New York City Day 1: A Fondness for Rainstorms

August 9th, 2009 at 7:30pm was my departure time from Toronto to NYC a la Megabus. My chaffeur Pradip Sharma dropped me off at the Toronto terminal and I hopped on. The ride from Toronto to the border went smoothly, I was listening to my NYC playlist and contemplating my life. Megabus was a double decker coach comprised of two floors, satisfactory AC and a tiny ass washroom in the back. As soon as the bus entered the gardiner expressway and there was a spark of realization that I was finally going to the one place on Earth I wanted to go to more than heaven itself, I saw an LG billboard that quoted their infamous slogan, "Life's good." To this I leaned back and thought to myself, Damn right.

We reached the the buffalo border around three hours later and they asked me what my business was in the States and I told them to fuck off then they let me go...;)

Then I reached Syracuse and we stopped off at a terminal that hosted a Subway Restaurant and a Dunkin' Donuts. You know you're in America when everyone gets off the coach and lines up for Dunkin' Donuts. The server at Subway was very giddy black man who processed orders quickly, he reminded of Carlton Banks from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He was also singing to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cindy Lauper. Great guy, very strange though. Syracuse and Buffalo suffered severe thunderstorms. The entire bus ride to New York City presented a night sky used as a canvas by mother nature. Lightning crowded the rainy night and I sat back and enjoyed it while the other passengers slept. I arrived in NYC at 5:15am and the first iconic landmark that caught my eye in the still-dark sky was the Chrysler building, because of its characteristic architectural attributes. I got off at 7th and 28th street and just stood there for about half an hour, taking everything in.

They call it the city that never sleeps...that's because it doesn't. At 5:30 in the morning, the sky was dawning but there were still surprisingly a lot of people on the street with me.


I realized I had another hour and a half before my boys would show up in the city so I walked from 7th and 28th to Madison Square Garden, which was just around the corner. Amazing. Just like how I pictured it would be. Astonishingly large, too. Then I walked back to where the bus dropped me off and noticed the Empire State Building in the far back of my line of sight. It was only seven or so blocks away but I caught an exciting glimpse of its top half. Laying my eyes on it made me giddy. 7:00a.m. rolled around and another megabus pulled up around the corner. I waited for the passengers to evacuate and saw no sign of my peoples. So I sent a text to a couple of them asking where they were and didnt get an answer back for another hour. In that hour I went to the southern tip of Central Park (still carrying all my luggage because we couldn't check into the hostel until 3pm). At 9:30a.m. the boys finally arrive and I welcome them.

We walk around a bit to Madison Square Garden, we buy tees and souvenirs on fifth avenue, we see Madison Square Garden, Penn Station, NY Post Office before taking the train into Brooklyn to leave our luggage in the hostel. We get there at 11am, drop it off, then come back into Manhattan. We get off the L Train at Union Square and buy a couple of unique posters by some sidewalk artists, as well as some amazing murel duplications. This time we manage to reach the New York Public Library (where such movies as Ghostbusters and Day After Tomorrow were filmed), and we even walk into the reading room and take pictures, incredible place. Next we eat lunch at a pizzeria on Broadway somewhere, then visit the Flatiron Building. Then we went to another of NYC's most infamous attractions, Grand Central Station, and took half a hundred pictures there. Really a stunning piece of architecture, inside and out.

Then we went back to the hostel, showered, chilled with some of the other backpackers in the rec room, played the piano for them a bit, then checked my facebook. At 7:45p.m. we took off for Manhattan for the third time that day. Our final destination for the day was Times Square. Here were numerous corporations that lit-up central Manhattan with flashy ads and towering scrapers. Times Square is too much to take in at once. On the street within Times Square, we met NYPD officers who were friendly enough to allow us to take pictures with them, and pose like criminals being arrested. We also met Elmo live and got pics taken with him and Little Red Riding Hood. Moreso we got a group picture and had it superimposed onto a Time Magazine cover for ten bucks American. Then we ate dinner at TGI Fridays, an establishment with overpriced meals but good views of the Square.


Now I sit in my hostel, typing this blog, while Greg, George, and Farhan are lying in their bunks ready to catch Z's for an even bigger day tomorrow...