Pollywogs!

Alright, getting around to doing this took long enough!

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New York…I enjoyed New York much more than I ever thought I would.  The drive up sorta sucks, not much you can do about that, but we took the ferry at Port Imperial over into the city, which was very easy (except for finding the ferry, I guess New Jersey can’t afford to put a sign or two up…).  I wouldn’t get into New York City any other way.  The ferry was fast, easy, cheap, tons of parking, and then has free buses which run all over Manhattan.

Once in the city proper, we immediately walked to our hotel.  It is unmarked and blends in completely (and beautifully) with the neighborhood:

(All pictures are available here.)

The hotel itself (Chelsea Lodge) is very nice, a little small but it has a ton of personality and was very clean and comfortable.

Oh, and it is about $100 and in fucking Manhattan!!!  If you’d like something better than my short and obscenity laden comment, check out the reviews, the New York Times Guide nails it.  Sharing a bathroom (toilet) was not as bad as it sounds at all, as each floor has two and they are shared among perhaps five room.  The wifi wasn’t working, which was a bummer, but a local bar had free wifi (FUCK YOU STARBUCKS) so it wasn’t all bad…

Chelsea is so very nice, just south of Midtown and north of Greenwich Village.  I loved the shit out of the place, actually.  Shame the cheapest one bedroom apartment I could find with a quick search was half a million.  A nice studio apartment was running for like seven million, if I remember correctly.  The neighborhood was quiet, clean and yet still bustling.

After getting settled in, we decided to do something about not having a digital camera.  I looked through a booklet in the hotel room and found Adorama, which seemed like an excellent place to find a digital camera.  They had a very nice selection and a very helpful staff, but a fucking confusing system of tickets and stations and checkouts…ended up getting a Nikon Coolpix L18, which I like a bit.  It was cheap, and it seems a bit better (though a hair thicker) than our aging Sony DSC-T5.

On the way down to Adorama, we stopped by a nice little furniture store (West Elm) and windowshopped a bit.  Took in the sights.  It was all within three or four blocks from the hotel, which was very nice!

Back at the hotel, Surprised Kelley is surprised:

One of the first things I do with a new digital camera is try the macro mode, which I am reasonably impressed with.  It isn’t the 1.3″ the T5 is capable of, but not too shabby:

After trying out the new camera, we set out to explore the town a bit.  The first day in NYC was free for us, as the show wasn’t until the following night.  Well, there was a show that night, but I didn’t buy tickets for it.  Kelley wanted to see Times Square, so we walked up.  On the way we stopped at a bar for a beer or two:

With the crush of people (and lack of restaurant/bar space due to 22,000 damn Pearl Jam fans), we quickly beat a retreat back to the much more reasonable Chelsea neighborhood.   We did get a few pictures first, however:

You see all of those people? Now, picture that in every direction as far as the eye can see. It was like walking through a high school hallway for half an hour continuously. Got a little old pretty quick.

And how can you not take a picture of this, when you’re walking underneath?

We ate dinner at Chipotle Mexican Grill on the way back, as it was the first place that wasn’t insanely busy.  The food was actually quite excellent for being a fast food chain owned by McDonald’s.  We were recommended Chipotle’s by a guy we bumped into buying beer in Washington, D.C., and Kelley had marked it down for experimentation as well, and it did not disappoint.  They sold beer there too.   A little expensive, but I got used to Manhattan raping my wallet pretty quick.  Apparently brgr is very good too.

Also saw this on the way back, someone forgot to update their antivirus, wonder how much money was lost due to advertising downtime?  A guy next to me found it amusing enough to take a picture of as well…dorks, what can you do…

We got back to Chelsea around 9ish, and relaxed for a bit before turning in like old people around 10 or 11PM.

The next day will have to follow in yet another blog post, I gotta go do something productive!