manchester_black

Back from the New York vacation adventure, I'm impressed with how much stuff managed to get crammed in about two and a half days of sightseeing.

Started off at 4:30 in the morning on Thursday. Air Canada, true to form, had one person working the bag check counter, so we had a lineup of about 150 people waiting to load up bags. anyone who knows my travel habits knows I pack as light as possible, and I pack a small enough suitcase that I can stow it in the overhead compartment. On average, if I am travelling by myself I save at least 2 hours in the airport because of this. My sister on the other hand, will pack seven pairs of shoes and full jumbo size shampoo and conditioner bottles on a four day trip. SO. Because of the early ass time of the flight (paired with my night-hawk ways) I ended up sleeping the whole first leg of the flight away. It must be some sort of karmic punishment of something, but it always seems that sleeping on a plane takes its revenge by giving you the worst neck cramps ever. So lunch was had in the Ottawa airport, and followed up by a few extra strength asprins. (I found out that once you pass American customs, any restaurant past that side cannot have any deep fried foods, because the ductwork required is large enough for a person of weight up to something like 300 pounds to fit through.)

We hit NY and made our way to the hotel. If there is one thing I have to say I love going on vacations with my family, it's that my mom normally has a pretty good idea of what we're going to be doing on the trip ( so we don't sit around or just wander aimlessly) and that we're afforded luxuries that would otherwise be impossible. Our hotel room for example, was the Marriot Marquis hotel in times square. It was so nice to not have to commute around to meet up with our tour bus, or even if we just wanted to just go around and gawk, we were only a step away from like anything cool.

First thing the next day involved getting up at a time so early, that there were so few cars down broadway that there was no honking. We hopped onto one of those double decker tour busses (which, dollar for dollar, I think is probably one of the best tourist investments anyone can make when visiting a city) One of the first things we were told by the guide as not to stand up while the bus was moving. Period. He demonstrated why as we passed a traffic light and slapped the thing. He said about once a season on average they'll get at least one person who gets brained by one of those. The tour is broken up into three loops. We hit the Downtown loop first, getting to see a lot of the big name attractions south of times square. anything we wanted to get a closer look at, like the Statue of Liberty we could hop off the bus, and catch another one when we were all set. Got to see ground zero, which I have to say is pretty hard to fathom buildings as large as the twin towers when all there is left is a giant hole. I wish I had the chance to have seen them before. We finished the loop, and took a quick break at the hotel before we headed out to see a Broadway show. The show we saw was called Drumstruck, which promised a drum on every seat. It was a show of African music, and the audience was encouraged to drum along- the one actor pretty much conducted the audience in how to play. I would totally reccomend it to anyone looking to see a show (plus I like seeing something that isnt based on either a Disney or old movie.)
The next day had us pop by wall street, because my mom wanted to get a picture of the bull thats supposed to bring good luck with money if you rub it (which you can see that its head and balls have been rubbed enough times they shine like brass compared to the dull brownish of everything else) I took it upon myself to hop on and give it a ride -note: if you ever do this, prepare to have your ass hurt for like an hour afterwards, as the spine of the bull is very prominent, and very hard. The Brooklyn loop of the tour was the next quest objective, which wasn't as flashy as the downtown loop, but had a lot of historical stuff, and we followed it up with a trip to Central park (my sister's knowledge of anything New York was previously confined to sex and the city, and notable spots in movies, and the main thing whe wanted to see was 'the castle from stepmom') We took a pretty good jaunt through there, and then hit the NBC studio tour, which was really cool to see, although we had a couple guys who were borderling retarded on the tour- there was a metal detector we had to go through, and this guy couldn't fathom what was making him beep as he went through, and after like 10 minutes of holind up the group he was all "Oh, would Canadian coins set it off?". No shit. I made a joke to my mom that the guy must have been a Newfie (they're like Canada's southerners when it comes to jokes of intellect!) I was surprised at how small some of the studios were, like the SNL and Conan O'Brian sets. We did a bit of wandering afterwards, just to get closer looks at some of the buildings, and to see some of the things mentioned on the tours but that were inside buildings (like the antique escalator at Macy's) We hit Madame Tussaud's wax museum, which is cool and really creepy at the same time. I was actually surprised at how small a lot of celebrities were, and in the hall of world leaders, I snapped a picture of me punching dubya, and another of him holding an anti-Bush pin that I got from a street vendor for free because I told him what this Canadian thinks of the president

Wrap this all up with some last minute shopping done before we had to catch the flight out of LaGuardia airport and follow it up with a nice 5 hour wait in the Toronto Airport (ah, my old Nemesis) That's pretty much the meat and potatoes of the trip, I'll save the musings from it for another entry (some of them get a little blue, so sensitive readers may want to skip that one