Live From New York

(This was sent but not posted last Thursday morning)

So a few quick thoughts. Everyone here is batshit crazy. The subway is surprisingly easy to use, and I am going to be run over by one. Went to a "towny" bar, and said bar would be a top 3 bar in Green Bay. At said bar, I had a conversation with some dude who claimed to be JJ Redicks best friend. Also, the person that we know who lives here allegedly smoked weed with Redick. I'm a tad hungover. It is pouring buckets. I'm supposed to go to Yankee stadium today. No umbrella.

PS. Said friend's apartment is 400 square feet and she pays more than my mortgage payment for rent.

CONTINUED

I am thankfully back from New York, and back on this planet. It is amazing how different life is there compared to anything I've ever seen. Even in Milwaukee or the Twin Cities (neither of which I've lived in, but I've spent significant time in both) or Omaha (a largerish city) the lifestyle is at least somewhat comparable to normalcy, only with more cars. In NYC, you don't have a car unless you are a cab driver, a multi-millionaire, or some foreign dipshit that rents one. The subway takes some getting used to, but once you get over the fact that it is the dirtiest thing you will ever touch, it is very convenient, easy and fast. We took that fucker everywhere, and it was $4 total for each trip, instead of $40 in a cab. My other overall impressions of NYC before I get into details of our trip are as follows:

1) Everyone that lives there is solely consumed by their life, and unless they have a reason to be nice to you, they will push your ass into traffic if you get in their way. And by get in their way, I mean not walking at a near jog.

2) Everyone there is homeless or wears a suit.

3) There are no grocery stores. So everyone eats out for every meal.

4) There are no gas stations, so someone has already invented a car to run on baby shit. There is no other explanation.

5) The only grass in Manhattan is in Central Park.

6) Miller Lite is most definitely not the drink of choice, and is actually difficult to find. The hotel we stayed in was selling bottles for TWELVE BUCKS EACH.

7) David Cross's description of walking down the street in New York, and the people you come upon is exactly correct.

Now onto our trip details:

Thursday rained all motherfucking day. And hard. We went to Yankee stadium anyway. It was still raining there. We walked around the entire stadium, and took some pictures. It was pretty nice, but overall, it wasn't anything that would warrant like a billion dollars being spent to build it. Yankee Stadium had two things that made it better than Miller Park: 1) Huge HD video screens and 2) Way better food choices (but not alcohol choices). The food choices there were insane, and truthfully not that ridiculously priced for a sporting event. You name it, you could find it there. Everything from hot dogs and pizza to Chicken Parm and Sushi. And it all looked pretty good. I settled on a gigantic ass cheese steak (with Cheez Whiz of course) and an order of garlic fries. We sat around there about two and a half hours, and when the rain didn't let up, we left. I didn't really give a shit about the actual game anyway. Turned out to be shitty (first game ever there with no HRs) and it didn't start until 6:30. Here is my list of stadiums I've been to games at in order: 1) Miller Park, 2) Yankee Stadium, 3) Kaufman Stadium, 4) Random Little League parks, 4589) County Stadium.

After Yankee Stadium we walked around, saw Rockefeller Center and had dinner at the Hard Rock in Times Square. The strangest thing about Times Square was 1) Everyone screaming at us about going to a comedy show and 2) The random shitty/hillbilly lawn chairs that the city set out in the middle of it for tourists to sit on. It was fucked.

Friday was the only really nice day weather wise, so we did our stuff that would've sucked without an umbrella. Went to Central Park. We went down to the Empire State Building, Ground Zero and Wall St. Wall St. was pretty boring. The view from Empire was cool. Ground Zero wasn't really what I was expecting (it is just a small museum) but it still almost got a little dusty in there. I'm glad we went I guess. On the subway we saw Helen Hunt. Her ass was right next to my face.

Friday night was ridiculous. This is something that you would never know about unless you lived there, but there are restaurants in NYC without liquor licenses, that allow you to bring in your own booze. Our friend didn't tell us where we were going ahead of time. It was a Bangladeshi restaurant, which is every bit as crazy as it sounds. The food was actually pretty good. I would call it a cross between Indian and Chinese. Afterwards, we went to a place called "New York's oldest bar" Mc Sorley's. It is an Irish bar where the drink choices are "Light Beer" or "Dark Beer". The Light Beer was a dark red/brown. You order a beer and they give you two 3/4 full mugs. Allegedly, the bar didn't allow women in until the 60's when the city forced them. In protest they haven't dusted the place since. There is inches of dust hanging off the chandeliers. It is gross/awesome. Almost went to Coyote Ugly but that fell through. Got totally plowed.

Saturday it rained again, didn't do a whole lot. Went shopping on 5th avenue. Fell asleep while walking. Went out for pizza to a place called John's (which is allegedly in the top 5 pizza places in NYC). Went there over some better known places because it didn't require a subway ride (sick of it by then) and the wait was shorter. Best pizza I've ever had. Got some cheesecake from Junior's (best in town) that was fanfuckingtastic.

Sunday we flew home and some random unattractive girl started breast feeding her screaming baby on the plane next to my wife. She didn't really like it much.

So that is all. Great place to visit. Wouldn't want to live there.