So I went on a spur-of-the-moment weekend trip to NYC...
Originally wrote this out at Jes' place, but I'm gonna add in teh peekturs and shizniks at home. THAT WAS MONDO IMPORTANT INFO. Actually it isn't, but I felt like typing it out anyway, harhar. I'm home and in one piece (or else I wouldn't be typing this, now would I?) and I wish I didn't have to come home. NYC YOU CAN ADOPT ME ANYTIME. SYRACUSE AS WELL! The little thumbnails don't have a border, for some reason, but you can click them to get a bigger picture.

The New York trip went rather well. Left my place and got a ride with Jes to her aunt and uncle's place where we hung around for an hour or so waiting for Jes' uncle to come by with the bus. After getting everything sorted out and on the bus, Jes and I stuck these cute sticky glow-in-the-dark halloween themed window decals on the inside of each of the bus windows. Hahaha, we couldn't keep our balance, either, and were stumbling around like drunks. It was hilarious. After that we made the first pick up at Zellers on Mohawk Rd. E, then proceeded towards Centennial Parkway where the rest of the passengers awaited at the Burger King there.

The entire drive to the border I was nervous as hell. Nervous that Customs would refuse me like before, nervous about leaving the country, nervous about being nervous and nervous about being nervous about having a panic attack, harhar. I did good though. Got through customs with no trouble at all, made almost all of the way to NYC without getting a panic attack, until we were on the outskirts of New Jersey. Motion sickness decided to set in, and that triggered a mild attack but Jes stayed awake with me (I kinda sorta woke her up xD) and pretty soon we were going through the Lincoln Tunnel and leaving New Jersey to enter New York City. At first I couldn't believe I had actually made it there. That I was actually THERE there. It was like.. surreal. I kept expecting to wake up disappointed from the best dream ever. As we went through the industrial part of the city and then towards the WTC station (no pictures, long story, don't want to get back into it) I stared to feel like Johnny Cade from The Outsiders: “That time when we were in Windrixville was the only time I've ever been away from my neighborhood.”. The whole time I was in New York, I kept thinking of how I've always wanted to just get OUT of Ontario. Sure, I've left my city to go to other cities around it, but nothing more than two hours away (unless that Windsor bit counts...) and for the sake of my sanity, I had to get out, even if just for a day. As we continued along down Broadway and towards the core of downtown Manhattan, the excitement changed into something totally different. In a weird way, New York was starting to feel homely and that was kinda weird, considering I had only been in the city for about twenty minutes by that time.

After everyone was dropped off in front of our rendevouz spot for later on (St. Patrick's Cathedral) we all split and despite the pouring rain, I was totally fucken stoked, man. Jes and I decided to hit up the NBC Studio first. We wandered the entire building then headed downstairs to Starbucks for coffee. Or, in her case some green tea smoothie thing with whipped cream on top. It was rather... green. Like Lorne. Anyway... after abit of an argument (hahaha, it's so lame now but whatever xD) we figured out what we wanted to do and when and that was when I found (on the ickle map we got) none other than Strawberry Fields! (If you don't know what that is, I suggest you take a look here before reading on xD) I insisted we go there, and since it was closest to Rockafeller, we went there first. Trekking through the mud wasn't that fun, but whatever. It took us awhile to follow the map and finally we just followed Sheep Meadow and asked four people until one guy was nice enough to lead us to it's entrance. Jes took a picture of me standing by the plaque, then another of me kneeling in the middle of the mosaic. I snapped off a ton of pictures of both the plaque and the black-and-white mosaic.

After Strawberry Fields we headed down towards Times Square—EIGHTEEN BLOCKS AWAY. I love walking, but my fucken hell man, it was killing my legs something fierce. I do believe we stopped at the NBC Studios again for something else to drink or something, but I don't really remember (this is why I wanted to blog on the bus but the lights were out and I figured someone would bitch if I turned on the itty overhead above my seat). At some point we ended up at Times Square. What a change from the rest of Manhattan! Jes said it best though: “You like, attempt to walk around that place and it's like you're having sex with everyone who tries to walk by you.”. It's true, too. So many fucken people man. Insane. I got a ton of pictures here though the only businesses we actually went into were the ESPN place (so I could use their porcelain god), the Disney Store and the four-storey Toy's R Us. Got some pictures of the Disney store, this dude who was AWESOME at DDR (Supernova, was it?), the Hard Rock Cafe, the Virgin Megastore as well as some other random buildings and such. Afterwards, we went and hunted down the second reason I wanted to go to New York: The CBS Store. I was in heaven! All the CSI merch, man. Totally ignoring CS NY, I poked through the Vegas and Miami shirts until I finally settled on a CSI Vegas one =D It's teense too big, but it's the smallest size they had. Besides, I wanted it damnit! We went to a couple touristy shops where I got something for my mom (cutest stuffy evaar) then Jes got this cute keychain she totally fell in love with. Haha.. they had this penny up front, in a little container thing and it was called the Bush Penny: Keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller.... The thing had the circumference of a no.2 pencil eraser head! Amusing, to say the least. We did spend a couple hours inside of the NBC Studios Starbucks after that. I had taken my anxiety med when we left Toys R Us (or before? hohshit i forget -_-) because all the people were making me feel like my environment was out-of-control. That was when Jes and I decided lunch was in store and had some Subway. It was amusing when Jes ordered lunch, as they call swiss cheese 'American cheese' xD It's like when I went to Buffalo after 9/11: the fries at McRaunchys were called 'Freedom fries'. I refused to call them that which pissed off the person at the cash. Ahh fond memories from 5+ years ago, lol.

After that (and my two hour nap in Starbucks xD) we walked around the rest of the day, snapping pictures here and there, visiting a couple more stores and such. That's when I stumbled upon Trump Tower. It's the most tackiest building I've ever seen. Inside at least. It's all gold and red and mirrored and really fuggen ugly. No offence ;p Was amusing to be in, nonetheless. Wow, this entry is long as fuck and I'm not even finished! xD I'll just summarize what else we did to conserve space and all that, lol. I began taking more pictures of the architecture, as well as some signs and stuff I thought would make good stock photos/textures for later on. Also took photos of some places I'm going to be using in my NaNoWriMo, including a spot that gave me an awesome idea for a crime/crime scene. Thank you, NY, catering to my NaNo needs ;p Nearing the end of the evening I was more than exhausted and huddled against the side of St. Patrick's Cathedral to keep the damn cold as fuck wind away. I also kinda sorta napped, hahahaha. A cop stopped in front of me and asked if I was okay. Was pretty amusing. Then our bus came and of course, I didn't sleep a fuggen wink the entire time. Damn caffiene, man. It's the devil. All in all, the trip was terrif and I wouldn't trade that day for anything. Thanks again, regen for being fucking amazing. I plan to go again next year, and a couple more times after that, though most likely on my own =)

Since there are about 240+ photos, you can either choose to view them all, or check them out by click one of the tags below (**NOTE, some of my best photos are under architecture. I put more effort into those than the ones of the tourist stops):

• architecture
• amazing DDR dude at toy's r us
• hard rock cafe
• strawberry fields
• ladder 54 memorial
• lincoln tunnel
• jes and i
• miscellanious (signs, buildings, etc)
• nbc studios
• radio city
• rockefeller center
• st patrick's cathedral
• time square
• trump tower