Welcome to New York

So I don't know when it will hit me. It might take a few days or weeks, or maybe it never will, but I am now living in New York City. Yesterday on my 45 minute flight I thought a little bit about how bright eyed and bushy tailed my blog post was and about the fact that I'll probably be hit by a wall of cynicism soon.

Actually, after starting to explore the city, it's hard not to get a kick out of the fact that few to no people say sorry or excuse me or thanks, and it's funny when people give you weird looks when you do say those words. It's not like New York is going to be able to turn me into a jerk. Fuggettaboutit.

So what did I do yesterday? Well, I got into the apartment around 1:30 or so and my roommate and fellow daaper Dan let me in. After unpacking a bit, he and I headed out to explore. We went down to find my office at the end of the Brooklyn Bridge. We took the G to the A and eventually we found it in this really sweet little area. Some of the streets are cobblestone and there are old rail tracks laid into the pavement. The buildings are ornate beautiful old offices and warehouses. It's very Newsies.

Here's the view from right in front of where I work. On the right is the building I'll work in, and at the end of the street you can see the Manhattan Bridge rising above the river. Sweetness. The whole place seems a little quieter, a little more peaceful.


After we found the office, we decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. We're right here, why not? Even though it's Winter, there were still a lot of people on the bridge. I was stopped to take a picture for a foreign couple. The bridge is pretty massive and cool. Good work, John A. Roebling.


When we got to the other end of the bridge, we decided to head Northeast-ish into Chinatown. Inside Chinatown, there were a lot of great smells and a lot of women walking amond the crowds carrying non-descript bags saying "DVD's, DVD's." I enjoyed that, but didn't really need to take a chance on a copy of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button that may or may not work when I put it in my DVD player at home.

From there, Dan and I actually kept walking North...and walked....and walked. We grabbed some roasted nuts from a street vendor for some warmth and sustenance and then kept walking. Eventually we found ourselves in Madison Square Park, back at Dan's Pentagram Office. From there, we trekked over to Penn Station and Madison Square Garden for a quick bathroom break where I was stoked to find a PNC Bank! Good work Pittsburgh National Credit.

Soon, it was time to meet Kristen and Dan Dake for dinner at the Thai restaurant, so we walked back south a few blocks along 7th. All in all, we ended up walking nearly non-stop from my office to the Restaurant for four hours. When we got to the place, we started to feel the burn, so needless to say, we sat in the restaurant for probably two hours or so.

After a wonderful dinner and the joy of seeing Dan Dake for the first time in six months, Dan B. and I took the 1 to the beautiful L train back into Brooklyn. Once home, we played a little classic Nintendo and tried to watch National Treasure 2, but pretty soon we crashed.

It was a solid day.

Today, I'm hoping to explore more and snag tickets to a show. 13 would be great of course, but I'd really see anything. It's time to start my day.

In the immortal words of Annie Warbucks, "I think I'm gonna like it here."