It's just a little crush

Wow.  What a trip.

I'm sitting in the airport, waiting to board my plane back to LAX.  For the record, JFK is wayyyyyyy nicer than LAX.  JFK feels more like a European airport, and LAX feels like a third world country in comparison.  When flying out of the LA area, I greatly prefer Bob Hope Airport (BUR), but direct flights to New York are rather hard to find for a reasonable fare.  But enough about my travel preferences...  If I went into detail about everything that happened this week this would be a huge post, so I'll just list off some of the most interesting moments, things I learned, and a few photos as well.

First of all - my flight to NYC was going well and I was napping like a champ when the captain came on and said, "Well folks, as those of you who are in the coach cabin know by now, we have a passenger disrupting the flight.  We will be diverting to Kansas City so that we can remove this passenger, and then we will continue on to JFK."  Yup, I was on that flight.  I happened to be sitting in the bulkhead on the opposite side of the plane, so I was as far as could be from the lady and her atrocious singing and I'll be damned, I didn't get to experience her craziness until she walked by in cuffs surrounded by MCI airport police.  But I do remember seeing her in the airport as we were waiting to board in LA and got a weird vibe from here and thought to myself, "Um, that lady is weird."  My gut instinct was right, apparently.

New Yorkers are WAY more friendly than everybody makes them out to be.  From the kind folks we met at Nancy Whiskey Pub where I slated my thirst with Brooklyn Lager and my hunger with a small pizza, to people just walking around the city, most folks were easy to talk to and had the coolest accents.

Poor sad dejected sweatshirt on a subway grate

My handy dandy pocket guide to the subways was invaluable.  Even if I went the wrong direction a couple times, and had no clue which way to walk once I got out of the subway, at least I was on the right train. 

Speaking of the subway and other public transit - both Megan and I are going to have to learn how to manage our time better.  I have no clue how long it takes to get anywhere yet.  The shortest distance can take 30 minutes to walk, and express trains are super fast.

Manhattan is not nearly as large as I had imagined in my head.  Maybe because I'm from the great metropolis of Los Angeles, which is 503 square miles and Manhattan is only 33 square miles?  All I know is as I was wandering around SoHo/Little Italy/Chinatown/Financial District, I traversed back and forth across the island pretty quickly.  Here is my first view of Manhattan Bridge.

Taxi drivers - nice, they accept card willingly, and are easy to hail.  But one big difference - they wanted ME to tell THEM how to get where I was going.  Whaaaaaat?  I was counting on the cabbie knowing where to go when I said "Clermont and De Kalb," but nope!  Thankfully I have a fancy smartphone with Google Maps.

One World Trade Center was capped while we were there, and it's now 1776 feet tall and is the tallest building in the country.  The city is still greatly affected by everything that happened on 9/11, and the memorial is beautiful, haunting, and a wonderful tribute to all of the lives lost in that horrible tragedy.

You can be whoever you want to be in New York.  For the day, for the week, for the moment, you can be anyone that you can possibly imagine - including exactly who you've always been all along.

Everyone walks everywhere, and flat shoes rule amongst subway grates, cobblestone, and crazily crooked sidewalks.  And maybe I'm just not as slow as I once was, but I didn't think New Yorkers walked especially fast - but Megan informs me I just wasn't in the right area.

Times Square is NUTS!  Bright, loud, full of tourists and panhandlers, it reminded me a lot of Vegas.  Oh, and that's Matt, our roommate!  We had so much fun together through the week, and I am so grateful to have another west coast transplant (back to the coast he grew up on) along for the ride.

The rats really are as big as cats.  And I will scream if they get too close to me.  Yuck!

Central Park is ridiculously beautiful and again, not as big as I had imagined, but is huge indeed.  I think in my mind I pictured a more flat, organized, boring park, but this place is awesome!  Lakes, paths, restaurants, softball fields, museums, and an awesome bike/running path!  Megan and I ran 11 miles in and around the park for one of our last long training runs as we gear up for our half marathon.  I definitely wasn't bored with the view!

People generally know how to walk/run in a polite way - they tend to stay on the right side of the path or sidewalk, and pass on the left like cars.  I like that.


Thunder is REALLY REALLY loud when it echoes off of skyscrapers.  And the rain in NY is no joke.  Just minutes after we finished our run, we were famished and thirsty and looking for food, but the sky opened up on us.  We found some shelter under a food cart's awning (where this photo was taken), but the rain didn't let up so we ran to the subway and headed back to Little Italy to nourish our bodies at Mulberry Street Bar with pizza and beer - essential runner's food.

Oh, and yes - the bagels really do taste different in NY.  Something about the water... But apparently that's just an urban legend.

The pizza is amazing though.  Here Megan and I are toasting our signature cocktails - a Maker's Mark Manhattan and a dirty Grey Goose martini - at Lombardi's Pizza.  Lombardi's claims to be the first pizzeria in the United States, and all that practice has definitely helped out.  The pizza was delicious and thin and crusty.  I do adore thin crust pizza.

I survived jaywalking and actually became comfortable standing in the street waiting to see when I could cross.  One way streets are best for this.

New York is loud and full of honking cars and hurrying people of all sorts, and I LOVE IT!

Brownstones are beautiful and I love the front stoop, but dang are they small.  The old character they bring is pretty cool though.

When bars don't stop serving at 4am, seeing the sun rise becomes significantly more probable.

And, with just a little bit of work on the Internet, and the luck of the draw, this might become your new view:

Yup!  We found a place to live.  We'll give you the full details soon, but suffice to say - it's bomb diggity.  And this photo really is from one of the bedrooms.  Holla!

All in all, I really had a fantastic time in New York, exploring the city and neighborhoods on my own and with Megan and Matt.  While it already seems like a dream, I can't wait to get back here in a month and a half and fully immerse myself in this amazing place, and I'm already falling in love with NY.  Now my number one priority is finding a job!