Time to pick up where I left off: New York City itself. Yesterday I spent the first night at my genuine Midtown pad (“The Vogue”) on 6th St. -- same street as Radio City Music Hall and NBC, and only a brisk ten minute walk from Times Square. Needless to say, the apartment’s in a great area. In fact, last night my roommate, his buddies, and I took a trip up to our roof (there's a tonne of trees, chic benches, and a cigarette smoking body guard up there) and were blown away by the view. To the right is Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square, and to the left is the towering Empire State Building, all lit up in blue against the glow of the city’s shimmering skyline. The Chrysler building twinkles in the distance, and the rows of cars zoom through the streets like blood cells through the throbbing heart of the city. Hate to go all poetic here, but this roof view has def-in-ite-ly been a summer highlight so far.
One sec, I need to take a step back. I mentioned my roommate – Andrew’s his name. He’s from North Dakota, he’s doing an internship at ABC, he loves cheesecake, he’s my age, and he’s half-Asian. Awesome guy. Also, he’s brought along his North Dakotan pinochle posse who consists of an electric engineer, a guitar star, and an a capella songster slash Princeton grad. All awesome guys, too. [For curiosity sake, I asked Andrew if he knew who Canada’s “President” was, to which he answered, “Don’t you guys have an emperor or something?” ... Close enough.]
The rest of the North Dakota crew is only around ‘til the start of this week, so they took off touring NYC today while Andrew and I got down to work. Groceries work. We took the subway for the first time from Penn Station at Madison Square Garden down to 14th to a place that’s popular for its low prices (Western Beef). I expected grocery shopping here to be a lot different from home, but I was still surprised by the tiny two foot wide rows packed with people.
Everything in Manhattan is thin, even their store isles.
Also, an important lesson I picked up is that New Yorkers never pay full price. If an item's not labelled, they’ll yell to the workers asking if it’s marked down. If it’s not, they’ll drop it like it’s laced with anthrax. So, after bracing myself for exorbitant prices, I was pleasantly surprised by the low grocery bill that the cashier handed me.
On the way back from the store we got slightly turned around (“lost” is too strong a word), and ended up dragging our grocery bags around most of lower Midtown. We were hot, tired, and hungry -- one time a guy got in my way with his camera lens and I actually thought "Outta my way, tourist!". Guess I'm a bona-fide New Yorker.
Eventually we wound up back at our apartment around lunch – arms sore but spirits high. Next was the Bed, Bath, and Beyond saga, in which we trekked up Broadway twenty eight streets for a pillow and comforter (I refused paying Macy’s prices). Lucky we did, however, because in a burst of randomness we popped into the CBS Late Show theatre to toss our names in their television ticket lottery – an hour later I got a phone call announcing we’d been chosen!! So at 1:00 tomorrow, Andrew and I will be sitting down to have Dave Letterman, Paul Shaffer, and some awesome guests entertain us for free.
I Heart NY.
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