Day 1

Couple of quick updates from the first day:

Airline had a delay with our luggage, that set me back another hour and a half to two hours or so. A lot of people were pretty upset and we were waiting by the baggage claim room when somebody tells me to please step aside and I look up and there are 6 cops out of nowhere. I got my bags and was not arrested though. I saw this one guy in Atlanta that used to be a girl, I recognized from TLC show and I saw this midget chick at LaGuardia that had been on an MTV True Life episode trying to be an actress I think.

I got into the hostel and dropped my bags off and hit the streets walking. I'm on the upper west side right next to the park. I like the neighborhood a lot. Lots of trendy restaurants and shops and stuff. This one place I thought was a restaurant was a nail salon, and this one restaurant was painted all white except for 4 bare wire hangers in a row on the wall for decoration. It was cool just walking around, ended up in Times Square and saw the Late Show Theatre and other recognizable sites. I had been walking for around 2 hours and hadn't eaten since breakfast so I ducked into this Vietnamese place and had apple chicken, that was excellent. Took a different way back and walked through Central Park a bit. Tons of people out playing ball and running and biking or walking their dogs. I saw some rocks I recognized from a Woody Allen film. Don't remember which one though.

Got back to hostel, right away one of my roommates shows up, he is a salesman from Italy. His company sells shoe soles and hes been all over the world on business, but he is just here for vacation. He said everybody in Italy goes on vacation in August and a lot of companies shut down. We asked around in the lobby if there are any good bars around and met some Australian chicks. They were too young for bars so we hit the subway down to Greenwich Village. On the subway on the way back this guy told me people from Brooklyn had a stigmatism. He was really friendly and helpful though, which everyone has been. I guess I wasn't expecting that from native new Yorkers, which hasn't been my experience at all.

Alexander went to Niagara Falls for a couple days, our roommates are a guy from Japan, a girl from Korea and these other girls from Australia. They were in upstate for a month at a horse riding camp. They don't know the girls we met in the lobby last night. I'm drinking Poland Springs water and I saw Newman's favorite chunky candies at the store last night, I wouldn't mind doing a real Kramer tour but they are sold out, you have to book months ahead I found out. I think I'm going to hit the streets again tomorrow and see ground zero and statue of liberty and some other sites.

Also this guy next to me on the plane said he used to live next door to the Ramseys in Georgia and he said their whole neighborhood always thought they did it.