Epignosis wrote: ↑Wed Sep 12, 2018 9:00 pm
So about the trip:
Our visit to NJ and Manhattan was far more educational than I expected. I learned a college class worth of history, architecture, and presidential mysteries. Our second tour guide was part stand-up comic, part history professor (I did exchange the favor by giving him an art lesson on a structure that had always perplexed him), but he was top-notch.
Small sample size, sure, but avoid the fancy expensive restaurants there. They aren't very good, the service sucks, and the experience is costly. Instead, opt for the cheap hole-in-the-wall places. Dear God, these are people who have mastered their crafts! In a fancy place, I got soggy fried chicken smothered with a heavy handed sauce and linguine (really?). In the shit hole pizza place, I had two slices ($2.50 a slice!) of the best thin-crust pizza I think I've ever had, made by a guy who barely spoke English, but knew the language of deliciousness.
Speaking of languages, I heard more foreign languages than English. You can people watch all you want. Forget understanding a word they're saying.
The smells of the city are just as diverse. One moment you smell glorious cuisines; the next, it's something that's already been digested. The wind blows a lot.
We didn't get to make it to Central Park because of a fucking Labor Day parade (a week after Labor Day), but a student informed me today that Central Park isn't anything to write home about, so I'll take her word for it and feel okay that we missed out on it.
Times Square is a great place to go to buy things and get trampled.
Speaking of Times Square, the New Years ball doesn't actually drop to the bottom of the pole. It stops sooner because Toshiba wanted more ad space. I saw the ball and it wasn't even close to the bottom of the pole. More lies our media feeds to us. Also, Walgreens is the only tenant in that particular building.
The welcome party was lovely. The first person I met was from Orlando (my wife's home town), and the second person I met was from my home town, so that was weird. The food was good and there was an open bar, so I had a good time.
The least favorite part of my trip, I am sorry to say, was the football watch party the next day. The food was great, and the open bar was in constant demand by yours truly (staffed by the greatest bar staff I have ever witnessed- 45 seconds tops to be served), but the place was miserably crowded and loud. We were at a table full of insufferable Browns fans (made all the more insufferable by overtime...which ended in a tie
). We met Brandon Jacobs and Tiki Barber and got autographs and pictures. The Carolina game was boring. Three of my players got injured, so I didn't win any money. I met a guy from Toronto who was in charge of placing signs for the event and he informed me that he hates "fucking Rush." So I met the the Canadian version of The Dude.
Despite the parking garage being across the street from the hotel (it cost $102 to park for the weekend, by the way), it took me ten minutes to get from the garage to the hotel.
You could not pay me to live there.
But you could pay me to visit.
No one was hurt.
