Blog 38 - New York City

America is not my favorite country in the world. It's not because of the people or the waves, it's because of it's airlines and then especially American Airlines. If you ever have a choice of flying with AA or another airline: get the other one!!

When I arrived in New York… yes there it is, or there it wasn't… no board bag… again.. I paid 100 USD to get my boards on the plane to find out that they weren't on the same flight as I… nearly getting used to it… the good thing was: I didn't have to carry my boards around… the bad thing: they couldn't trace them… yet…

So I took the 'shared van' to my hostel and that was all good. I checked in, went to the supermarket to get myself some dinner (cereal, milk and fruit), checked the internet and went to bed… not too exciting for a first night @ NYC, but I was really tired. Hardly slept my last night in CA… packing, early flight, etc…

Friday I slept in till late! When I finally woke up I took my time for breakfast and I went for a 4 hour walk in the city. It started raining after 2 hours, but it was not too bad. It was nice to just walk around, breathing in all the new input. That night I actually slept really bad. There were 14 girls in my dorm and the light didn't get turned off before 2 am. Every hour there were some people returning from a (drunk) night out in town, so that didn't help either :-(

One on my roomies, Nikki, wanted to go and see 'Chicago' the musical. She found out that you could get cheap/ rush tickets in the morning (first 25 tickets for 32 dollars), so that Saturday she and I got up early to stand in line for a ticket for the matinee show. There was a market going on on Broadway that day as well, so I checked that out, went back to the hostel, went for a run in Central Park, did some yoga, had a shower and went to see 'Chicago', which was pretty good. After the musical we got some food from the market and we tried to get rush tickets for 'wicked'(lottery system)… no luck… Relaxing night, early and good sleep :-)

Again a sleep in… went to check out Macy's: huge shop! And went to walk around in Soho, which was really nice: bought some shoes there! Was back @ hostel around 8 pm and had a chill evening on the couch (the couches there are awesome) watching a movie (Hitch) and having dinner.

The next day I took the (free) ferry (I love ferry's) to Staten Island… and back..a good way to see the Statue of Liberty and a really nice ride. In the afternoon I had a 3 hour walk in Central Park, which was nice: the sun was out and Central Park is huge, so you need some time to see it all. A couch potato again that night.

On Tuesday I went shopping (was about time). I finally found some jeans… tried many on and ended up at H&M… We're drowning in H&M's in Europe…

At night I went to East River Park, where there was going to be free theatre the next couple of nights. Tonight a company played an adaptation on Midsummer Night's Dream: Shakespeare, and it was amazing! The best Midsummer Night's Dream I've ever seen. Only 5 young actors (2 boys, 3 girls) and they sang, danced and played 'de sterren van de hemel' or 'the stars from the sky', as is the Dutch expression. After the play (I went to the play with Freddy, a man I met the night before), we had some falafel (dinner), which was great (a nice change from cereals) and we planned on going to the theatre again the next day. But before that I went to the museum: the MoMA: museum of Modernn Art, which was really really good! They have got so many famous painting, it's awesome! Hypes of Andy Warhol, Duchamp, Picasso, van Gogh, Mondriaan (or Mondrian), Matisse, Klimt, etc.. And they had an exposition about artists travelling to Amsterdam!!! So all of that took me about 4-5 hours and I went to another play afterwards… that was sooo bad, that we left after about 30 minutes.. We went to a friend of Freddy: Adam (and Stacey), to pick up Freddy's shoes and we hang around there for a while. Really nice people living in an awesome apartment with a view on the river… not too bad!

My last full day at NYC: I went to the police to report the loss of my IPod :-( Probably lost it or had it stolen in California… after that I took the metro to go to PS1: a museum in Queens (get in for free with a MoMA ticket). It was a museum full of contemporary art and it was really cool! After the museum I was really hungry, so I was going to buy myself some proper food… I deserved that… So I went into this nice café to get myself a sandwich: they had mozzarella - basil/pesto - tomato sandwiches: my favorite!! But… they didn't have mozzarella anymore :-( so I had to choose another one and then they offered me a free one as well :-) When I told them that was going to be the first proper meal I bought myself that week.. the guy put some really good pasta (with asparagus) in a carton and gave that to me as well… on the house: 'now that's a proper meal', he said… how sweet is that!!!

So of to the theatre again: the National Theatre of the USA… they made a play about the history of the USA and it was not too bad, but not amazing either… Freddy didn't show up that evening! The next day he arrived at the hostel 3 minutes before my pick up was there and he told me he fell asleep big time… After the theatre I was on a mission: Empire state building by night. So dude and I went up and took some really nice pic's. It was really pretty :-) and I was home around 1:30am….

My last day I didn't do much… packing and chilling @ Central Park. I was dropped of at the gate for American Airlines, 'cause I was going to pick up my surfboards…. But they weren't there… The lady told me they were in Dallas, Texas… of all places!! They were only allowed to keep bags at JFK for 5 days… and then they send them of to Texas… unlucky!!! Well, at least not to much to carry, but probably no surf in Iceland :-( I took the train to my own gate and I was perfectly on time with a 23.2 kg bag… not too bad (my skateboard wheels and trunks were in there)… of to the cold… Iceland here I come..