Episode VI-The Campbell Returns

Episode VI-The Campbell Returns

I’m not really sure were to. Central park? Uhhhh, Times Square? Oh! That awesome rooftop bar. That place. These Star Wars references are getting more and more forced. And will continue to do so.

So, what’s been going on since the end of my last post? Well, I had a very quiet weekend, a lot of time spent around the hostel, a lot of time spent reading, writing and just being awesome.  I have unfortunately come down with a bit of a cold, which has slowed me down quite a bit, but I’ve soldiered on.

There’s been lots of time just spent walking about, exploring Soho, Nolita, NoHo, Tribeca, East Village and Greenwich Village. Man they are cool neighbourhoods. Robert De Niro’s name is all over Tribeca, it’s pretty great. Seriously, the man owns half of the place. There is a theatre, real estate agents, a De Niro building. If he hadn’t played a mobster several hundred times over, I’d be suggesting he try that

I’ve had a bit of a cold for some of the time I was here, but I’m getting over it fast. Just punched the cold in the face with a ton of medication so I could do stuff, which is why I probably feel better now. Probably wasn’t the best idea to combine several, but hey it worked. I’m still here.

I’ve been exploring stores and buying very little. On Monday, Nick, Henrick, Lino, Jack and I went and had a picnic in Central Park, which involved copious amounts of junk food and lots of Frisbee. Then we wandered through the park for a while, before Nick left us to go up Rockefeller tower. The four of us resolved to find a bar, which was actually harder than it strictly should of been. We settled on a sports bar by our favourite diner, had a few beers, then Henrik and I went and joined Nick at a rooftop bar where we had come on our first New York weekend. We sat in the shadow of the Empire State building and discussed our business of being awesome with a couple of jetsettting Aussies.

The next week, which I will now gloss through because I am clearly writing this some time after I have left the States, was comprised of me doing the things I hadn’t done so far in New York. Well, some of them. I visited the Statue of Liberty, which was at once majestic and had the impact I expected, while somehow seeming smaller than I thought it would be. It is not the size of the Empire State Building after all. Damn French should learn how to build a better statue, goddamit.

Speaking of that, I didn’t climb it. The building is for tourists. And I was decidedly not one, after spending the reminder of my time in New York bagging out tourists, with their camera’s and their I [heart] New York shirts. Disgusting. Instead, I went up that bastion of local secrets, Rockefeller Tower with Jack. (note, this paragraph has been entirely sarcastic. This is sometimes difficult to display in a blogeriffic setting.) The views from the tower were truly spectacular and other assorted superlatives. It was a bit foggy, so we couldn’t see as far as we liked, but there was still incredible views of New York City. It was great going up there at the end of my trip like that, because I knew so  many of the places I was seeing. I could point to different things and  know exactly what they were, and what I had done there. Things like yelled at traffic under the shadow of that weird glass building, or had a futile attempt at jogging around the Jackie O’ Reservoir in Central Park. Got horrendously drunk over there in the East Village, fought cloned Thomas Jefferson’s from the Dark or Evil dimension in front of horrified tourists at Columbus Circle on 66^th. Good times. Great classic hits.

I could bore you with stories of my flights home, but they aren’t particularly interesting. Apart from me totally wussing out and not talking to the mythical hot girl on a plane that I sat next to New York to Los Angeles, (she had wrist tattoos and a guitar, goddammit), or losing my American accent as soon as I stepped into Sydney, there wasn’t all that much interesting.

Suffice to say, it is damn good to be home. Our money is colourful, I’m with my wonderful family and friends, and all voice-overs on the Ads are aussie.

It was a hell of a trip and I will never forget it.

The Empire State’s, ummm, back.

Episode V-The Empire States, ummm, back.

Oh, you know how I said I was finally going to Statue of Liberty in my last post? Yeah, that still hasn’t happened. To cut a long story short, I was all prepped to head out with a tour group from the hostel, when I found out that the guy that was taking the group was in fact having surgery. Because that was a thing that just crops up. Not really feeling like I wanted to go by myself, especially with other opportunities to, I went and hung out in the park for a little while. It really is very peaceful there, especially if you find a place that is a bit out of the way and not full of those damn tourists.

I then headed up to see Columbia University, New York City’s top notch university, which was very impressive. I explored the library, which is this huge rambling space in what looks like the tomb of a roman emperor.  Except, like, full of books instead of the animated skeletons of Legionnaires and angry ghosts. And more light. Soo, not really like one at all. Except sort, of one the outside. Which I suppose was my point in the first place. Well, that was unnecessary piece of exposition, huh? If it wasn’t for unnecessary exposition, then we wouldn’t be here, now would we?

Speaking of which (tombs, not roman emperors), I also visited the recently restored tomb of General Ulysses S. Grant, Union Civil War Hero and later President of the US. Very powerful site, even if I wasn’t allowed inside (I had just burnt a flag on the steps, while chanting ‘Death to America’. They tend not to look kindly on that. I mean, it was closed.)

Then I headed out on another pub crawl, albeit briefly, after I decided I wasn’t really at all in the mood. Still, it was nice to hang out the people from the hostel, who I was starting to get to know. Most people are utterly fascinated by the fact that I have been here since January. Makes me special.

The next day I got my things back from Lino, who was wonderful enough to bring my two big bags into the city. We met at Grand Central then lugged my things back to hostel, thankfully with a minimum of fuss. Then we headed down to the Natural History Museum and met with Becc, Nick and Henrick. We bought tickets to the Planetarium show which was hilariously filled with school kids. I also revealed how much of Sci-Fi nerd I was by bringing up various theories of space travel and how it was basically impossible unless we developed a form of time travel which removed a craft from normal space. Yes, just like Star Trek. Shhhh.

Anyway, the Planetarium show was amazing, if somewhat poorly narrated by Whoopi Goldberg. Where’s Morgan Freeman when you need him. We all giggled at the word Uranus, despite the room full of schoolchildren remaining quiet. And they say American youth is in a state of arrested development. Hey, that’s the name of a show.

Afterwards, we split up and explored the Museum. I think we maybe saw, hmmm, a third of it. In three hours. And we weren’t exactly lingering in all the exhibits. Still, saw the dinosaurs, the eminently breath-taking under the sea exhibit with its live size Blue Whale and only-exist-to-haunt-our-nightmares deep sea creatures exhibit. Seriously, how do those things even close their mouths with teeth that size? Do their teeth fold? Oh god, tell me that isn’t a thing.

WHY DO YOU EXIST?

After we left the museum, we headed over to our fast becoming regular haunt, the Westaway Diner for some din-dins. Awesomely enough, a couple of tables over were the same pair of cops that had been there the last time we were. We are inhabiting our New York diner so much we are recognising other customers. I feel so special!

Then after dinner Becc and Nick headed back to have a few drinks with people from their hostel, while Nick, Jack, Lino and I went and saw Robin Hood, which was better than I had expected it to be. Making it a three star film.

And that’s basically all the interesting stuff that happened to me over that time period. Cept for some other stuff.

Luv ya’s all!

Episode IV-A New York

Episode IV-A New York

I made my triumphant return to New York at time which was decidedly unhealthy considering the little I had slept on the flight. I was running considerably short of cashy money too, because I had been forced to take a taxi to Sacramento airport, due to reduced bus service for Memorial Day. That hurt. But still, it was damn good to be back in NYC, a city where I knew the subway system and how not to talk to people.

And boy howdy, was it warm in NYC-I wasn’t quite prepared for it. After how relatively cool California had been, heading up north and finding it hotter was a bit of shock to the system. I found my Hostel and dumped my bags-it was still before check-out time by the time I arrived.

I had been in communication with Nicole, Henrick and Nick, some of the Stony Brook exchange kids and we planned to meet before Nicole headed off to Connecticut for the weekend. With still plenty of time to kill, I had a pleasant walk through Central Park, which never ceases to amaze me with its mere existence in this sort of city. Of course, I forgot that I don’t exactly go in a straight line through Central Park so I wound up being late and then in the wrong place. So much for knowing the city, huh?

After another visit to a rather awesome diner, Henrick and I crossed Manhattan and tracked down Nick and Nicole in Grand Central Station, which made me regret leaving my camera behind. The place is a sight! I’ll have to go back another time, that’s for sure. If for nothing more than to visit the Campbell Apartments there. We hung out together there for a while, catching up on old times, of like, ten days ago. It sure felt like longer. After we farewelled Nicole, we had a sort of plan to go the Natural History Museum, but time got away from us a bit, and as I had planned on going to a bar crawl that night and I was too exhausted to not have a nap beforehand. So I said farewell to the guys and headed on back.

So I went out on the bar crawl, mostly to meet some people from the Hostel. I didn’t have enough money for more than a couple of beers, which was fine by me. At least half of the group were Australian, of course, and most of those from Melbourne. Bloody Aussies.

Had a good time, visited some interesting bars, including New York’s Ding Dong Lounge-owned by the same people who own Melbourne’s! Meet heaps of cool folks, including a guy who spent at least forty-five minutes explaining the geography and racial structure of Vancouver to me. Educational…

Unfortunately, as I discovered when I woke up in the morning, I had lost my phone. I was meant to be going to Coney Island with Nick and Henrick, but I spent the morning wandering around looking for it. I visited the bar, a cafe by day and asked there, but last-night’s bartender had a hold of all of that sort of thing and I was told to come by around 6.

You Lost Your Phone? Facepalm!

Frustated, I headed back to Hostel and sent some emails and tried to organise some things via Facebook. Then I explored the neighbourhood a little, then headed down to Central Park, armed with my notebook and ipod and did some writing by the lake. I have unfortunately come up with an awesome new writing project, which is more artistic and my last few (less Zombies, dinosaurs and time travel) so I made some dents in that. All will be revealed when I can be bothered, or when I almost certainly lose interest. But I digest. About my other projects.

On my way back, I dropped by the bar, to discover that they did in fact have my phone! It had turned up on one of the couches. After rattling off the first five or so names in the address book, they handed it back to me and I had dinner with some folks I had meet the night before, now in a considerably better mood.

Tomorrow, Statue of Liberty!

From the Streets of Sacramento

From the Streets of Sacramento.

By the way, the title of this post comes from a song by the band Cake, who are natives of Sacramento. You may know them by the song ‘Short Skirt, Long Jacket’. You may also not know them at all, by which case you are missing out and you should go and buy a Cake album right now.  Might I recommend Fashion Nugget?

Anyway, Sacramento, Capitol of California. Bet you didn’t know that, huh? I am a politics nerd, remember. Despite my repeated attempts to find the Governator here, I really couldn’t, although a mysterious muscled figure did save me and my ragtag band of misfits when we were fighting zombies. So maybe that was him. More on the Zombie outbreak of Sacramento in a moment.

I arrived at the hostel, and struggled to spot it at first, until I realised that the gorgeous old country mansion directly in front of me was the Hostel, easily the coolest building I have ever stayed in. After San Francisco, I was kind of drained and I knew I had a hell of a crazy week coming up when I got back in New York. So I spent a lot of time sitting in parks, in coffee shops, or just around the hostel, reading my books, writing my novel or just watching the mid-late 90’s sci-fi show Sliders, (which is pretty darn awesome by the way).

I did do some interesting things though!  I visited a gold rush museum (Sac’s a gold rush town), which put me in mind of Sovereign Hill, then spent a little bit of time in Old Sacramento, which is the historical part of town, which even more put me in mind of Sovereign Hill. Went to a couple of the Jazz Jubilee events that have been running about town (the free ones), caught up with my local friend Alicia for a while. Visited the Capitol Corridor, toured the Capitol building, had a few beers with some guys who had cycled up from San Francisco. Hung out in Old Sacramento for most of Memorial Day, while they had a festival and visited the free California War museum.  There I found out that the museum had a connection with Australian War Museums in that we sent many of our military history books to their fast growing library.

So, while I did a few things about the place, I spent much of my time simply doing nothing, a combination of recovery, resting up and the fact that I have had a minor cold while I was here.

It was nice. But hell, I am looking forward to going back to New York.