October 4-7, 2003 - Chanele and I went to New York for 4 days. She had fall break from school and I had a week's worth of vacation time from work. We arrived at JFK around 1pm. We had been driven to the airport by her father and Alex at 7:30am - I was so excited that I barely slept Friday night after being up since 7am, working the entire day then driving straight to Daytona from work. So we get to the airport, wander a bit to get some breakfast, then sit and wait for our flight to be called. We were pretty much the 1st passengers on, which was nice. The flight went fairly smooth and we arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule. We ended up calling Melanie to find out how to get a ride to her apartment in Queens and wound up waiting about another half hour outside the terminal for the local cab company to arrive. I was reading the NYC Guidebook so I was content to wait. The weather was super nice, downright cold for little Miss Miami that I am, but still very nice. I had my kick-ass new Old Navy (fake) suede and wool coat so I was all set.
When we got to Mel's, she and her friend were waiting for some guys to come back. Not wanting to ruin our 1st day of vacation sitting around idly, Chanele and I went out, got food, and wandered about Queens and the Queens mall. Around 9pm, Mel gave up waiting and we walked to her favorite bar for drinks and karaoke. I think my eardrums started bleeding when this horrible woman started wailing and VERY bad rendition of "Always" by Bon Jovi. My favorite artist's song was being slaughtered and I almost cried she was so bad! Mel is friends with the bartender and he was pouring us quite liberal drinks with mere splashes of non-alcoholic parts. Chanele got sick from the drinks, lack of food and combination of everything else from the day. So she and I walked back to Mel's with the intention of showering, watching some TV and falling asleep. That didn't exactly happen as planned. Mel's friends had finally reappeared and were supposed to wait for Chanele and I to get back then leave for PA. Let's just say that all hell broke loose and she and I ended up going to a hotel in Manhattan in the middle of the night. We took a cab to our hotel and, to our very pleasant surprise, found that we were less than a block from the heart of Times Square! Yay Chanele! We crashed hard in our temporary room with big plans for Sunday. As a side note, I highly recommend the Best Western Ambassador on 45th and about 7th cuz it is super cute and super close to everything and the subway too!
Sunday, we had no solid plans. We woke up, took some pictures of the view (my coolest picture!), packed up our bags, then wandered up to Times Square to take pictures and find food. We saw a diner across the street from where we were staying called Lindy's. It is supposed to be famous or something, but turned out to be a majorly overpriced disappointment with poor quality food and downright horrid waiters! I had a boring omelet with a few slices of American cheese and they had the gall to charge me $11.35 for it! Needless to say, we avoided it the rest of the trip. Chanele wanted to go to the Russian community in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, so we took the subway for about an hour out there. After wandering the streets for a bit, we walked down the Boardwalk past the aquarium to Coney Island. Let me tell you, it was bloody cold! The wind was whipping through my jacket and jeans and felt freezing to me. I know it wasn't, but don't try telling my body that! We had hotdogs and fries at the *original* Nathan's Hotdog stand on the Coney Island Boardwalk. We sat on a bench chowing down in front of the "Shoot the Freak" booth. Get this, tourists get suckered into paying scads of money to shoot paintballs at some moron dressed in combat gear running around a tiny area… and they pay it! Amusing, yet retarded. From there, we took the subway back into Manhattan to relax for a little bit at the hotel and find dinner. Along the way, we stopped into the World's Largest Toys R' Us in the middle of Times Square. There was all kinds of cool stuff! It was bloody awesome! I felt like a little kid wandering about in awe. I took a few pictures and got gifts for Nickle, Celia and myself of course.
check back as i continue editing and uploading info...
