On my last day at camp, 22nd August 2006, continuing onto the week in New York:
We woke up at 6am to try to make buttermilk pancakes using no oil – they were a disaster, and the strawberries were mouldy, but it was the thought for fox that counted I guess. After saying goodbye to fox, star (telling her to STAY ALIVE – she is trekking across America and I know she will try to save money in any way she can, including not eating well and sleeping in dodgy hostels,) I set about the task of packing – or procrastinating!! I took a backpack from the trip shed – they were donated by REI anyway, they have too many, and clover agreed that we worked hard enough – its not like I didn’t ask first, but they just didn’t agree. After doing my laundry and packing, I got picked up at 5pm, saying goodbye to camp, and we headed into seattle. I had asked to go to REI to look at backpacks, which was my alibi – and I bought socks instead, saying the backpacks were too expensive. So I technically got a pack and a pair of socks for about $10!!!
Kitty and I were dropped off at the airport at 7pm, and we checked our bags in, and found our way through the screening etc… We are not allowed to carry water or any liquids, but we can have hand luggage now, which is good. We did a bit of window shopping - there is the coolest shop that is only in seattle, called ‘fireworks’, with all random house knick knacks, like funky toasters and salad servers, and coffee table books like “why do we fart?”. I wanted to buy it for jess flood, but didn’t want to spend the money –sorry jess ☺
We hung around the airport until 11pm, when we boarded. I sat behind a blind, deaf and dumb man – who had a real stubborn personality. He was led to his seat and the attendant said “sir, this is your seat.” But the man refused to sit down until he was certain. He produced a mini flashlight from his top pocket and shone it on the seat numbers, and ran his finger along the print, even though there was no Braille. He was also mumbling to himself, incomprehensively of course. The attendant started to get short with him, saying “sir we are due to take-off, please take your seat.” He hoisted his pack in the overhand luggage, nearly missing and coming down ontop of me. Then he grunted and snored the whole flight. At least someone could get to sleep – I had Li’l lewis with me, my tilly gift from Dandy: a plane pillow with green legs and flappy eyes. Ah red eye flights!! We arrived in Chicago at 4am, and wandered around for a little while. I noticed the difference in accents – the accents from the Film Chicago actually aren’t much different from the reality – to my annoyance.
Kitty had dinner (strange body clock), and we boarded our next flight for New York, arriving at 9:30am. I was so tired that I kept drifting off to sleep while walking to collect our luggage. We bought a metro ticket ($24 for all public transport for 7 days, which is the best deal ever!!) and found a bus that would take us to our hostel. It took us through Harlem – and I now know why everyone says to stay away from it – its filled with black guys hanging around, and a lot of the shops are boarded up. We went past Columbia university, and turned onto Broadway Avenue. We found our hostel, HI New York, parallel to Broadway. It looks really funky in the foyer, with marilyn Monroe printed on the wall at reception, and cool seats etc…, but the hostel itself is extremely huge and unfriendly. No-one talks to each other, and the room has 12 beds – and there is no oxygen in there. There are only a few bathrooms, in the silliest of places. And the staff here are so horrible – when I checked in they talked to us like we were soldiers: “ID, membership card and payment please.”
We had to leave our luggage in the lockers before we could check in at 4pm, though, and we had some issues fitting my bag in. I met an Australian from the Gold Coast – I noticed the annoying twangy accent straight away. We then took a walk to central park, to plan our itinerary and have a sleep. There is so much to do and so little time!!!
We then did some grocery shopping in a Mexican grocery store, where we stood our like sore thumbs. The cashier looked at us like we were aliens and shouldn’t have been there. It was really cheap though – two days of food for $5!!
After we checked in, we put our bags in the rooms and headed out for some downtown exploring. We rode the subway down toward the world trade centre. Its still a mess there, and they have put up a memorial of course, but they are building a huge sky scraper called the “freedom tower.” It perplexes me why they should build another building in the same spot – why not put a park or something, which would be less of a terrorist target.
A lot of the surrounding buildings still show the damage – with the ceilings having large cracks and a few holes and wires hanging down. We took a walk along the shoreline, where they filmed the last scene of MIB, where he sits on the bench looking out at the city skyline. We watched the trapeze swingers, and kept walking and I got my first glimpse of the statue of liberty. Sunset over the sky line was amazing. We found our way back and went to bed. Considering I only got about 4 hours sleep the last night of camp, I had been awake for 52 hours!!!! Argh I was almost hallucinating!!
New York has this energy: the people are so diverse, the neighbourhoods each have their own oddities, such a culture, and so many interesting people. You never know what to expect. Like tonight, when we were in the tiny hostel kitchen making our instant noodles, this Indian lady came up to next to me waiting for the microwave. Out of the blue she asked me where I was from, and I in turn asked her where she was from. She dove into this life story of how she has lived in manhattan for 15 years.
“I want to return to Switzerland… But I am waiting to be married to my… I was about to say Hollandish…dutch boyfriend,” she said in an airy indian accent, her voice wavering up and down as she tilted her head back and forth.
“Ever since I lost my friends, and they lost their friends, in September 11, I have been trying to rebuild my life. But its hard keeping a job and somewhere to live, because New York is all about the money. They don’t care for the people, they are all just Shmuks. “I have a good friend, Charlotte, who owns a hotel, and she is financing my stay here. I have been here for a year now, and I am just waiting for my boyfriend to come so I can get away from this miserable place. I have become friends with a man in security, who barely gets three hours of sleep a night, and works like a dog here. Ever since they changed management…”
She looked down at her instant rice, and frowned, because the hostel didn’t have the means to provide cutlery.
“That is why I want to return to Switzerland – to work in the Dutch Bank. Apparently I just do not make the cut for Wall Street anymore, but I am too qualified for anything else, which is why I have become a pastor.”
She waited for a reaction from me. I wanted to get away from her, because this conversation was getting more uncomfortable and weird by the second; but at the same time I felt drawn to what she was saying.
“I have chosen a path where I can heal the homeless, the homosexuals, the bisexuals… I have found my calling. I cannot work for other people any more, which is why I started my own business. My manager is Jesus Christ and I will only serve Him.” I forced back a horrified smile.
“The other day I felt the Holy spirit upon me. God is healing these people through me, and its just such an awesome, mind-blowing experience.”
At this point Kitty, Me and the indian woman were joined by an old woman, who entered saying “May I sit with you, such a happy bunch,” as she gingerly placed her instant pasta on the table.
The indian woman continued her conversation: “But that is the way of the world, money makes the world go round, and things are going from bad to worse. But what goes around comes around. Humans were created in the image of God, and we are doing our best to destroy ourselves.” The old lady chipped in: “that’s what I have always thought – humans are the virus, and once the virus is eliminated, the world will become a better place.” She paused, and with a sudden change of tone, exclaimed: “oh my what a pleasant topic of conversation. I was obviously being ironic with my first comment!”
Kitty was giving me the can-we-go-now look, and so we tried to worm our way out of conversation. “I am going to use the internet now, do you know if there is wifi here?” I should have known better: I opened up a new topic about money and the thieving management who ask $6/hour or $10/day wifi.”
So I tried again, asking the old lady what brought her here. She has been travelling ever since she retired, visiting Canada, and before that staying in Ecuador for 5 months. After America, she plans to go to New Zealand, then Australia, she told me.
The indian lady piped in “I once heard the most beautiful CD from Australia – Hillsong; have you heard of them?” The old lady then said matter-of-factly: “I don’t believe in god, or Jesus or miracles, I don’t believe in any of that bullshit.”
I got up and said “I need a shower. Nice meeting you two.” I couldn’t believe the hypocrisy of the conversation – the fact that she was complaining about money and management and corporations, and here she was unknowingly endorsing one of the biggest corporations that exploits religion itself!!!
__
On the Wednesday I was still really tired, but we had to make the most of being here!! We took a bus down broadway (the upper side – not that interesting), to Columbus Circle, where we started our walk around central park. Kitty told me that her friend visited the park and got lost, not emerging until 12 hours later!! I can see why. We were walking across Sheep Meadow and saw a Madonna look alike walking a dog and wearing expensive clothes. We rode on a 98 year old famous carousel, then continued looking around. We went down Literary avenue, to the famous fountain with the angels, by the lake with the rowboats. Then we went across the famous bow bridge, and saw the Dakota building where John Lennon lived. We were going to see a free Shakespeare Play at the delacorte theatre, but the line was over a kilometre long, I couldn’t believe it!!! We walked across the great lawn, the one in all the movies of course, and then headed to the Metropolitan museum of art. OH my god, I couldn’t believe how many famous works were there!!
This will make the art students jealous – I’ve seen:
Warhol, Braque, Matisse, Picasso, degas, chegall, cezanne, dali, over a hundred Rembrandt, titan, raphael, the famous ‘thinker’ statue, Renoir, monet, delacroix, willem de kooning, Jackson Pollock, van gogh, and the water lilies and iruses.
Hmmm, a man just sat by me and placed a paper towel on the seat, the table where his food was etc…
It tipped down coming out of the museum. We finally got back to the hostel, after going past a black gang at the basketball court, which was kind of scary – again we stuck out like a sore thumb.
On Thursday, we didn’t stop walking for 9 hours. We caught a subway to Central park to see John Lennons’ memorial, then caught another subway down to Times Square. And it hit us. Midtown NY – broadway avenue, with the neon signs and electronic billboards running down the sides of buildings, lines of yellow taxis, people honking their horns, broadway shows advertised everywhere, surges of people, yellow traffic lights, the whole excitement of it just blows you away. We did some souvenir shopping (I love NY shirts everywhere). We continued walking around, and found the famous Chrysler Building, visited the central railway station, the Rockefeller centre (NBC studios where they film friends, seinfeld, fear factor, the biggest loser etc…) Then we made our way over to the UN complex, and saw an amazing photo voice exhibition, with pictures of developing nations and the infiltration of the western world. It was scary seeing the photos of Vietnam – but I think it will be an eye-opening experience to say the least. We then walked to the Museum of Modern Art, and OH MY GOD!!!! Everywhwere I looked I found famous works:
Salvador Dali: the persistence of memory!!!
Van Gogh: Starry Night,
Mattise: dancer
Andy Warhol: marilyn, campbells soup cans
A whole gallery of Picasso including Les Demoiselles D’Avignon
A whole gallery of Pollock!!
Marcel Duchamp: bottle rack, Fountain (the urinal), LHOOQ, and the dadaist bicycle wheel on the stool. I was COMPLETELY blown away!!
It took us four subways to get back – we got a bit lost. My feet have never hurt this much in my life – sightseeing is hard work man!!!!
Kitty and I were dropped off at the airport at 7pm, and we checked our bags in, and found our way through the screening etc… We are not allowed to carry water or any liquids, but we can have hand luggage now, which is good. We did a bit of window shopping - there is the coolest shop that is only in seattle, called ‘fireworks’, with all random house knick knacks, like funky toasters and salad servers, and coffee table books like “why do we fart?”. I wanted to buy it for jess flood, but didn’t want to spend the money –sorry jess ☺
We hung around the airport until 11pm, when we boarded. I sat behind a blind, deaf and dumb man – who had a real stubborn personality. He was led to his seat and the attendant said “sir, this is your seat.” But the man refused to sit down until he was certain. He produced a mini flashlight from his top pocket and shone it on the seat numbers, and ran his finger along the print, even though there was no Braille. He was also mumbling to himself, incomprehensively of course. The attendant started to get short with him, saying “sir we are due to take-off, please take your seat.” He hoisted his pack in the overhand luggage, nearly missing and coming down ontop of me. Then he grunted and snored the whole flight. At least someone could get to sleep – I had Li’l lewis with me, my tilly gift from Dandy: a plane pillow with green legs and flappy eyes. Ah red eye flights!! We arrived in Chicago at 4am, and wandered around for a little while. I noticed the difference in accents – the accents from the Film Chicago actually aren’t much different from the reality – to my annoyance.
Kitty had dinner (strange body clock), and we boarded our next flight for New York, arriving at 9:30am. I was so tired that I kept drifting off to sleep while walking to collect our luggage. We bought a metro ticket ($24 for all public transport for 7 days, which is the best deal ever!!) and found a bus that would take us to our hostel. It took us through Harlem – and I now know why everyone says to stay away from it – its filled with black guys hanging around, and a lot of the shops are boarded up. We went past Columbia university, and turned onto Broadway Avenue. We found our hostel, HI New York, parallel to Broadway. It looks really funky in the foyer, with marilyn Monroe printed on the wall at reception, and cool seats etc…, but the hostel itself is extremely huge and unfriendly. No-one talks to each other, and the room has 12 beds – and there is no oxygen in there. There are only a few bathrooms, in the silliest of places. And the staff here are so horrible – when I checked in they talked to us like we were soldiers: “ID, membership card and payment please.”
We had to leave our luggage in the lockers before we could check in at 4pm, though, and we had some issues fitting my bag in. I met an Australian from the Gold Coast – I noticed the annoying twangy accent straight away. We then took a walk to central park, to plan our itinerary and have a sleep. There is so much to do and so little time!!!
We then did some grocery shopping in a Mexican grocery store, where we stood our like sore thumbs. The cashier looked at us like we were aliens and shouldn’t have been there. It was really cheap though – two days of food for $5!!
After we checked in, we put our bags in the rooms and headed out for some downtown exploring. We rode the subway down toward the world trade centre. Its still a mess there, and they have put up a memorial of course, but they are building a huge sky scraper called the “freedom tower.” It perplexes me why they should build another building in the same spot – why not put a park or something, which would be less of a terrorist target.
A lot of the surrounding buildings still show the damage – with the ceilings having large cracks and a few holes and wires hanging down. We took a walk along the shoreline, where they filmed the last scene of MIB, where he sits on the bench looking out at the city skyline. We watched the trapeze swingers, and kept walking and I got my first glimpse of the statue of liberty. Sunset over the sky line was amazing. We found our way back and went to bed. Considering I only got about 4 hours sleep the last night of camp, I had been awake for 52 hours!!!! Argh I was almost hallucinating!!
New York has this energy: the people are so diverse, the neighbourhoods each have their own oddities, such a culture, and so many interesting people. You never know what to expect. Like tonight, when we were in the tiny hostel kitchen making our instant noodles, this Indian lady came up to next to me waiting for the microwave. Out of the blue she asked me where I was from, and I in turn asked her where she was from. She dove into this life story of how she has lived in manhattan for 15 years.
“I want to return to Switzerland… But I am waiting to be married to my… I was about to say Hollandish…dutch boyfriend,” she said in an airy indian accent, her voice wavering up and down as she tilted her head back and forth.
“Ever since I lost my friends, and they lost their friends, in September 11, I have been trying to rebuild my life. But its hard keeping a job and somewhere to live, because New York is all about the money. They don’t care for the people, they are all just Shmuks. “I have a good friend, Charlotte, who owns a hotel, and she is financing my stay here. I have been here for a year now, and I am just waiting for my boyfriend to come so I can get away from this miserable place. I have become friends with a man in security, who barely gets three hours of sleep a night, and works like a dog here. Ever since they changed management…”
She looked down at her instant rice, and frowned, because the hostel didn’t have the means to provide cutlery.
“That is why I want to return to Switzerland – to work in the Dutch Bank. Apparently I just do not make the cut for Wall Street anymore, but I am too qualified for anything else, which is why I have become a pastor.”
She waited for a reaction from me. I wanted to get away from her, because this conversation was getting more uncomfortable and weird by the second; but at the same time I felt drawn to what she was saying.
“I have chosen a path where I can heal the homeless, the homosexuals, the bisexuals… I have found my calling. I cannot work for other people any more, which is why I started my own business. My manager is Jesus Christ and I will only serve Him.” I forced back a horrified smile.
“The other day I felt the Holy spirit upon me. God is healing these people through me, and its just such an awesome, mind-blowing experience.”
At this point Kitty, Me and the indian woman were joined by an old woman, who entered saying “May I sit with you, such a happy bunch,” as she gingerly placed her instant pasta on the table.
The indian woman continued her conversation: “But that is the way of the world, money makes the world go round, and things are going from bad to worse. But what goes around comes around. Humans were created in the image of God, and we are doing our best to destroy ourselves.” The old lady chipped in: “that’s what I have always thought – humans are the virus, and once the virus is eliminated, the world will become a better place.” She paused, and with a sudden change of tone, exclaimed: “oh my what a pleasant topic of conversation. I was obviously being ironic with my first comment!”
Kitty was giving me the can-we-go-now look, and so we tried to worm our way out of conversation. “I am going to use the internet now, do you know if there is wifi here?” I should have known better: I opened up a new topic about money and the thieving management who ask $6/hour or $10/day wifi.”
So I tried again, asking the old lady what brought her here. She has been travelling ever since she retired, visiting Canada, and before that staying in Ecuador for 5 months. After America, she plans to go to New Zealand, then Australia, she told me.
The indian lady piped in “I once heard the most beautiful CD from Australia – Hillsong; have you heard of them?” The old lady then said matter-of-factly: “I don’t believe in god, or Jesus or miracles, I don’t believe in any of that bullshit.”
I got up and said “I need a shower. Nice meeting you two.” I couldn’t believe the hypocrisy of the conversation – the fact that she was complaining about money and management and corporations, and here she was unknowingly endorsing one of the biggest corporations that exploits religion itself!!!
__
On the Wednesday I was still really tired, but we had to make the most of being here!! We took a bus down broadway (the upper side – not that interesting), to Columbus Circle, where we started our walk around central park. Kitty told me that her friend visited the park and got lost, not emerging until 12 hours later!! I can see why. We were walking across Sheep Meadow and saw a Madonna look alike walking a dog and wearing expensive clothes. We rode on a 98 year old famous carousel, then continued looking around. We went down Literary avenue, to the famous fountain with the angels, by the lake with the rowboats. Then we went across the famous bow bridge, and saw the Dakota building where John Lennon lived. We were going to see a free Shakespeare Play at the delacorte theatre, but the line was over a kilometre long, I couldn’t believe it!!! We walked across the great lawn, the one in all the movies of course, and then headed to the Metropolitan museum of art. OH my god, I couldn’t believe how many famous works were there!!
This will make the art students jealous – I’ve seen:
Warhol, Braque, Matisse, Picasso, degas, chegall, cezanne, dali, over a hundred Rembrandt, titan, raphael, the famous ‘thinker’ statue, Renoir, monet, delacroix, willem de kooning, Jackson Pollock, van gogh, and the water lilies and iruses.
Hmmm, a man just sat by me and placed a paper towel on the seat, the table where his food was etc…
It tipped down coming out of the museum. We finally got back to the hostel, after going past a black gang at the basketball court, which was kind of scary – again we stuck out like a sore thumb.
On Thursday, we didn’t stop walking for 9 hours. We caught a subway to Central park to see John Lennons’ memorial, then caught another subway down to Times Square. And it hit us. Midtown NY – broadway avenue, with the neon signs and electronic billboards running down the sides of buildings, lines of yellow taxis, people honking their horns, broadway shows advertised everywhere, surges of people, yellow traffic lights, the whole excitement of it just blows you away. We did some souvenir shopping (I love NY shirts everywhere). We continued walking around, and found the famous Chrysler Building, visited the central railway station, the Rockefeller centre (NBC studios where they film friends, seinfeld, fear factor, the biggest loser etc…) Then we made our way over to the UN complex, and saw an amazing photo voice exhibition, with pictures of developing nations and the infiltration of the western world. It was scary seeing the photos of Vietnam – but I think it will be an eye-opening experience to say the least. We then walked to the Museum of Modern Art, and OH MY GOD!!!! Everywhwere I looked I found famous works:
Salvador Dali: the persistence of memory!!!
Van Gogh: Starry Night,
Mattise: dancer
Andy Warhol: marilyn, campbells soup cans
A whole gallery of Picasso including Les Demoiselles D’Avignon
A whole gallery of Pollock!!
Marcel Duchamp: bottle rack, Fountain (the urinal), LHOOQ, and the dadaist bicycle wheel on the stool. I was COMPLETELY blown away!!
It took us four subways to get back – we got a bit lost. My feet have never hurt this much in my life – sightseeing is hard work man!!!!
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