Penguins
on Buses »
Almost
Better Than Sex
By Sideshow
Rob - Senior Editor : Issue 6, Vol. II
 Something's waiting for you out there, go
and see it already.
If you do this already, well, go
read my
sports article (XFL) or something. But if you're sitting
there, staring at your monitor, eating handfuls of chips and
gulping down cans of sodas, which was usually the norm for me on
any day of the week, you might want to hear my story. For sixteen
years, seven months, and twenty-four days, I have resided in the
borough of Brooklyn, one of five that make up New York City,
arguably the greatest city in the world. And I've enjoyed it: I'm
an avid Mets fan and I go to lots of games, I go to school and
work in Manhattan, and I often travel through the city to play
pool, see a movie, go bowling, whatever.
I realized that
"whatever" part didn't really amount to much…
especially when I was put in charge of leading a tour bus
consisting of my girlfriend Christina and her brother Marc around
NYC for three days. Okay… maybe we could go play pool… or see
a movie… or go bowling… What? There's other stuff too? Oh.
Well, I did my homework and I scrounged up some tickets for the
Broadway show RENT and a few Mets tickets as well. Plus I readied
my notepad for things they wanted to see. "I dunno, it's up
to you."
Oh. Um, okay. I can do this…
After the hour plus trek from JFK
Airport to my house, we headed out to our first attraction, the
subway station! After a few days there (actually it was like ten
minutes until the train arrived, but it just seemed like a while
because the G sucks so much, but anyway…), we headed to one of
the oldest and best known landmarks of the city, Yankee Stadium.
My happy little tourists are fans of the twenty-six time champs,
so seemed like the place to start. A couple of pictures later, we
were in the Upper East Side, grabbing some food.
And we kept busy, hitting a pool
hall for about an hour. I let them win once too. Aww. Well, she is
my girlfriend after all… Anyway, we headed to FAO Schwarz, the
best known toy store in New York, and we played with all the
little fire trucks, big giant keyboard, and all the other little
dealies. By then, we were close enough to Times Square that we
could bypass public transportation for a while to walk. While
their necks craned upward, absorbing all the scenery, I stopped at
every block pointing out some nice stops: Rockefeller Center, the
Sony Wonders store, and at least five different churches, all of
which I misidentified as St. Patrick's Cathedral (we did
eventually find it). They snapped their cameras, and we went on
down 5th Avenue.
Because of my busy work schedule, I
never get to watch TRL on MTV. Well, this day I got to… in
person. Christina, Marc, and I allowed ourselves to be corralled
into a pen with all of the freaks obsessed with Carson Daly and
just your normal run-of-the-mill freak. After about a half hour of
screaming, waving our hands in the air, and (gasp!) seeing Carson
from the window, we ducked under the barricade and went on our
merry way.
New York City is called home by
several celebrities, and we got our chances to meet some. I got my
picture taken with Nicolas Cage, and Marc met governor George
Pataki and mayor Rudy Giuliani. Go meet them yourselves, they're
still there! Madame Toussaud's wax museum houses the most realistic
models of the most famous people in the world, from Mahatma Ghandi
to Whoopi Goldberg, Regis Philbin to Janis Joplin. I'm pretty sure
Al Gore was real though, I kept asking for his autograph, but he
just smiled at me. I guess he was busy or something…
Further proving my incompetence as
a tour guide, I got lost trying to lead the pack to Macy's. But I
did know where the Empire State Building was, so we rolled on
over. Just before entering, I gazed down the street at a big sign
reading "Macy's." Whoops. But the observation deck view
was enough to make us forget about that miscue. At that point, I
realized that I had never really done anything before in this
city. Wow! This was cool! We just gazed out on Manhattan's beauty
for the longest time… Sigh…
Wait. When does the show start
again?
Whoops. Although our feet had
fallen off from the ten miles we had already journeyed, we were
still able to crawl over to the West Side for 8:00. And it's a
good thing we did, the show was amazing, lots of singing, lots of
sexy ladies kissing (heyyy!), and an overall great time. After
walking through Times Square one last time to see the bright
lights illuminating the New York streets, we headed for the
subway.
And that was just the first
day
I know I've just used this to brag
about my great trip, but it actually has a little message tucked
away in there somewhere. I didn't even mention getting not one,
but two baseballs from the Mets game (two more than I had ever
gotten before), the amazing views from the World Trade Center, the
scenery and food, gotta love the food, of Chinatown, the United
Nations, Madison Square Garden, Manhattan Mall, Grand Central,
Central Park, et al. We even saw a non-wax celebrity, as Alicja
Calaway of Survivor 2 fame was being interviewed in Central Park!
There's a world out there, it's a
whole lot bigger than I thought. And I'm happy I got the
experience. It's worth the loss of dignity to become a tourist of
your town for a few days. So take a vacation day and go see the
world! It's free!
Well… except for the stuff you
have to pay for… um… I guess it's not free. But you know what?
It'll be worth it. Send me the pictures!
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