December 22nd/23rd 2005 - New York City

I flew up to New York City on December 20th to spend Christmas week with my brother and his future in-laws, who live in a nearby New Jersey suburb. Flying in, the night sky was amazingly bright. It was hard to spot anything familiar to the minds eye of what you typically think of when you think of NYC. I think I was just sitting on the wrong side of the plane to see anything good though. It was a late night flight so when I arrived at LaGuardia the bitter wind had picked up quite a bit. Quite a change from the warm temperature I had been in just 3 hours earlier in Baton Rouge. I was disappointed because there were only dirty remnants of a snow from a week or two earlier. It did not snow while I was there either... dammit.

I spent a few days just enjoying the quietness and relaxing, reading books in the cozy little upstairs apartment my brother and his girlfriend live in. I had made arrangements to meet up with a very good friend of mine, Drew, to go to Manhattan together and see the sights for an evening. He lives in Pennsylvania and hadn't ever really been himself and was excited about being able to go. Because it was late, there wasn't a whole bunch of people and there wasn't the insane traffic congestion due to the public transportation strike. We finally found a place to park and spent a good bit scrounging around for about 5 dollars worth of quarters for the parking meter... which we never quite came across, but had put in a good 3 or 4 dollars before someone walking along stopped and informed us that we were wasting our money. You don't have to put money in the meters past a certain time at night.

So I have to warn you... I was armed with a brand new digital camera and a 1 GB memory card, so I took an insane amount of pictures, but hey... how many times will a girl like me get to spend her Christmas in glamorous New York.

















Times Square
On our way to walking towards what we assumed was Times Square (due to an increase in light pollution) I happened to notice that the sidewalks were sparkling... like there was glitter mixed into the concrete. It fascinated me beyond belief.













Something else that caught my attention was that, in Times Square is the most expensive advertising real-estate in the world, particularly around this time of year, around where the ball drops on New Years Eve. So who would you imagine would have a budget to take on this prime piece of billboard space... no not Coke or Budwiser, they're a little lower on the scale. I'm telling you... it's the 5 and 10 cents a pack soup company all college students are quite familiar with. Don't you think that's a little odd?































Out of all the buildings in the few city blocks that comprise the most famous quadrilateral in the world... the Hershey's building was my favorite.











After leaving Times Square, we walked back to Drews car and decided to try and locate Ground Zero. He knew where it would be, it was just a matter of getting there. Along the way, we came across this particular street and I HAD to stop and get a picture. Ironically, earlier in the day I was looking at a Google map of lower Manhattan and my eyes had caught this on the map. I was ecstatic when we happened to drive down it by accident.





We finally found Ground Zero around 2 am on the 23rd. It was freezing cold and very dark so we only stayed long enough to read the timeline and memorial that was posted along the fence... and just stand quietly for a few moments. There's something about just being there that makes you slightly uncomfortable about being there. Almost guilty. I don't think what happened there can ever be remembered enough.









So this is where it gets interesting... you can't go to a place like New York and not get lost at least once. We just so happened to get lost for several hours. There's not many people who speak fluent English around there and the ones that do didn't really know what they were talking about. We spent a while driving around the island and when we FINALLY was able to find the tunnel back to New Jersey, we eventually found ourselves still clueless as to where we were going.

Finally we found an open CVS Pharmacy in some seemingly no-name little town. We went inside to get a map to find our own way home. There was an on-duty police officer who was willing to help us out. So we bought the map and on our way out the store the police officer looks at Drew and says all seriously... "listen to me, you get in your car and lock your doors and get on out of here... this is the epicenter of crime in New Jersey". Oddly enough, right outside the door was a panhandler asking for money so he can get some ice cream. Of course, me being me, for a few moments thought "Why does this guy want ice cream... it's so cooooold". Uhhh yeah, that's not what he meant.

So we finally make it back to my brothers place and spent a few hours sleeping in Drews car (because I was afraid of my brother's wrath for making it back at about 4 or 5 am). What a night... but it was only one night. There's several more to go.

This is for you Drew, thanks for all the laughs:

Our Father,
Who art in Pittsburgh,
Football be thy Game.
Thy King-dome come,
4 Super Bowls won,
on earth as it is in Heinz Field.
Give us this day a playoff victory,
and forgive us our penalties,
as we defeat those who play against us,
And lead us into a victory, and deliver us to Detroit.
For thine, is the trophy and the championship rings and the last first-round draft pick forever

Amen