NJ Continued

NJ Continued…


Well, after getting to NYC on Saturday we popped out around 32nd and… 7th I believe, maybe 8th. Walked all the way up to Times Square, and then spent most of the day bouncing between there, 44th at 7th and 60th at 5th. Around about 4 in the afternoon we got tickets to see the 8 o’clock show of The Producers, a musical comedy I’d seen for the first time in its film translation last December, and which was definitely surpassed by the live Broadway version.

We also ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp, a very good restaurant both times we were over there, I wish we had one down here in Houston, their Bourbon Mahi Mahi was downright fricken awesome. Mike wasn’t adventurous enough to try any of the tiny interesting places we saw around the place.

There was an impressive wedding going on in one of the cathedrals we saw the inside of on the streets traveling between one place and another. The gothic style was extremely impressive.

Two stores that were totally unimpressive: Nintendo Store and Apple store. The Apple store is open 24/7 365, something difficult to appreciate till you need a Mac on Christmas Eve, which, I didn’t since it was early July on a day when places are supposed to be open anyway. Moreover, the selection was still way too similar to the local Mac store in the Galleria mall.

I was incredibly hyped about the Nintendo store till I got there, some very nice displays where out, but when it came right down to it I couldn’t find a single thing worth buying that I couldn’t get anywhere else, no custom styli, or even games that I couldn’t get anywhere else. They had a very interesting little GameBoy museum, but nothing really special about that, it was locked in a case, I’ve seen pics from it online aready. Ultimately a disappointing experience since every single Toys R Us, WalMart, BestBuy, Fry’s, Gamespot, and Eb Games has the same selection, nothing compared to online shopping.

After the Broadway show we took the train back to Morristown, and Sunday was spent recuperating. Neither Saturday nor Monday had very good dinner because of how everything up there closed so early, same with Sunday night. I’m not saying that the hours are horrible, but you definitely have to be prepared for there being times of day where there is literally no where to go get food from if you haven’t eaten yet, meaning keep your fridge stocked.

The second trip to NYC started later, and we saw the Guggenheim, and the Metropolitan museums. The Metropolitan is incredible, I could spend a month there, days on each exhibit studying everything in it carefully and drawing. The Guggenheim not so much, I just wasn’t really impressed by the only exhibit they had, even if most of the side halls had some very good work in them.

We left shortly after the Museums though, Mike was hesitant to go for a walk in central park, so I missed that and the zoo.

Tuesday was also very cool, spent it looking at Ellis and Liberty Islands. I could have skipped Liberty Island completely, but Ellis is a lifetime memory. I can’t think of a better place in the entire world to spend the fourth of July than where so many people spent their first moments in the country. I can only imagine what it was like to pass through there at the time when it was used so much. It rained on us as we were taking off from Liberty, got a little damp.

After the islands, and the rain, not knowing how soon or if the rain would come again, also having nothing to sit on other than wet grass, we decided not to wait for 4 hours after browsing the island museums to see the fireworks so we went to Mike’s apartment and watched some recorded shows that we hadn’t seen before. Wednesday was spent on breakfast and general relaxation before hitting the airport. It wasn’t possible to visit Jason, he just didn’t get in contact with me in time to make plans, I wasn’t even able to talk to him till Monday night, which was just way too late, I didn’t even go back to NYC after that let alone the state. Maybe next time he’ll call me.

I’ll probably go back up again in the not too distant future depending on the outlook, the total for the whole trip was maybe 500 to 600 dollars tops including the plane flight. Next year I’m going to San Diego, lets see how that goes.