Getting here was hellish to say the least. Despite the numerous wise-cracks from friends about the fact we were travelling with Air India (I will point out now that all flights available via lastminute.com are with the same airline), nothing could have prepared us for what was in store.
We load on to the plane and are greeting by an over-powering aroma of curry, leg room is non-existent, they're playing some old Bollywood video on a single projector display at the top of the cabin. This is followed by some obscure 80s movies that have probably only just been translated into a dialect understandable by the majority of the crew. Indeed, myself and JC feel somewhat in the minority.
Now I'm no racist, but it's with a reasonable sense of relief that myself and JC emerge from the 2 hour queue of hell that is US immigration and finally get ourselves into a (yellow!) cab set for 150 east 34th street - the location of our residence for the next 7 days, the Affinia Dumont.
And then it all gets really cool.
We head into the lobby, where the very polite receptionist assigns us a room on the 36th(!) floor of the place (That's higher up than the top floor in my old office!!!). We get to the room - it's spotless. We have a kitchen area, a great shower setup, a desk and a TV with loads of channels (HBO FTW!). It's well swanky to say the least and we have superb views of the east coast of Manhattan and downtown.
Check it out:
The Hotel (outside):
..and the rest of it(!):
..and THAT view:
So without further a do, we freshen up and hit the town. We're both hungry, but it's 10pm by now, so we opt for the fast option of roaming around down Park avenue for a bit trying to get our bearings. We find a place with a big 'Pizza' sign outside and go in and order these insanely sized slabs of the good stuff (Mine has chicken nuggets and spaghetti on it, JC's looks like a cross between Pizza as we know it and Spaghetti Bolognaise!!!).
After that we take a wander west and find ourselves on Broadway. I then remember that travelling a few blocks north on broadway takes you to Times Square. So we bod off there. It's pretty mindblowing. Totally felt like Hiro out of Heroes when I got there (NBC have a big Heroes centrepiece btw!) also, the amount of light the signs generate make it feel like the middle of the day almost!
Awestruck, we do our best to find a worthy drinking establishment and finally end up in a place called 'Tonic' which plays dodgy RnB, has multiple TVs showing different sports and is - unsurprisingly - full of what can only be described as the 'Jock Archetype'. The lager here tastes a bit 'funny' still, we get no hassle...
By the time it gets to midnight (me and JC have been up almost 24 hours) we're ready to drop. We make or zig zaggy way back to east 34th street and realise just how far we seem to have strayed on our initial exploration.
Anyway... gotta go. Only paid for 20 mins on this Internet terminal... Will be back tomorrow morning... maybe!
NYC FTW!!!!
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