New York City Blizzardfest 2005! Part Uno

I think Lynn and I picked the wrong week to go to NYC. None the less, NYC is by far the best city I've been to. I wished we could've stayed longer, so much more to do, so much more to see. We had an awesome time. Here's a brief day by day run down of what went down:

Wed. Jan 19th:
Arrived at Laguardia and it was a bowl of chilly outside. As soon as we get our bags, a guy comes up to us and asks if we need a taxi into the city. Of course we say yes. I ask him how much and he says $55. Automatically Lynn says that sounds about right. Ok, everything that I've read has said that cab fees run from $25 to $35 depending on traffic, already this seems kinda sketchy. We follow the guy out the door and he is walking away from where all the cabs are and Lynn asks what he is driving and he says a Montero Sport. That's the point where I said, "Lynn, lets take one of those taxis at the 'Taxi Dispatch' booth". I'm sure the guy wasn't happy but I didn't give a shit. So we hopped in our NYC licensed taxi and headed out to the city. Side note: I was all tore down on too much Dramamine.

We get to our hotel, The New Yorker on the corner of 34th and 8th. Diagonally across from Madison Square Garden. Great Midtown location. Our room was terrible. It had a horrible draft coming thru the window which made the room as cold as all outside. When eventually got another room which was much warmer and higher up(33rd floor). The first thing we did was head up to the top of the Empire State Building. I was still discombobulated from the Dramamine and the city was just so overwhelming at first. And the damn maze we had to go thru to the top of the massive skyscraper was just annoying. Once we got up top, it was well worth the confusion. It started to snow as soon as we walked outside. The view was kinda hazy, but amazing. I also think we were the only Americans on top of this building, come to think of it a majority of the people in NYC were foriegners. We ate at some place called O'reillys Pub(I think), burnt chicken parmigana, hmmm good. I thougth it was a cool little place though. I also thought that it had a nice waterfall, until the waiter stated that it was a busted water pipe. No matter, it was time to get back to the room and thaw out.

After warming our bones, we made the 8 block trek to Times Square. I've seen it hundreds of times on TV but it was cool just to be able to say, "Hey! There's that Toys 'R Us with the big fuckin' ferris wheel in it!" and "that's where the ball drops!". Tourists, I know. On our way back thru Times Square, we stopped at the Times Square Brewery for a few beverages and watched a cool New Orleans Jazz band rock out. By the end of the day, I felt like I had the rhythm of the city down and was totally exicted for the next day to arrive.

Thurs. Jan 20th:
Our hotel had a diner attached to it, so that's where we ate breakfast every morning. I wanted to ask for some grits just for the hell of it, but decided against it.

I pretty much had this day planned from the get go. We walked north to Central Park. Of course I had to make it to 72nd and Central Park West to see the place where John Lennon was murdered and to see the Imagine mosaic. While we were walking thru Central Park, we saw some other tourist taking pictures and asked if they would take ours. They politely did, then asked us if we were from Kentucky. Kentucky? We know we have an accent but WTF? Why Kentucky? Maybe we smelled of fried chicken or horse shit, who knows. They happened to be from Nebraska. I should've said that they sounded like they were from Oklahoma. Anyways, we stopped to have lunch at the famous Tavern on the Green in the park. Very chic place, very good food. I even ordered a glass of wine I was feeling so sophisticated. You'll have to get Lynn to tell you about the rich little girls who were having their birthday luncheon with their dolls and tye-dye balloons. Upper westside folk.

After eating lunch we had to hurry up to the Ed Sullivan Theater to get our tickets for the Late Show with David Letterman. Yes, that's right, David Letterman. I found out the day before we left that I had got tickets to the Thursday taping, I was so pumped about this. Once we got our tickets, we had 35mins. to kill until they lined us up to go in. During this time, we stopped for some hot chocolate at the Hello Deli, where I had my picture taken with international superstar Ruppert Jees. We left the deli and on the way to the designated spot where we line up to enter the theater, Robert Downey Jr. was getting out of his SUV. I was going to hit him up for some good drugs but someone mentioned that he has been clean for a while. So instead, I snapped a great close up of one the brat pack. Was he one of the brat pack? I don't know. The Ed Sullivan Thearter was so small, much smaller than on TV anyway. And yes, it was cold in there. First, a comic came out and told a few jokes and then introduced the band one at a time, they played Basket Case by Green Day, then Letterman came running out like a mad man. He took a few questions from the audience, and then the show started. The other guest besides Downey Jr. was Nicole Richie. She's a lot smaller in person. Then Downey Jr. came out and sang a song off of his album(coffee house music). All in all it was a great show and a great experience.

When that was done it was back to the hotel once again to thaw out. Our hotel also had a nice Italian restuarant attached to it where we at that evening. Good food and beers. Time to get rested up for day 3.

You'll have to tune in this weekend for the rest of the story. Why? Because I'm at work and I have work to do. I will not be back in until Friday night.