Random Photos of New York City

Okay, here come the New York pictures!!! Whoo hooo! (I know ... FINALLY!)

Anyway, as I mentioned wayyyy back in my post from New York City, here is the bit about "Budget Hotel or Shithole -- you decide!"

Picture 1. The ENTIRE hotel room .... AFTER they had cleaned it (they checked us in and gave us the key and we wandered up to the 8th floor only to find the bed unmade, wet towels piled on the floor and empty water bottles scattered about. (apparently that's what you get if you arrive before actual check-in time -- only they didn't tell us that the room may not actually be ready and just gave us the key. We just thought we had walked into someone else's room ("Communication" CAN be a good thing, Mr Front Desk Guy. Just sayin')).

Please note the lovely 2 inch by 2 inch television set. With no remote (hello? 21st century??). The tv channels consisted of 3 channels of snow plus HBO. No remote and yet HBO. Strange to anyone else?

Picture 2: The bathroom.

And when I use the term "bathroom", that's using both "bath" and "room" very loosely. Because as you can see, a triangle of a shower (ie no bath), a toilet, a sink and room to squeeze between the three. Almost.

One of my favorite quotes on the trip was from Buck when he first looked into this hotel's bathroom. It was, are ya ready for this?... "crap, I should have brought my flip-flops". Which really sums up the feel of this bathroom perfectly!

Now, now, I've stayed in small hotel rooms before ... especially in Europe. But this place just wasn't clean (Buck was brave enough to open dresser drawers and found things you're just not supposed to find in hotel rooms). Nor were the rooms maintained well (hello? A bathroom door that CLOSED would be a nice thing. Just sayin'.). And isn't it fairly common that you have daily maid service?? It is, right?! Ya know, because fresh towels can be a good thing. Especially when the four you are given to deal with FOR YOUR ENTIRE THREE DAY STAY look like this:

You're noting the big hole I'm guessing? What you can't tell from that picture is that they are so thin as to be almost see-through. Which turned out to be a good thing because that meant they dried quickly. And what with us only having the four for 3 days ... well, thick, plush luxurious towels just wouldn't have done, now would they?!

Sigh.

So what say you? Budget hotel ... or?

But the good news was ... the hotel was only 1/2 block from here:

Time Square! What a place! I found it to be highly entertaining. AND ... they had THIS ... my new favorite store!!!

And do you remember way back when I said that I picked up lingo from places I travel and that I picked up the F word in New York City? Look.

See? I wasn't making it up. It's even prevalent on the souvenirs there!

While on the topic of souvenirs .... a couple of other items I found amusing:

This first t-shirt is obviously alluding to Starbucks. Which is EVERYWHERE there! I. kid. you. not!! Just ask Buck. Cuz you remember how I annoyed him with the "Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament" repeatedly while in London? Yeah, well that was NOTHING compared to my "Look, a Starbucks" every 10 feet while in Manhattan. I mean, the first few times amused him ... but after like the 200th time .... not so much! Go figure!!! (*evil grin*)

And this t-shirt needs no explanation from me and can be found at the CNN Store (yep, we did the Inside CNN Tour ... how geeky am I?? :))....

Why yes, folks ... wood IS good.

Speaking of Geeky things .... I, of course, insisted on visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Which is my NEW favorite museum (why yes, even surpassing The Louvre and The Orsay Museum). This place is FANTABULOUS! Well laid out, gorgeous architectural elements and tons and tons and tons of great art! Bring bread crumbs ... it's gigantor!

Here's a picture taken on the Met's rooftop garden cafe area. This piece is Splotch #15 by artist Sol Lewitt who is exhibiting there through the end of October.

And last but not least on The Geek Tour 2005 ...a visit to U.S.S Intrepid.

We found that they had a Concorde airplane on display there as well. Which we went into. I was excited. Cuz ya know, THE CONCORDE. Right? Richie-rich. Never been on.

Except ... look. Tiny. And not luxurious. Granted, it has leather seats ... but other than that it looks like the coach section on your everyday commercial aircraft. I couldn't have been more surprised.

However, HERE is something which does meet my "richie-rich" expectations. Found this at FAO Schwartz. $50,000 for a TOY car for a 6 year old! WTF?!! If any of my readers can afford $50K toys ... I am available to be adopted. Just so as ya know.

Check this out. A number of parking lots in the city stacked the cars like this:

Isn't that bizarre? Great idea to conserve space but good luck getting your car out in a hurry.

Found this sculpture in Battery Park. I affectionately refer to it as "The Boob Sculpture".

And while on the topic of body parts, found this at a local NYC drugstore. The product name is just wrong, people. W-R-O-N-G!

New York is a great town! I mean, just look at these classics:

(Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center, Central Park)

But for the Love of Beauty, what is UP with all the freakin' trash???

There were piles and piles of it EVERYWHERE. WHY?! Other big cities don't have that problem. And yet, NYC, in front of all the buildings .. piles of stinky trash ... why?

But on a better note, NY has The Pickles (not that I'm a pickle eater ... but I still found it entertaining). Served on the table like most restaurants serve a basket of bread. But this restaurant (I think it was The Celebrity Deli) served a bowl of pickles and a bowl of coleslaw. Which led me to wonder, most peeps probably only eat one or two of the pickles at most, whatcha all do with the remaining ones in the bowl when the customers leave? Do you throw them out ... or do you re-serve them to the next peeps? Cuz honestly, not real keen on either option. One is wasteful - the other is just plain icky. Though if I had to choose ... I'd lean toward the "wasteful". Just my two cents!

Remember when I mentioned on my London Post how Buck and I managed to just stumble across cool things on this trip? Well here are a few of those "things" we found in NY:

First off, Katz's Deli. Home of THE famous scene in the movie "When Harry Met Sally".

See? They even have the table that was used in the movie noted in the restaurant.

And my super dorky moment ... I took a look at this part of the wall of celebrity photos and thought "gee, this one celebrity seems pretty popular. Look at all these folks that wanted to take a picture with him". Uhhh yeah. That ONE guy would be the restaurant guy taking the pictures WITH the different celebrities. Sigh. Luckily the realization dawned on me before I opened my trap and completely embarrassed myself! :)

And then at another time, we're just wandering around EXHAUSTED and collapse onto the first bench we see in some quaint neighborhood. Look up to see this restaurant:

That's right. Serendipity from the movie, errr ... "Serendipity". With John Cusack! LoveLoveLOVE you, John Cusack!

So anyway, that was cool.

AND THEN ... but wait, there's MORE .... we're wandering around and stumble across a movie being made. "The Devil Wears Prada".

And we were allowed to stand directly across the street from the scene they were shooting. So we hung for a rehearsal and then stayed for the shot. And with my super-sneaky, lightening fast and quite professional (might I add) fancy-schmancy camera shooting, I was able to take both these pictures before the actress finished the take. (which turned out to be the One And Only Take, as luck (or bad luck) would have it!)

Uh, yeahhhh.

And last but certainly not least, my favorite photo taken while in New York City. On the Empire State Building's observation deck, I took this shot of Buck with the full moon peeking between his fingers. Pretty cool, eh?!