NYC

Fridge running, chair scraping, ears ringing, rain...

*Just to get you in the blog reading mood those are the sounds occurring right now*

If day one in New York is any forbearance as to how the rest of the trip will go, I weep for my mortal soul. And not in a good way.The bus ride down here was long and uneventful. When the ticket guy said, "Oh hey, he's got the new bus", I thought what a score. But new buses just invent new ways to make it impossible to make yourself comfortable in any physical orientation, and I tried them all. To bad Apple doesn't invent buses. iBus, knows how you want to sit before you do. The bus driver was a cross between Ray Lewis and Eddie Murphy, and opened up with"Ahhight ya'll they be no drinkin', an they be no smokin', and they certainly be no swearin', now who want they ticket ripped?"

Tonight i finally got to cross "Be homeless in New York City" off my bucket list. Through a combination of naievety and lack of planning, I wandered the streets of Manhattan, at least what I though was Manhattan from 9:20pm until...about now, 6:45am. My train of thought was mostly geared toward rolling in, non-chalant, backpack with only one strap on, throw down a few dollars and get a hostel.

Until about an hour ago I was convinced that the word 'hostel' or 'a few bucks' didn't exist here. For the first three hours I was mesmerized by the daytime glow of Times Square, for those of you that have seen it I'm sure you'd agree. By the sixth circuit around it the novelty turned into two very sore feet and head. Word to the wise or semi-not retarded...bring a map to New York. Thinking there was no budget accomodation to be had, I inquired at a few hotels. The lowest quote was a cool 134 plus tax, the highest 240 plus tax. Keep in mind I avoided anything over 30 stories or with a giant gold fountain in the lobby, I can only speculate about those.

Call me foolish but I would rather circle times square all night (which I ended up doing) then spend two weeks of thailand funds on complimentary breakfast and high thread counts. After the third cab ride and fifth hotel, a very nice young man coming home from 'da clubs' asked me if I needed a place to stay. He said no worries he was just on a fun NYC trip with a friend I could stay with them. No red flags yet, I was ecstatic! And at the Comfort Inn no less! So as throw my pack down for use as a pillow, he says here you take the bed...wow what a nice guy! So i plop down, just exhausted from the aforementioned shit in this story, and who comes nuzzling up next to me but my polite host. I say 'umm hey bro, I hope were on the same page here'. We weren't. Luckily I grabbed a list of hostels off the hotels computer as I sprinted out of there.

So here I am, waiting patiently until 3:00pm until I can check into the dorm room at this hostel (it was on the very far North End, didn't really fit into my circular route). I don't want it to sound like it was all bad though. The city is actually quite beautiful in an excessive neon way, I made some friends with some real live new yorkers in the seediest bar I could find, enjoyed some delicious street vendor dishes (aka street meat) and the Ipod lasted the whole night. At some points it even provided a soundtrack...I remember when I was walking past the Lion King Musical sign for the fifth time a song came that started like 'Sometimes I don't where I'm going, I just keep walking and follow the sounds'. Only I was following the lights and kebab smells. Then when it started to pour around two, Annie Lennox's song 'Here comes the rain again' came on right after that. Loco right? Day 1 COMPLETE

Josh