New York, New York
So I've been sleeping and waking up at stupid times. I keep trying harder and harder to make myself go to sleep at even a dubiously decent hour (like 3am) or to wake up at a a similarly dubiously decent hour (like 12pm) but all that's happened is that I'm staying awake later and later (sometimes as late as 1pm the next day), and then I miss the real parts of the day and not get up until around 6pm. It had to stop.
So Tuesday I successfully stayed awake all night and then all day Thursday, only to decide later on that night that me and Tom should go to Manhattan to see that Topshop opening. I slept at 3am, woke at 6am and we made it to NYC on the Bolt Bus again. It was great, although a lot of things kept going wrong. We almost missed every train/bus we had to take (including missing the train back from Boston because the we had to wait 45min for food at Zen), there were some seriously snobby, mean attitudes at Topshop (which had an hour-long queue even at 7pm), it rained buckets the next day and Tom kept criticising me a lot in places to where it became borderline abusive and controlling.
But thanks to my reset button, I'll remember this trip as the night I got happily drunk with my estranged husband and found possibly the best drinks in Manhattan - at an Irish pub called Rosie O'Grady's. It was their signature martini and had strawberry tequila, vanilla vodka and Godiva chocolate liqueur. Sort of like a Nuts 'n' Berries, but way better. Tom had this strange but yummy margarita with jalapeno-infused tequila. We only left a $6 tip but the bartender was strangely excessively grateful. We were poor but we wanted to leave him a way nicer tip because he was just so awesome, really knowledgeable about the drinks and he made some really great conversation.
We did a bit of bar-hopping around Times Sq and ended up at O'Brien's, where I sort of accidentally fooled this German bloke into thinking I actually spoke/remembered German (all I could think of at the time was "Ich heisse Sara"), and also fooled the bartender into thinking I had dropped $5 into [wow - Tom-almost-yelling episode just now] the broken jukebox instead of $1. I was really sad because it reminded me so much of The Reg. Being able to impose your outdated musical tastes on people who haven't heard of the stuff you like is sort of fun.
Walking through Times Square never gets old. For some reason the blinding neon lights just cheer me up. It's like a less selfish version of Vegas. Somehow it's just...comforting. I don't know why. But I wished we could have sat on those red steps to get the view for a lot longer than we could, but we got there a few minutes before closing.
Also, the weather was eerily perfect for that one day only. Sunny, warm, and 19C. Then, bucketloads of rain the next day. But wandering is always best when it's warm. We found a good pizza joint (forget where it was but the crust was heavenly), went to the Museum of Sex where Tom could barely contain himself, then the next day we did an express run through the Museum of Natural History, where Tom also could barely contain himself. The dinosaurs were probably the most amazing exhbiits.
It was a shame we couldn't do much else, because we were running around trying to find Western Unions and banks (my mum helped me out on this), post offices to mail late eBay packages and checking in and out of hotels (tip: don't stay at the Amsterdam Court Hotel unless you want to get yelled at for asking for ANY towels in your room, pay $15 for the internet or have a glorious view of genuine NYC rubbish in an authentic NYC alley). It was also a bit crappy that the later buses were sold out, so the latest we could leave to make a train we ended up missing was the 4.30pm bus.
So at the end of it I was soaked from rain, exhausted, my legs and feet felt flattened, stretched and sore beyond belief, and we couldn't even sit together on the bus back that had no footrests and no rest stops. And we waited the aforementioned 3/4 of an hour for food that we had to have packed immediately. But the upside was that the green tea we were told was free was "comped" by another waitress for the inconvenience of paying not to eat there. Twats. So we missed the train home that might have got me home in time to write an essay that was due hours before but I was trying to pretend that I thought it was due midnight US EST time, not BST/GMT. I took 7 hours to write it and took a $50 cab home, meaning we could have taken the 8.30pm bus (giving us more time in NY) and taken a cab home, or taken the later train and saved $40, because there was no way I was going to get that assignment done by midnight.
So I stayed awake until 6.30am writing my assignment, went to bed, then woke up at 6pm. Drat.
But, at least I tried to have a lot of fun, and enjoyed what little fun there was to be had.
So Tuesday I successfully stayed awake all night and then all day Thursday, only to decide later on that night that me and Tom should go to Manhattan to see that Topshop opening. I slept at 3am, woke at 6am and we made it to NYC on the Bolt Bus again. It was great, although a lot of things kept going wrong. We almost missed every train/bus we had to take (including missing the train back from Boston because the we had to wait 45min for food at Zen), there were some seriously snobby, mean attitudes at Topshop (which had an hour-long queue even at 7pm), it rained buckets the next day and Tom kept criticising me a lot in places to where it became borderline abusive and controlling.
But thanks to my reset button, I'll remember this trip as the night I got happily drunk with my estranged husband and found possibly the best drinks in Manhattan - at an Irish pub called Rosie O'Grady's. It was their signature martini and had strawberry tequila, vanilla vodka and Godiva chocolate liqueur. Sort of like a Nuts 'n' Berries, but way better. Tom had this strange but yummy margarita with jalapeno-infused tequila. We only left a $6 tip but the bartender was strangely excessively grateful. We were poor but we wanted to leave him a way nicer tip because he was just so awesome, really knowledgeable about the drinks and he made some really great conversation.
We did a bit of bar-hopping around Times Sq and ended up at O'Brien's, where I sort of accidentally fooled this German bloke into thinking I actually spoke/remembered German (all I could think of at the time was "Ich heisse Sara"), and also fooled the bartender into thinking I had dropped $5 into [wow - Tom-almost-yelling episode just now] the broken jukebox instead of $1. I was really sad because it reminded me so much of The Reg. Being able to impose your outdated musical tastes on people who haven't heard of the stuff you like is sort of fun.
Walking through Times Square never gets old. For some reason the blinding neon lights just cheer me up. It's like a less selfish version of Vegas. Somehow it's just...comforting. I don't know why. But I wished we could have sat on those red steps to get the view for a lot longer than we could, but we got there a few minutes before closing.
Also, the weather was eerily perfect for that one day only. Sunny, warm, and 19C. Then, bucketloads of rain the next day. But wandering is always best when it's warm. We found a good pizza joint (forget where it was but the crust was heavenly), went to the Museum of Sex where Tom could barely contain himself, then the next day we did an express run through the Museum of Natural History, where Tom also could barely contain himself. The dinosaurs were probably the most amazing exhbiits.
It was a shame we couldn't do much else, because we were running around trying to find Western Unions and banks (my mum helped me out on this), post offices to mail late eBay packages and checking in and out of hotels (tip: don't stay at the Amsterdam Court Hotel unless you want to get yelled at for asking for ANY towels in your room, pay $15 for the internet or have a glorious view of genuine NYC rubbish in an authentic NYC alley). It was also a bit crappy that the later buses were sold out, so the latest we could leave to make a train we ended up missing was the 4.30pm bus.
So at the end of it I was soaked from rain, exhausted, my legs and feet felt flattened, stretched and sore beyond belief, and we couldn't even sit together on the bus back that had no footrests and no rest stops. And we waited the aforementioned 3/4 of an hour for food that we had to have packed immediately. But the upside was that the green tea we were told was free was "comped" by another waitress for the inconvenience of paying not to eat there. Twats. So we missed the train home that might have got me home in time to write an essay that was due hours before but I was trying to pretend that I thought it was due midnight US EST time, not BST/GMT. I took 7 hours to write it and took a $50 cab home, meaning we could have taken the 8.30pm bus (giving us more time in NY) and taken a cab home, or taken the later train and saved $40, because there was no way I was going to get that assignment done by midnight.
So I stayed awake until 6.30am writing my assignment, went to bed, then woke up at 6pm. Drat.
But, at least I tried to have a lot of fun, and enjoyed what little fun there was to be had.