I’ve just finished addind a photo set for Madame Tussad’s New York. Go take a look and let me know what you think. 
Category Archive: New York trip 2004
Madame Tussaud’s New York
Lean Back!
When we got to the Port Authority we were wandering around looking for the gate for the bus going to Toronto. Since I bought my ticket in Toronto, there was no way for me to know which gate it was. There seemed to be a lack of monitors indicating where the different departures were happening. Luckily, my aunt knew that the Toronto bus usually left from Gate 62. Indeed it did.
The line up for Gate 62 was unbelievably long. My aunt was in disbelief at just how many people were trying to get out of the city. The bus didn’t start boarding up until about 15 minutes before the departure time. As was expected, the bus filled up before everyone could get on. As is Greyhound policy, the ended up getting a few more buses to meet the demand. I was near the front of the line for the second bus. I was a bit excited because I thought that meant I’d get my choice of seat. Heh. When I was let on though, I was a bit surprised to find the bus close to full. The choice was limited, and I ended up sitting next to this teen listening to hip hop on mer MP3 player. She was playing it loud, and was fully absorbed in her music. She even joined in at various points: “Lean back! Lean back!” Her seat was packed. I didn’t have that much space for myself. The smell of a caeser salad invaded my nostrils as she brought out a half eaten bowl from Wendy’s. I thought, man, this is going to be a long ride.
We were waiting at the terminal for a long period of time. Our driver, Angel, told us that we had to wait for another bus to fill up so that we could all leave together. It turns out they had to get a third bus. Whatever. Before the bus filled up, the teen I was sitting next to asked if I wanted to switch. I did. I really wanted a window seat. So, we switched. I did a quick examination of my new seat…only to find that the reclining lever was broken. Fuck. I didn’t blame the teen though. I figured that sitting upright wouldn’t be so bad, especially since the window seat I got allowed me to put my arm up.
The teen was also heading to Toronto. We got ot talking a bit now and then, which felt odd since no one else was talking like that. Whatever. I never did ask her her name though. I wanted to…but didn’t.
We left about 1.5 hours later than expected. When we were on the road though, things were smooth. When we got to the first rest station, the driver said that we were only going to be there for 15 minutes. As such, I decided to stay on the bus. That bitch lied! We were there for 45 minutes. People were getting damn restless. I guess the driver was just waiting for the other bus, but still. Same thing happened when we got to our first stop. She said that we’d only be there for 5 minutes, but that 5 minutes easily stretched out to 20 minutes. It was ridiculous. We were scheduled to arrive in Toronto by 7am. However, we were only at the border at 7.
Canadian customs was totally easier than American customs. I pulled out my ticket, and my IDs when they called me over, but they only asked me a few questions. I don’t think they even asked fro my IDs. It was ridiculously painless.
The rest of the ride was quick. I arrived at 9:20. I’m so glad to be home.
And now, work beckons. 
Que mierda
How shitty.
Actually, let’s start of on a good note. Happy New Year to all of you folks reading this thing. Hope 2005 treats you well.
2005 started off not so well. On New Year’s Eve, I was over in Jersey City with family I hadn’t seen in 14 years. Everyone has changed so much. It’s hard to reconcile the old images of these people in my mind with the current reality. It’s mind boggling. I’m sure some of my relatives feel the same way about me. When my Grandma Ester saw me, she seemed so happy. She was just holding onto hand for such a long time. The look in her eyes moved me deeply. I’m glad I saw her…this may be the last time I will see her. 
We ate so much, and drank, and laughed, and did some decent karaoke. Things were on the up and up by the time I went to sleep. When I got up, I was woken to the sound of my cousin telling me that my grandma was going to the hospital. Her blood sugar levels were too low and she was too clammy for her own good. She had the flu as well. Not good. Most of the family had to leave to go to the hospital. My aunts and I decided we should leave since everyone suddenly became busy. As we went to the car, we found out that someone had smashed the window of the car in. The car isn’t all that great. There was nothing to steal in there. It looked like a random act of violence. My aunt was saying that it may have been because her car had a New York license plate. Who knows?
This is all really shitty stuff, you know. I really felt rotten riding back to New York. Eventually though, I dropped all the sadness. What’s the point, right? I mean, all things considered, I’m still really blessed. Upon hearing the news, my uncle said, “Well, you know, all of these shitty things are happening at the beginning of the year. It’s likely that all these bad things are happening early to get them out of the way.” The optimist in me agrees. Life is good. All these events are minor detours. Great things lie ahead.
I’ve decided that I’m heading home today instead of early tomorrow morning. I would like to travel overnight because that means I get a bit more rest before work starts. Plus, I really do want to go home. I miss my parents. I’m greatful to my aunts for letting me stay with them and putting up with my independent bullheadedness. I love you all very much.
aaaaasssssh-hooooooooooole
New York is so alive at night. I was out for a walk at 7 pm and the streets were so crowded with stylish looking young adults. Then again, I was walking around the area of NYU.
My aunt and I went to see Meet the Fockers last night. The movie was so hilarious! I thought I was going to piss myself laughing at various points. The baby was so cute when he started saying asshole. I swear, the guy I was sitting next must have been having seizures or something. He was laughing so loud and hard. He had to leave the theatre at one point because he was getting ridiculous. I highly recommend the movie. :laugh:
I’m heading off to New Jersey today to visit some other relatives. I’m travelling back to Toronto on Sunday, and starting work on Monday. Thinking about it makes me tired. :O
With the celebs
New York has this hectic aura to it. It’s unbelievably fast-paced. I spent a great deal of time today walking around with my aunts. I felt like I had to keep up with the pace of the crowd, but I had to slow down repeatedly to keep with my family.
We first went to the Olive Garden at Broadway and 47th St. It was pretty well structured with three floors. You gave your name in on the first floor, waited on the second floor, and ate on the third floor. The thing is, the food wasn’t really all that good. I had the chicken scampi which was served on a bed of angel hair pasta. It really wasn’t all that special. To be honest, I much prefer East Side Marios out by the university. The portions at ESM are a bit more generous (which isn’t saying much), and the wedding soup is awesome. Whatever. We had a window seat overlooking Broadway which was pretty cool. On the street we could see the pick up spot for the double-decker red sightseeing buses. The lineup didn’t seem to die down at any point.
Funny I mention that. All day my aunts were complaining about the amount of tourists in town, and how it was making it harder to get around. It’s true. You can pinpoint the tourists because they’re the ones constantly looking up and staring out at the tall buildings. Also, they tend to crowd around the big tourist sites–like Macy’s.
I can say though that I’m just as guilty of visiting tourist stops. After eating, the three of us went to Rockefeller Center. That’s the place with the skating rink and the humungous Christmas tree. Upon seeing it, I was again reminded of the movie Elf. Man, that place was crowded! It was packed with families and couples trying to take pictures around the awesome scenery.
From Rockefeller, we went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I took a picture of that place before, however, I didn’t go inside last time. This time we went in. It’s a great looking church. All around the sides are various shrines and devotion places. One of them had a relic from one of the saints. Aside from being a bit spooky, it’s really interesting. I wanted to ask what the relic was of…but how do you ask such a question? You wouldn’t ask, “so, what body part is in there?” That’s just rude. I imagine it’s just a bone fragment or something of that sort.
In the center of the cathedral is a mausoleum containing the remains of all cardinals which tended to New York City. I remember thinking just a few days ago about how creepy the idea of mausoleums are…and there i was at the entrance to one. Heh.
From there we went to Saks on 5th Avenue. That’s a pretty famous store in Manhattan. It’s damn expensive there! Upon entering the place, I consciously felt like I was lowering the average total worth of all the people there. I wanted to visit the Men’s department, but we didn’t stay long enough to go there. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, I suppose. One piece would probably have killed my bank account.
Our last stop from Saks was Madame Tussaud’s wax museum. I originally thought that the place would be pretty silly to be at, but as soon as I saw statues of Samuel L. Jackosn and Brad Pitt, I was in awe. It wasn’t long before I was hamming it up for the camera. I posed with wax replicas of people like Oprah, Madonna (I was feeling her up), Lenny Kravitz, the Pope, Einstein, the Rock, and Beyonce. If I get these pics from my aunt’s camera, I’ll post them.
Ah, so that’s today. I feel like I accomplished a lot today. I’m looking forward to getting some good rest.
Interesting characters
Hrm…my aunts have dial-up. Works for me
I picked up the Greyhound at 8 last night. I was fourth in line waiting for the bus, so I had my choice of seats. I ended up taking a window seat at the fourth row. I was pretty pleased with myself, but I didn’t realize until it was too late that the seat I took was between windows, meaning that I couldn’t rest my arm anywhere on the side. To be honest, that really contributed to an uncomfortable ride over.
The trip was full of some interesting characters. I was fully intending on keeping to myself and blocking the world out. I was trying to send that message by putting on my iPod and putting my hood up. Traffic was a bit heavy getting to the border, but that was only because of dumb ass drivers getting into accidents on the QEW causing lanes to be closed.
When we got to the border, we all had to get off to go through customs and to get inspected. We had to take all our baggage off the bus with us into the building. Damn, those customs agents are really “no nonsense”. My agents were all right though. They just asked me where I was from, what I do for a living, and when I’ll be heading back to Canada. Heh. It’s an odd welcome, eh? They welcome you but want to know when you’re going to get the hell out of there. Some other people weren’t so lucky. There was this one South Asian guy who was being interrogated by this fierce female agent.
“Why are you travelling?”
“Why isn’t your wife with you?”
“Where are your children?”
“So…your wife is sick, and you decided to go on a trip???”
“I DON’T BELIEVE YOU”
I realize she’s only doing her job. Whatever. Baggage inspection wasn’t so bad. I wasn’t carrying anything sharp. It was over quickly.
When we got on the bus, there were a few people that decided to change seats. An old woman decided to move one seat back to the fourth row. The couple that was there was really irate about it. They ended up moving one row back as well. The woman in the couple was being so damn vocal about her displeasure. When the old woman reclined her seat, the other woman pushed her seat forward saying, “do you mind not putting your seat right in my face?” The old woman just responded with silence and re-relclined her seat. That made the other woman even louder. Damn that woman, she was complaining non-stop for hours. She reasoned, “it’s because she doesn’t speak English that she won’t listen.” Heh. Whenever someone reasons like that, the true meaning is “I think people of her nationality are rude, and I’m a whole lot better than her.” I happen to know that the old woman speaks enough English to get by. She was in conversation with this Chinese guy in line who didn’t seem to have full-command over the language either. The fact that they had a conversation amuses me greatly.
After getting settled into my seat, I decided to start conversation with the guy next to me. I started off by saying “man, those customs guys are thorough.” That was enough to break the silence. The guy’s name was Charles. He was from Ohio and going to several conferences–one in Toronto, and one in Washington DC. To get to Washington, he had to take a bus to New York where he’d get a connecting bus. As it turns out, he was a grad student in communications engineering. I told him that I had just taken a course on the subject. It was pretty cool. We were able to share our experiences with engineering. He was saying how he was worried about getting a job because he had no experience at the time. It was a reminder of how lucky I was to be in my co-op program.
It was snowing as we were going down the interstates. I’m impressed with how will the driver managed to go down the dark roads with so many trucks and snow plows in the way. I couldn’t sleep all that well. If I reclined my seat, my tail bone would start hurting like hell. If I was upright, it just wasn’t conducive to sleeping. The heat was turned up pretty high. I had to remove my leather jacket at one point during the ride.
We stopped at Port Byron at around 2am for a meal break. The only thing open at the rest stop was a McDonalds manned by only two workers. As such, they were excruciatingly slow. I know they were doing their best though. Even before the trip, I was planning for my rest stop meal. I was looking forward to having a McDonalds cheese burger. Even as I type this, I can imagine the taste of the meat, cheese, ketchup, and pickles in my mouth. After a long wait, I got my two burgers and headed back for the bus. As I glommed the burgers down, I found them to be horribly unsatisfying.
What can you do?
The irate woman bought a salad and took it back to the bus. When she got back to her seat she was bitching about how she can’t eat all that well with the “woman who can’t speak English” reclined the way she was. A little bit later, I peered over to the woman, and she was eating well enough with the salad on her lap–over closer to her knees, no less. She was still bitching. Well, damn it, woman. It’s unfortunate that you lost your seat, but it’s notlike you were forced to sit all the way at the back by the toilet. You’re one row behind. The whole seating arrangement thing wasn’t enforced. Woman, you’re just out of luck. With regards to the reclining, get over it! These seats recline! It’s what they do! Damn!
I tried hard to sleep, but it was no good. I think I got an hour or two. That’s all. At about 6, I ended up just watching the road signs to get an idea of how close I was. When I started seeing signs for the Lincoln Tunnel, I knew we were getting close. Heh. The Lincoln Tunnel reminds me of the movie Elf.
I ended up arriving at 7:15am. All things considered, that’s not too bad. Overall, Manhattan doesn’t feel all too magical. It does have a very urban feel though. The cab driver we god was just zooming right through traffic. No signalling, no waiting, he was just weaving all over the place. It’s different from Toronto. As soon as I got back, I had breakfast, and went to sleep. Ah, and now here I am.
This week is going to be busy, I can feel it. I’m excited though.
Christmas 2004
It came, and it went. Christmas is over for another year.
Like last year, we really didn’t do anything totally “festive”. However, we did do a lot of karaoke. My aunt and I sang Bohemian Rhapsody. We sang like a bunch of loud drunken fools, but it was a great time.
Today, I’m heading off to New York City by myself. I’m taking an overnight Greyhound at 8pm, which will arrive at 6:15am. I chose an overnight option because I felt like I really didn’t want to deal with the boredom of staring out the window wondering how much time had passed since the last time I checked. I don’t need that. I did that when I took a train to New York City, and that was painfully long.
I’m semi-packed. I’ve got to get a bit more organized before I declare myself ready.
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