New York: Day 1

Well, I ended up playing one dollar on the slots... I won nothin’. The line was too long at Taco Bell so I didn’t get that either. The bag of beef jerky that Kara got me kept me fed enough until I got to NY. Some crazy lady kept smoking in the bathroom on the airplane; we figured out who it was but since she wasn’t caught in the act, they weren’t able to fine her.

Once we landed, I got my bags and headed out of the airport. As I crossed the street toward the taxi stand, a guy said “taxi?” I said “yeah” and he motioned for me to follow him. We talked a bit as I followed him into the garage; we arrived at his car, which was not a taxi cab. I said as much to him, at which point he said that half the taxis in NY aren’t yellow cabs. I said that I’d rather take a cab and started heading back to the taxi stand. He wasn’t happy at being denied so he called me scared and told me I better stay in my hotel room while I was here. I laughed at him and kept walking. The ACTUAL taxi driver was much nicer, we talked about the weather and traffic and generalities. The fixed cab fare from JFK to Manhattan is $45, it was spendy but I didn’t want to learn the subway with all my bags etc.

Once I got to my room, I settled in and then realized that I was hungry! I walked down to Times Square (which is 1 block from my hotel) and started looking for food. Times Square at night is pretty amazing, there are so many lights coming from all the signs that it’s almost as bright as day. I found an all-you-can-eat Chinese place and, well, ate all I could eat. I walked around a bit more and finally headed back to my room. The heater in my room was making TONS of noise so I called the front desk and they sent a repair guy. He worked on it and said it should be fixed, at 2am I discovered that it wasn’t when it went all noisy again. I had to turn off the heater and rely on blanket heat the rest of the night.