10 minutes, pissed at the length of the queue (not really).

But, thankfully, the coffee was yum.

requisite coffee picture number 6

And I managed to grab a seat, so all wasn't lost, I wrote my musings of the day in my notebook and did one's best to look suitable deep and thoughtful.

Line Walking and Spank Coffee

After enduring the crowded coffee shop for a while I popped over to the meat packing district and went for a wander down the High Line Park.  The first odd thing was that most of it seemed to be closed and there was just a small bit south of 14th street open.  It was fun enough though.  Walked down some concrete, got some nice views of the city.

Saw some cool buildings.

Went through some tunnels.

And left.  Job done.

An afternoon coffee was then had.

Yep, it was as wank as it looks.  Thankfully a visit to Tu-Lu's Gluten Free bakery then happened and the result was the contents of this box, saving the afternoons events.

They were enjoyed whilst watching the new Woody Allen film in the oldest person cinema in the world (I think I may of been the youngest there by about 30 years).

It did leave me puzzled as to why they made cinemas like this.  Why are all the seats at the same height?  Its not that much of a intellectual leap to figure out that if you stagger the seats people can see over the huge big headed morons that sit infront of them.

The film was good though, not Woody's best, but enjoyable.

Evening Chips

The evening was spent doing three things.  One, traveling around on the subway wondering why they were advertising Seinfeld whilst guys pretended to be spies

Two, listening to random nutballs with red guitars tell me how god had sent him a car to pick him up.

Thankfully it was all saved by this.

Thats right, number three, an actual fish and chip shop.

Yes, with an actual fish and chip shop counter peppered with actual english drinks.

The menu was a little odd, but close enough, even if the price was stupidly high (I guess chips are an expensive extravagance there).

Chips AND Mushy Peas were had.  With a little R Whites Lemonade on the side.  Plus, sarsons vinegar.  They were bliss, bliss in a little tray covered in too much salt.  Excellent.  I scoffed the entire lot and spent the rest of the evening hanging out not really doing much blog or photo worthy.

A most nice day indeed.