New York! New York! New Yorkkkkkk!!!1

Well, I’ve found out that trying to type things out while there’s a TV running is nigh impossible, possibly because I never watch TV, and TV has been evolving to be visually/aurally addictive as possible. So I’m left without immunities to the viral memes (mental genes) of the TV… oh noes…

Well, have to try anyways.

So, day three of the trip: like all good tourists, we had to visit the Statue of Liberty. Unfortunately, it turned out that getting into the crown of the statue wouldn’t happen, since tickets had been booked out 3 months in advanced. In fact, tickets into the base of the statue were booked out a few days, so instead we spent the afternoon just wandering around the statue and Ellis Island. Life lesson learned: pre-ordering tickets online will beat getting tickets on site. We skipped a huge line by doing it, which hopefully makes a big enough impression that I don’t forget about it.

Interesting and slightly creepy: while we were navigating through the tourist trap mess that is the Statue of Liberty, I found a cute girl. Actually, I found a bunch of cute girls. Actually, cute girls are everywhere in NYC. Even after you subtract out an estimate for the fob girls (I don’t have anything against fob girls, I just think that it’s very unlikely that it would work out with a fob girl, and anything impacting the already astronomically small unlikelihood of my chances with the ladies is bad. Very bad.), then you still end up with a fairly sized population. True, I’ve been walking past which seems like millions of people, but still!

But Nathan, you may be thinking. That isn’t creepy at all, it’s just you being a guy. True! Anyone that doesn’t accept my dude-ness can go suck it, and noting special members of the fairer sex is nothing even puritans can frown upon (okay, they may frown upon it, but they can’t stop their genes from trying to reproduce, so I say HA!). What’s creepy is that while I was looking at them, one of them was looking back at me. Staring at me. From the back of the fast food serving counter-area-ish (she was more of 16 feet away, instead of just 2 or something like she would be if it were any other burger joint). I know, because I snuck a glance, and noticed that she always seemed to be looking at me. All. The. Time. It wasn’t an empty stare, either. Then she went and manned a register for a short time, and then went back to leaning on the back wall and staring at me again.

Okay then.

I must mention that didn’t exactly fit my cute definition, either, especially when she was manning a fast food register in what is possibly one of America’s most commercialized National Parks. So, a little creepy? Maybe a silent plea for help? Filling me into her mid-day fantasy about how a dashing young man leaps over the counter, punches her mean boss, and rescues her from her crappy service job? Filling away as much information so that she can stalk me later? Trying to obtain my phone number through mind-reading? Thinking about how ugly I am (similar to how you can’t look away from car wrecks)?

In any case, it was pretty gosh darn unnerving, and I sure hope she’s not looking into my hotel window, or that she won’t be looking into my dorm window. As long as it doesn’t come to that, I’ll be okay. What’s thaAHHHHHH

(Note that I’m only typing about this because I never expect to see her again. Hopefully. IF YOU TRACKED DOWN AND ARE READING THIS BLOG (AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) GO AWAY)

After the statue, we visited Wall Street, the WTC site, and called that a day.

Horray! Day three of the adventure finished.

Since trying to offset the blogging isn’t working out at all, I’ll also be blogging about what we did today! (day four)

Another touristy thing to do is go on top of a tall building and take a look around New York. The traditional building to do this on is the Empire State building, but since everyone and their unexpected-relation-here does that, we just went to the top of the Rockefeller tower (building?). Again, pre-ordering stuff online saved our sanity (or what’s left of it). It still surprises me just how freaking huge central park is, which the Rockefeller building gave us a really good view of. It’s also surprising that it all seems so small when you happen to be 70 stories above street level; the feeling of vertical stretch one gets from the ground floor dissipates once you get to the top of one of those uber-tall buildings. Doesn’t seem quite so hectic and amazing from far up above, eh?

Of course, getting back to the ground floor removed that particular illusion.

Unfortunately, we visited Greenwich Village, or what’s left of it. Probably would’ve been cool to be in when it was an actual cultural source in the last century.

And like good Asians, we had to visit ChInAtOwN (please don’t punch me for the caps)!!!!!!!!(or the exclamation points) Welp, there’s a bunch of food stores, and a bunch of stores selling dvds and clothes. You know what I’m talking about. And lots of signs with Chinese characters. I swear, one of these days I’m going to discover how to time travel and introduce a sane alphabet to the Chinese.

Interestingly, Lil’ Italy is right next to Chinatown. I don’t have any idea how it happened either, since it’s more like little Italy runs directly down the center of Chinatown. Little Italy came first! Why did the Chinese see fit to just hop over Little Italy? An effort at cultural hegemony? Economic warfare? A mysterious and spooky turn of events? I’m no sociologist, so I probably won’t find out for a while. However, it did not escape my notice that Little Italy has outsourced their t-shirt-and-other-junk shops to the Chinese.

I’m not sure why Korea Town is so far away from these other ethnic enclaves: maybe they knew the Chinese would try and take over. Anyways, we’re going to have to visit it again, since we just passed by it while trying to catch a train back to the hotel.

Some final thoughts: I originally thought that I wouldn’t really settle into New York, even after the second day of taking a look at the city. It seemed so gaudy, hyper, grimy, technologically impotent, noisy, and lacking wonderful weather that I’ve been taking for granted for most of my life. And yeah, it is all those things, but it feels like I can have some fun living around here. There’s definite life in this city, and they might need an uber-geek in residence to spice things up more (ha) (ha). (ha)

(ha)

Plus, there are hot girls.*

WHEEEEEE!!!!

* Don’t give me that look.