America pt5

I was planning to do a big update about yesterday this morning but I couldn't get the wireless to work then so I guess it didn't happen. oh well. now I get to do 2 days at once. Yesterday was a massive day, so I'm probably gonna miss 1200 things but oh well, here goes...

The day started with me getting up early and lurking the internet for a couple of hours haha. Good life. The other boys went out to get some breakfast but I just stayed in and ate vegemite sandwiches. I then headed back to our room to meet our new roomies before we bailed. A n older dude from Colorado (I think?), a surfy dude from Sweden and a dude from Bunbury West Australia who is down on holiday from his working holiday in Canada.

Just like the day before, this was going to be another walking day. We just decided to walk uptown towards Central Park today, instead of the downtown trip we did yesterday.

The first thing we hit was Madison Square Garden before walking over to the Empire State Building. I was told by a friend that the view from the Rockefeller Centre down the road is better than the Empire state so we decided to do both just in case. Empire State during the day and then Rockefeller at night. But more on Rockefeller later. The view from the Empire State Building is amazing. You can see pretty much everything from up there. All the NY bridges, Brooklyn, the whole of the bottom half of the City, Liberty Island and the Jersey Shore. Everything on the ground feels so small haha.

We then continued on our walk towards Central Park. We sussed some shirt store where Sean bought a Wu Tang shirt and then got some rad NY pizza for lunch before heading over to the Grand Central Station to be amazed by one of the coolest buildings I've ever seen in my life. You walk into the main room and look up and you can see the night sky with all the star sign animals on it. So rad. The angel on the roof outside is amazing too (I will put pics up eventually). We headed over to the historic NY Public Library and it's just as rad. So much cool architecture and artwork.

We saw the amazingly trendy Mac store (where you walk in through a Giant glass cube) on the corner of Central Park before heading into the belly of natureeeeee.

Central Park is really cool. We saw this family of turtles just hanging out and so many other cool plants and animals. I'd love to write about it some more but it's really about the photos here so I guess I might just leave it for the photo blog I will eventually do. Needless to say, it's a rad place and you could really waste days just hanging out in there.

We headed over to the American Musuem of Natural History where the last hour is free because Sean and Grono wanted to check out mummies, well it turns out the mummies are at a different museum but we still found shit to do. Grono and Sean sussed some dinosaurs and shit while I checked out the space exhibition cause space rules. There's this thing about sizes where it uses a massive cube to compare the sizes of lots of different stuff to give you an idea of the scales of things around you, from the size of our whole universe to the quarks that make up the elements that are the building blocks of our world.

Now it was time for Times Square. It's like sensory overload when you first see it... so much advertising haha. Highlights include: a military recruiting booth right in the centre of it all, a Toys'R'Us that has a Ferris Wheel inside and a massive lego empire state building complete with an animated King Kong up the top haha, a Hershey's chocolates store where you can buy massive blocks of chocolate and Hershey's shirts and probably heaps of little things I've now forgotten because I'm feeling so ridiculously tired.

We headed to the Rockefeller Centre to finish off the day (for the record I think the daytime views of the city may be better than the night time ones... it's harder to find buildings at night) before going home on the subway and pretty much crashing straight out. Massive day. I'm going to bed. (I did the entry below about today before I did yesterday, so this is in fact the last piece of text written here... goodnight)



Now here's today...

The goal of today was seeing Letterman. It was mainly something that Sean wanted to do, but Grono and I were kinda siked too so we made a day of it. Every morning that the show is filmed a select amount of tickets are released in a lottery (or so they claim). Cool cats (like sean, grono and I) can apply at the studio between 9:30 and 12:30 during the day. We started our day by taking the subway to near the studio to get breakfast and join the lineup. The rules stipulated that we weren't allowed to line up till 9am, so Grono and Sean got breakfast at Hello Diner around the corner from the studio while we waited for 9am to come around. According to Sean, Hello Diner and it's owner Rupert G are often used by Letterman in some of his skits, so Rupert G is kind of a celebrity himself I guess. We talked shit with him and a photographer from the show who was in there getting breakfast. Sean got a photo with Rupert G and then we bailed.

We stood in line for the next half hour, put in our application to hopefully get on the show and then bailed to find an internet cafe to plan our next couple of hours. On the way to find an internet cafe we ran into M&M world in Times Square where they have tonnes of cool M&M related merch, as well as these massive dispensers of loose M&M's so you I guess make a bag of them with the colours you want. I got a little bag of M&M's not expecting it to cost too much. It ended up being $8US. That's roughly $12Aus. For a bag of M&M's. Fuck the world.

After sussing some locations at a net cafe near Times Square we hit the subway down to near Soho and the Lower East Side so we could suss NYHC tattoo and I could suss some shops. Sean called Letterman just after we hit the ground in Soho. They told him to call after 11am to see if we were on the show tonight and it turns out we were. Good life. Everyone was pretty happy after that. Sean made some quip about us wasting our tourist time on clothing stores a bit later but oh well, he is the king of grumps.

Fred Perry store was mega expensive. Ksubi store wasn't even open when we rocked up. Ben Sherman was alright, I got a shirt. Alife was pretty much shit, it looked flash but they had NOTHING on show pretty much. Boring. NYHC tattoo was still shut when we got there haha, they dont open till 1pm. We may be going back there to get tattooed tomorrow night tho. We saw what looked like a dude dealing drugs through a fence to school kids haha. Good life.

We headed back uptown on the subway to get lunch and wait for Letterman. We all got some slice's from a Ray's pizza across the road from the studio and then went over to line up. We were given a ticket and told to come back in like an hour and a half. We had some time to kill so we went and lurked the internetz for a bit again. When we headed back we ran into a dude we were staying with who was also going to Letterman and we all just hung out till we got let in. TV land is rad haha. They hype you up heaps and then throw you into the studio to watch the show. We were in the top seating which isn't the best but oh well. It still ruled the guests were Jennifer Garner, some dude from a company that makes electric cars and a band I didn't care about haha. It was rad, but I can't think of anything else cool to say about it.

We headed further uptown to see the diner from Seinfeld afterwards (which I didn't really give a fuck about but was still interesting I guess) and then headed home to grab a couple of things before heading out to Red Bamboo again for dinner. However, it turned out our hostel has free NY pizza tonight so we all just stayed in, ate pizza and lurked the internetz instead. I headed up to the American Apparel store around the corner about 10PM and grabbed a cardigan (clothing stores open till 11PM every night... NY is my kind of city haha) and now I'm sitting here listening to JEW and writing this while I presume everyone else is in bed. Good life.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention it earlier but the weather was bitter cold today. It sucked. Luckily it didn't rain but the wind was really bitter. It was a bit of a rude awakening after the last two days being amazing and sunny.

Tomorrow we're going to go suss the Brooklyn bridge and Chinatown, probably hit up Red Bamboo for dinner again, maybe get little tattoos at NYHC tattoo if they can fit us in and I need to go a shoe store and get some new Vans... my current pair is pretty much fucked now.

Sinners and Saints are a fucking cool band. It's an atrocity that I haven't listened to this gem in such a long time... Hardcore and punk dudes playing some tasteful rock and roll. woot. ^_^

America pt4

It's now like 7am Tuesday morning in NY so I thought I should give another recap. Can't be fucked adding pictures now but they may come later.

Okay, so Sunday morning was cool. We all got up early to take advantage of the free breakfast. We ate all kinds of cool American shit. Waffles! Bagels! and then some more normal shit... A bowl of Frosties and fuckloads of orange juice good life.

We got on the plane only to be told due to storms in Chicago (our stopover location on the way to NY), our flight had been delayed. Turns out we got to Chicago 3 hours late and missed our connecting flight. Fuck. Luckily, I organised a spot on a replacement flight on the phone before we left Kansas City incase we missed out connection so it seems we fared better than some other people at the airport. After about an hour and a half, we were on our replacement flight. However, because our arrival airport had changed (from JFK to La Guardia)... our bags weren't coming with us. We realised this before we left but were somewhat powerless to do anything about it. We hit the ground in NY at like 8:30PM, just before the sunset (view of the city was rad) and organised for our bags to get delivered to our hostel before we left the airport.

Once again, we were destined to be late to a show because of delays. The Have Heart/Bane/Crime in Stereo and more show Grant and I were meant to be going to that night started at 6PM. Gah. We got on a bus, connected with the subway and then said goodbye to Sean at one stop (who was going straight to the hostel) and headed to the show. After waiting for a train that never showed up and walking the wrong way to the venue we got there just in time to see the end of Bane's set and Crime in Stereo. Not perfect, but oh well. Bane were rad, CIS was really cool (a lot better than when I saw them supporting Against Me back home) and I ran into my friend Ryan from back home and bought some cool shit Capital CDs/7"'s I'd been meaning to get for ages and a couple of shirts. Grono and I got a massive packet of doritos from a corner store and caught the subway to the hostel. Met a cool guy named Nick. he was wearing a Ceremony shirt. he was rad.

Met up with Sean at the hostel. Met our roommates. a cool guy named Ed, who was wearing a Coachella festival shirt and Ian, who was wearing a Coliseum shirt. both were rad dudes. Ian is probably the coolest NZ dude I've ever met haha. We went for a quick walk around some of the streets with thos guys before heading to bed.

In the morning, our bags still hadn't arrived so we couldn't get changed or shower. bugger. I had a massive mushroom and cheese omelette at a cafe for breakfast, we said goodbye to our newfound friends, got Ian to draw some shit on our map and then headed out to explore the city on foot.

We headed off down Broadway to the Virgin Megastore. I got some massive book on vampire history for my younger sister at a rad secondhand bookshop on the way. Got an Obama shirt for Jacob from a rad black dude at some markets on the way there. Bought a Watchmen shirt and a cool special edition of the Twilight book (again for my sister), I haven't opened it but it seems alright.

We went to the lower east side and sussed some cool little stores (Sean got this amazing Simpsons shirt haha) and saw the building that used to be CBGBs. It's now a trendy store that stocks like $400US dollar shirts that are still made in China. Ugh. Dude working there was nice, but the clothing was a bit too exquisite I gues haha. We tried to find NYHC tattoo but without a concrete address, we just got lost and gave up. We found the Supreme store on the way back to the subway though. It wasn't as cool as I was expecting (all one brand stores seem a bit barren in my opinion) but it had some cool shit. I got a 5 panel and we headed off.

Went to Wall St, saw ground zero (which is currently just a massive construction site) and then walked all the way down along the water to the bottom of Battery Park. Got some really cheap I heart NY shirts and then headed over to Liberty Island to see the statue. It's fucking massive and amazingly rad. I can still remember it now. The scale is immense. I wish you could still go inside it, because that would give you the best view ever (for security reasons no one is allowed inside the actual statue anymore) but it was rad nonetheless.

We caught the subway up to near Greenwich village after so we could suss some record stores and get dinner. We had dinner at Red Bamboo, probably the best vego restaurant I've ever been to. They specialise in mock meat dishes that are just like real meat dishes I guess... "steak" rolls, "pork" ribs, marinated "chicken" etc. It was rad.

After that we spent ages in a generally punk/hardcore record store called Generations. They had Age of Quarrel on a listening station on the way in! ha! Good life. Got a Think I Care shirt for $9US, the second So Be It... 7" that I'd been meaning to get for a while and the Anti-Matter zine compilation CD. cool.

We headed back to the hostel, grabbed our bags that had now arrived, I sat down on the net for a bit before I crashed out about 8-9PM. Which is why I'm up at 7:30AM doing this haha. The other boys went to go get breakfast but I chose to stay here and just get them to get me bread. I've been reading a few things about swine flu, it seems a little scary but we should be safe. Supposedly there's a simple cure, that is already in circulation as it's used for other things. That puts my mind at ease a bit.

Anywayz, cbf'd uploading any photos yet. Talk laterz. I'm going to go have breakfast and organise some of my shit. I think we're going to go suss Central Park today.

America Pt3

Due to an electrical storm our flight was delayed by 3 hours last night. We circled a lot, had to land somewhere else to get more fuel etc. and because of that we were 3 hours late. I ended up getting into the city just as the Gaslight Anthem show I wanted to see finished. dang. oh well. I went to buy some merch though and the band gave me it for free. Thanks guys. That covered most of the cost of my cab ride home.

I met another cool friend on the plane. An older woman who said she was a 'liberal in a sea of republicans', she worked at a University in a little University town about an hours drive from the airport. Her boyfriend and her gave me a lift into the city for the show. Pity I didn't get in there to see the band but oh well. I got to talk about the differences between our countries a lot, see what it's like being in a car in America and just generally hung out. Thanks guys. I've got there phone number so I'll certainly give them a call and tell them I'm safe when I get to NY.

I hung out in our room for a couple of hours before going to bed last night, talked shit on the internet for a couple of hours and then went to sleep. Easiest sleep of my life haha.

Breakfast this morning was rad. They didn't have much hot stuff but it was free and we got as much food as we wanted. I had like 6 glasses of orange juice, a blueberry bazel, a big waffle with maple syrup, some cool muffin thingy (dunno what flavour it was but it was nice) and a bowl of Frosties (called 'Frost Flakes' in the US). I'm feeling pretty full now.

Currently sitting at Kansas City airport charging this thing and waiting for our flight. NY this afternoon. Fucking hell.

America pt2

Currently sitting in the airport at Dallas waiting for our flight to Kansas in about an hour. here's some dodgy pics I've taken over the last 24 hours:

view of the horizon from the plane

blurry sean + GB pic

our first view outside of an American Airport (LAX)

American Pepsi! wtf

American KitKat... tastes exactly the same as Australian KitKat

American McDonalds. the sign said smiles were free haha

Ipod vending machine at Texas Airport. Note the PSP in the pic below.

AMERICAAAA

I'm currently sitting at LAX hanging out waiting for our flight to Dallas (connection to go to Kansas City to see the Gaslight Anthem) which will be boarding in like 10 minutes I think.

here's some highlights from the last 14 hours:

we got the seat next to the emergency exit... so much leg room. good life.
flight didn't seem as long as I thought. 13 hours went by pretty fast
qantas rules. got so much food haha. 2 breakfasts, dinner, a few snacks.
spent most of the first half of the flight reading a book about the smiths. I'm still up to Morrissey's life before the band started.. long while to go. Will continue on this next flight.
had a heap of fun playing with the in flight entertainment TV thing. watched 3 rad episodes of the simpsons, watched Slumdog Millionaire (good movie!) and watched the end part of Twilight like 3 times haha to listen to the Iron and Wine song at the end.
Tried to sleep for a bit but it didn't work too well. I think i nodded off for like half an hour once and spent the other time I tried thinking about my ex-girlfriend. sick.
Was setting next to a doctor from Canberra. She was pretty rad.

America seems different already. weird cars, so much american accents, so much clutter haha.

anywayz, America. good life.

GB out