Letters To Australia

Chris and I on my second last night in the Big Apple.

I would promise to post the final New York blog complete with the final New York pictures, but then I’d never actually do it. So I’m going to say don’t hold your breathe and maybe it will appear eventually.

Tomorrow Ace and I are setting off on a road trip that we plan to use as a trial for our camping trip. We need to be in Texas in a few days for a Rankin family get together, so we’re driving and camping at night.

The current plan is to come back in one day, but that’s like a twelve hour drive so my personal opinion is that that is a stupid plan.

We should return in about eight days. Give or take. The problem with not really having much of a plan is that you can’t explain your plans to people.

Whoooo road trip.

We’re getting off I35 in Texas to go to Ikea, too. Dream big!

Another photo post. I like them better.

I can’t believe how well my camera batteries are holding up.

Yesterday I got up, had no plan, ended up heading to central park.

It was pretty, but not terribly exciting

I was bored, which made me feel ungrateful but you can’t argue with the facts (the facts being I was bored, not ungrateful), and then it started raining so I figured, why not go to the met?

But here’s the thing: New Yorkers are fucking assholes who lie about everything.

Actually that’s a lie, New Yorkers in general are nice and not nearly as hostile as the world believes, but they do have the tendency to lie to tourists. For no particular reason.

It’s like how people in Quebec pretend they don’t speak english, only they do it to preserve their culture. New Yorkers are just assholes.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been flat out lied to when asking directions. The mind boggles.

So what ended up happening was I got lost, rained on and ANGRY. The more lost and the more wet I got, the more angry I became. And everytime somebody lied to me (and I KNOW they were lying because a) I checked it on a map somewhere and b) eventually someone was like ‘The Met?! The Met is nowhere near here!’) my mood fell further until I was standing in a subway station dripping dirty rainwater and it was all I could to not to attack the train map with my teeth and fingernails.

So then it occured to me that I was being so ridiculous and irrational because I’d forgotten to eat all day and was running on the very end of a rather small bowl of muesli and soy milk, and I headed to Chinatown.

There I bought a three dollar umbrella (now deceased) and stumbled upon The House of Vegetarian, which I’d been meaning to go to.

The above is a picture of the BEST vegetarian spring rolls EVER and turnip cakes. No kidding. My asshole guidebook AND Ace told me to try turnip cakes, so I did, and I regretted it. It’s not that they tasted particularly bad, but they didn’t taste particularly good and the texture of the inside was gooey and incredibly hard to stomach. Like eating boiled eyeballs.

I also ordered Beef Fun Luck something something with black bean sauce (fake beef, obviously), and even though it DID NOT have a chili next to it on the menu I still asked the waitress who assured me ‘No, no, not hot, no spicy, you want?’

It had fucking chili flakes in it.

I still tipped because waitresses make fuck all here, but I didn’t tip much. Take THAT.

Then I went back to the hostel, which I plan to post pictures of soon because it’s so cute, and found Chris. I suggested we go in search of a fancy chocolate store I found online and he agreed wholeheartedly – as long as I first allowed him time to finish his cranberry juice and vodka – and we set out for midtown.

FAIL.

We found no chocolate and the moma bookshop was closed, but we did find a NYC brand condom on the ground, which was run over by a rollerblader before C man picked it up. Strange boy.

So that blew, and we ended up in a subway station arguing about mac and cheese for ten minutes before we finally decided to hop on a train, with no idea where it was going, and get off at a random stop.

It just so happened that Times Square was our random stop.

Let’s just get this out of the way right now: my NYC photos are not going to win any art awards, and when you’re walking around times square in the middle of the night laughing so hard you can’t breathe, getting them in focus seems unimportant. They’re kind of embarassingly bad, like I can’t even work my own camera, but just deal.

Bubba Gump

I liked this billboard.

In the centre of the square they had an ad running (on a tv screen, not a billboard) and it was different things getting pierced, like an eyebrow and a nose and even a nipple. It was so bizarre.

We were looking for a bathroom and we stumbled into the m&ms store, which actually exists and is the stupidest store ever invented (‘What I want, is a jacket, right? and I want it to be made of dead cow, ok, and I want it to have blue m&ms embroidered on it, do you have one? You do? Fabulous. I will pay you one hundred and seventy dollars for it.’).

Only Chris doesn’t seem to know his own gender. Without even paying attention he walked right into the women’s bathroom and was halfway through getting his junk out before I grabbed him and hauled him out. We were laughing so hard we could hardly stand and I think security was getting ready to throw us out.

Then we went to Duane Reade, which is about the most exciting pharmacy ever. It’s not even, but the sign would fool you. And that’s not even because it’s in Times Square, they are all like that and they are EVERYWHERE. Manhattan has as many DRs as it does rats.

C man got a very nice hat and a magazine. He didn’t actually buy the hat, against my advice. I think purple is a very fetching colour on him.

We went to Olive Garden in the square (groan, I know, but we went there for the irony, not for the food) and our waiter introduced himself as Ryan. So we called him Ryan. He was very effeminate and very nice, though I don’t know if the nice was his job or him.

We told him we were newlyweds, who’d just married in Vegas and come here for the honeymoon (as an interesting side note, Lindsey got a job as a knife salesman (!!!), and when I told her about our marital bliss she said she’d hunt him down. Say it with me, ‘Awwww…’) and proceeded to fuck with him. Chris spent the meal hitting on Ryan, while I vied desperately to get his attention back on me – mostly by saying ‘hon’ and asking moron questions a lot – and every time he came near I’d ask him about cheesecake while C man said snarky things about how I ‘didn’t need it.’

Ryan, smelling a tip, assured me that I was the very essence of svelte and I said some passive agressive things to him about Chris’s gap teeth.

We are so funny.

Chris left him a note about getting drinks later, and left his maybe-in-the-closet friend Lorenzo’s number.

Genius.

Then we went oustide and found some old asian guy drawing portaits for five dollars, so we told him we wanted ridiculous cartoons that were really offensive and he nodded and smiled and said yes a lot.

Turns out he no speak english.

What we got were realistic drawings of our heads on tiny tiny bodies. My tiny tiny body was in a ball gown with a huge ass, which I was pointing suggestively at C man. Chris’s body was in a tux offering me a rose and a bag full of money.

So already I was annoyed and offended and ready to not pay the guy at all for being as asshole and sexist and just generally incompetent (you don’t agree to things in languages you don’t speak!), and then he said ‘No, for two is ten dollar.’

No it’s fucking not. Where is the part on the sign that says ‘$5!’ that tells us about this catch?

But Chris just gave it to him. It was like when Clay payed three dollars for a glass of milk. What the hell is wrong with people?

Then I took some pictures of steaming manholes, but since this is the best I could manage you can probably understand how badly I failed.

Then some New Yorkers lied to us about directions and we ended up walking past the Chrysler Building or whatever this is.

Then back to the hostel for sleepytime.

Today I went to Chinatown to buy about three billion hats (I bought one, but it’s the second one and it’s weird because I never buy or wear hats) and a shoulder bag so that I don’t look like a tourist EVERYWHERE I go.

I don’t know what that guy is so mad about. Maybe he’s a crazy.

After Chinatown I headed to Midtown to go to the Museum of Modern Art. On the way I saw some lezzies on an ad, I photographed them.

They had some artz there,

One installation was a room with lights, this is my sillhouette.

This was just a plaque on a wall, with no explanation that I could see. I liked it.

I liked Starry Night a lot, but as soon as I got to it the museum closed and I got kicked out. Losers.

As a final act of defiance I stopped to take a picture of the New York canopy.

When I came out the building was surrounded with black SUVs and these guys were standing holding fucking guns every few metres.

They were scary as fuck, but I NEEDED a picture because that’s so bizarre. I asked the guy first and he said I could take one from a distance, so I did. Then some woman walked up and said ‘Is there someone famous here?’ and G.I Joe said ‘No.’ and stopped looking at her.

At the subway station this guy was playing this thing, so I gave him some money and took this amazingly in-focus picture of him, before bolting for the train and nearly getting smooshed in the closing doors.

At the next stop I got out and found a street vendor because I was fungry. Turns out the only non-meat thing he sold was a knish. What’s a knish, you ask? That’s what I asked too, but it turns out he doesn’t speak much english.

As far as I can tell it’s like a potato bread thing that you put mustard on. It didn’t taste very good and it made me really sick. I give it zero stars.

Tomorrow Nat and I are FINALLY going to Coney Island (I’m falling over myself to ride the rollercoaster) and if i got to bed right now I might make it up in time to go to the Met before that.

Tomorrow is my last day in the city (only tourists say ‘New York’), on wednesday I’m getting up and going to the airport to catch a plane to Kansas City.

The Current plan is to spend three nights there with Lindsey, but who the hell knows. Aparently everyone in Liberty thinks we’re going to hell so perhaps I’ll get chased out with torches and pitchforks.

…

I wrote that and almost deleted it because it’s kind of insensitive, but you know what, so is homophobia. Homophobia in the midwest tends to be about as sensitive as a brick to the face, so I’ll leave it.

Well, dear readers, this hostel has only one computer and people keep walking past wanting to use it. So my time is short.

In light of the above facts, an in depth report of my time in the Big Apple will have to wait until I’m in a smaller apple, like Kansas City or Kirksville or La Plata.

(What do apples have to do with anything?)

Tonights entry will be a photo entry. I think they’re the most interesting anyway.

In a vague sort of order:

In my infinite wisdom stupidity I took a train to New York. Here I am being very unimpressed with myself.

Rolling into Chicago

A six hour stopover in the big C, during which I failed to find anything to do and and got more than a few very gruff ‘idonthaveanything’s from the fuckers I tried to ask for directions. Do I LOOK homeless? I was dressed in clothes from fucking Old Navy or something.

Good food in Chicago though. And some excellent buskers, one of which was drumming and singing ‘Hey GI-IRL! hey GI-IRL!’ at me as I passed. I gave him money for having talent.

Back on the train, even less impressed.

Upstate New York is beautiful, but goes for a very long time.

Also I happened to book a ticket on the Hell Train which stopped for Every Fucking Thing.

The castles (castles?!) made up for it a little though.

Hours late, and in the dead of night, we finally rolled into New York City. As we got closer to Penn Station I got more and more scared. The thought of having to learn to use the subway AND navigate a sketchy part of Brooklyn by myself IN the dark WHILE wearing a giant backpack that as good as flashed a neon sign saying ‘Rob me, I’m a tourist AND I can’t run away’ frightened me just a little.

It didn’t help that somebody hid the hostel, but I got here eventually.

[The first day in New York I went to Hoboken, NJ, to get a milkshake and some cheese, then got harrassed by a dirty old man who thought I had 'some nice ass tits' and felt compelled to let me know (he was lucky not to get punch in the throat), and ended the day with awful, overpriced pizza. Yesterday I attempted to go to both Chinatown and the Museum of Modern Art with Nat from Sydney, but the rain and the crowds foiled us, and we ended up going to see the second Narnia in times square just because it was warm and dry.

I have no pictures from those two days, so we'll pretend they never happened.]

Today I ate lunch at Vegetarian Dim Sum in Chinatown, and that ^ is fake BBQ Pork. Made of tempeh I think. Holy shit it was so good.

That is Pell street in Chinatown, I don’t know why I didn’t take photos of Canal street, but I’ll do that tomorrow.

This is Chris. He’s a photographer from Detroit who drinks a lot and does magic tricks.

He loves me

This is Tara. She’s from St Louis and has a phone that makes coffee and designs rocket ships. Also it plays music and flashes often for no apparent reason.

In Chinatown I bought Kensleigh a present. You can get fucking anything in Chinatown.

I liked this bakery

‘Can has Cheezburger?’

I was cultured and had mock roast pork, but Tara and the C man had McDonalds. I don’t really understand why you would eat McDonalds in the middle of Chinatown, it seems like a strange idea.

On a veguely related topic, I lost my labret stud and then my wallet, in which I kept my lip ring, got stolen, so I went for a few days with nothing through my lip. Today I finally found a stud and had to basically re-pierce it. Holy cow… PAIN.

This is the view from the train on Brooklyn Bridge. I’m sure Chris got some better photos than I did, but the view wasn’t that exciting.

We went shopping in Williamsburg with the hipsters but everything was so expensive and painfully hip that I didn’t buy anything.

Some graffiti I liked in Williamsburg

Chris trying to work out the subway map to get up to downtown Brooklyn. It got very dark and we got very lost. Good times all round.

Tomorrow I think I might finally (finally) get to Coney Island and ride a fucking rollercoaster.

Also maybe seventh street and the MET, and if I’m really ambitious I might even make it back to to Chinatown to buy another hat.

Time for sleepz.

Tomorrow at ten am I’m leaving for the big smoke, so I’ll be radio silent for two days.

Oh train ticket, why did I think you were a good idea?

What should I do in New York?

So tomorrow, at 9:57 am, I’m boarding a train that will take me through Chicago and then east across the country to New York City. Holy crap I’m excited.

The train trip takes two days and I’m beginning to wonder why I thought it was such a hot idea in the first place – but it’s booked now and I’m actually kind of excited. Flying gives you no sense of distance and makes travel seems less impressive.

Plus this way I get to spend a few hours in Chicago. The windy city.

I’m staying at a hostel in Brooklyn (which should be a lot of fun) and I’m not entirely sure of the internet situation there so my reports may be unreliable in terms of when they appear. But NYC has to have like, at least one internet cafe, right?

It’s stressful though, preparing for a week in a city as big and as foreign as New York. I’ve also been a little… distracted recently, so even though I’ve booked tickets and packing is fine etc, I don’t feel mentally ready. Like I’ve been so preoccupied that the situation hasn’t really sunk in yet – I’m going to New York!

Holy shit.

Almost as exciting are the things I’m doing after New York.

Thankfully I had the good sense not to decide training it back from NY was any sort of good idea, so I’m flying into Kansas city, which just happens to be where my distraction Lindsey lives.

I’m planning on spending a few days there, where exactly I’m not sure but something will eventuate I guess, and then begins the fabled camping trip.

I bet that none of y’all nobody ever believed would happen, because we talked so big about it but kept putting it off. But here it comes.

Seriously, I even bought a roll mat yesterday so you know I’m serious.

The camping trip, unlike tomorrow’s trip, has had ample time to sink in, so I’m sufficiently excited and, as such, will probably blog just a little too often for anybody to care.

The limited wireless access in campgrounds will probably be a godsend for people who would like to read my blog – but only if it’s not too much effort – by acting as a buffer for my rambling nonsense.

I promise lots of pictures though.

when spring began the lady beetles peppered our house. this one is hanging from the pull chain for the light in the computer room. she stayed for two days.

merrit and i on a swing at the park by the lake, before the tree incident

joslyn walking juno, who ended the day with more than a few tics

the tree incident.

tasty?

he bit chunks off.

batdog!

lindsey and i

failing to take

decent photos

early in the morning