NYC Day Zero

Well, this was a long day. My plane left from Edmonton at 00:30 in the morning. I had a middle seat between two people, on the emergency exit row... which means that your seat doesn't recline. Somehow I actually managed to sleep a little bit, but not well.
I changed planes in Toronto, which was actually quite an efficient process as it turns out. In 45 minutes I was driven by bus from one terminal to another, picked up my bag, went through US customs, checked through security again, and made it to my gate 10 minutes before my plane was boarding. All at 6:00 am Toronto time. Better than I expected.

My plane arrived at Newark, NJ on time... I was a little worried about finding my way to my friend's place in Manhattan. But, not for long. There was a big ad for bus service to Grand Central (amongst other places) right by the baggage carosel. $14 US, not too bad. From Grand Central it was an easy hop on the 6 subway to 23rd st, then a short walk to my friend's place at 2nd ave & 24th st. I didn't even have to check a map the entire trip in. Actually, after I bought my metro card, I managed to help another tourist with the subway system map. Its fairly easy once you get it.

I arrived at my friend's place at about 10:30ish. Immediately I was being shoved out the door to go to central park to meet with a group of friends of hers. I was tired... but oh well. Central Park is quite awesome... I played frisbee in the big open grass area on the south side. I felt... like I was in NYC. We walked around the park a bit, then went home... I basically passed out for 3 hours sleeping after that, as I was quite tired.

Following that the evening consisted of a lot of beer drinking until 3:30 am... My reviews of the american craft beer consumed will appear in my next blog entry... for now, I sleep. I also met a friend of my friend's from Brooklyn, and she'll show me around there this week. Thats great, as otherwise I probably wouldn't even know what to do with myself in Brooklyn.

Cheers!