For those of you who didn’t know, I have been planning (with two friends) a trip to New York City for the past 8 months. We left Boise this morning at 6:30 and arrived in NYC at 3:15 local time.

Time for first impressions then. I won’t go into detail about the airport. I’ve been to JFK before and airports are airports as far as I’m concerned. But the cab ride! Wow. Thought I was going to throw up when we were on the freeway. Stop and go traffic for quite a bit of time. They have a flat rate from JFK to Manhattan (where we’re staying) so to cost it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. But after our cabbie assured us that he wasn’t a “crazy” driver, he promptly proved himself wrong, in my opinion.

I suppose that he was just driving normally for New York. It puts me in mind of the stories that I’ve heard of India, where people just make their own lanes when they want to get through. Well, our cabbie did the same. He just wove through the traffic, cutting off buses, other cabs, trucks, basically anything that moved. And I feel bad for pedestrians around here! Not all that much, but really? You take your life in your hands when you walk in the streets here.

We finally arrived at our destination on W 49th Street. It’s a little apartment. The people weren’t here like I thought they’d be so we had to wait on the sidewalk for them to come. It was my fault, I assumed something…and well…we all know how that goes. But, apparently the little cosmetics shop we stood in front of was quite good. We saw Felicia Rashad go in and purchase some stuff. I didn’t believe JD that it was her, but when she came out, I as an Idahoan, stared and made eye-contact. She looked pretty haughty, but who knows! I don’t like being stared at either.

I put a few photos up in the galleries of the apartment. Really it’s not much to look at, but it’s conveniently located and cheaper than staying in a hotel. Plus, we have a kitchen! After a few kinks (where the company was misinformed of my balance due…which I promptly rectified) we were settled. JD and Anna decided that the front room was too cramped and repositioned the furniture.

We went walking through the streets. At that point, I hadn’t realize that I was going to be walking through Times Square, so I didn’t pick up my Nikon…no photos of that yet. I had my first New York dog and it was disgusting. I think that it may have literally been made out of dog…or cat. It was definitely not a meat that I would have eaten knowingly.

We found a TKTS station (where cheap tickets to Broadway shows are sold) and looked at what was available. Then we walked the circle of Times Square and were bombarded by people promoting their comedy clubs. Apparently it’s comedy week or something. One guy was really nice and Anna and I talked with him for a bit. JD wasn’t down and rescued us.

I’ve always done well in crowds. At Les Bois Junior High (yeah…I know right? Long time ago) I was the “line leader” and I’d get all my friends up the stairs during passing period. That was no problem. The city was fairly clean and the shops were colorful and plentiful. I don’t think that I’ll ever get used to the assault of random smells that permeate the air here. Trash, exhaust, body odor, dirt, etc. mix to make a potpourri that is New York City. There are parts that don’t smell, but just when you got used to the wind on your face, you’d catch a whiff of something rancid. Ick. Saw our first cockroach too. It was about 1.25 inches long and scurrying on the sidewalk. I wanted to kill it, but wasn’t sure if I could do any damage, not to mention I was worried that it would gnaw through my shoe.

We bought our metro passes for the whole time we’re here. That was easy peasy. Then we returned to the apartment to regroup. We attempted to find a burger place, but JD’s GPS thing didn’t work right and we ended up walking around for over an hour in the wrong direction. So we gave up on that for the night and searched out Whole Foods, an organic food chain that Boise, sadly, does not yet have.

We spent about an hour and a half in there. It was madness. We were so tired and hungry, and we didn’t have plans for what we wanted to eat, so we ended up wandering around the store. More than once we had to retrace our steps. We decided to eat from the deli area and I had some of the most amazing Macaroni and Cheese there. It was outrageous. And I had some salmon that was to die for. I also had a lovely Fuji apple. For those of you who know my American Idol experience, you know that such apples, purchased from Whole Foods, hold “special” meaning for me.

We packed up and walked back to the metro and caught it back to the apartment.

While we walked, we passed many buildings with logos that I recognized: Time Warner (1 block), ABC (at least 2 blocks), NBC (1 block), ESPN (corner in Times Square), to name a few. We also passed a book publishing place, though I can’t remember which one. The buildings were so beautiful, so much glass and lighting.

I saw a lot of diversity, which I expected. I also saw a lot of people wearing questionable fashion. There are quite a few metallic jackets out there. I shiver since I know that they herald the return of the eighties fashions. Slouch socks here we come!

I didn’t see any homeless people. I saw more in Seattle than I did in New York. I’m not sure why that is.

I was trying to notice differences in culture that I thought were interesting. One was that women carry their purses with their arm across the opening and have it shifted so that it is in front of their bodies. This makes it much harder for pickpockets I would assume. I think that I freaked some people out too. I can’t stop from making eye-contact. JD told me I need to figure it out and stop it, but I can’t. I asked a guy in Whole Foods which rice smelled so good and he looked at me in shocked amazement. Perhaps it was just him?

The checker at Whole Foods was very friendly and we had a full conversation about how tired we both were, how excited he was to be off in 20 minutes, etc. He was very nice. I also had a full conversation with a lady about the curse of the rickety shopping carts (I managed to get the short end of the stick twice in that area). She was very friendly as well. Then I full on tripped over a lady on the metro. But earlier I had talked with a Starbucks guy (there are literally Starbucks on every block) about the fact that they were out of Signature Hot Chocolate. I told him he was no longer my friend. He laughed and gave me a tall regular hot chocolate for a kid’s hot chocolate price. I told him that he could once again be my friend. Yeah. 3/4 ain’t bad, right?

All in all, it’s gone well. The city is massive, but I expected that. I could spend SOOO much time exploring here. JD and Anna are going to probably shop more than me. I’m planning a full day in Central Park and one for Ellis Island. Perhaps I’ll be able to find my relatives in there somewhere. I’m not even going to try my mom’s side. She has one of the most common maiden names ever. But the Bents are trackable.

I’m also hoping to spend a day wandering the streets with my camera. I should be able to find the important places. I’ll post the good pictures.

And of course there will be shopping there somewhere! So we’ll have some padding between all that and the broadway shows, watching the BSU game on Wednesday, going to church on both Sundays, and being in the audience of Good Morning America on Tuesday morning (Watch for us on Oct 13!)

I’ll sign off for now. I’m exhausted and this has gone on way too long! I’ve already written over 1400 words here (WordPress always knows!!!!!)

See ya lata,

-Melissa

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