I have to change hostels today as the one I’m in is full up and I couldn’t extend my stay. I had already made contingencies for this and had booked two nights at Jazz on the City which is only eight blocks up the street.
I got there easily and dropped off my bags so I could travel light – sorry that should be travel – lite. (Yes I am taking the piss.) Check-in time wasn’t until 15:00 and I wasn’t going to waste my day waiting around, so I completed all the check-in formalities and headed downtown.
I tried the Museum of Modern Art again as Fridays it has free admission. This was another major mistake as the people joining the queue – like me – were being told there was a two to three hour wait for admission. OK, I will try again later. In the meantime I headed up the street for the Rockefeller Center.
Having got there I thought I would do “The Top of the Rock” as the trip to the observation deck is called. I remembered that my “Smartsave Map” I had picked up from the hostel entitled me to a 20% discount – so I used it.
There is a little introductory film before taking the elevator (told you I’m learning the language) up to the observation deck. The lift is quite fun because the ceiling is actually clear, but when one gets into it the lights are on and it looks opaque. When the lift starts its ascent the lights in the ceiling go off – there are lights in the walls so it isn’t completely dark – and one can see all the way up the lift shaft – which has lovely electric blue lights all the way up it at every floor. The effect is quite stunning as one shoots up this shaft past all these lights towards the red ones at the very top.
The observation deck itself is actually on three levels and all of them are exposed to the elements – wish I’d brought my gloves with me! The views are awesome, and Central Park in all its fall glory looked rather superb – I have included a picture of it.
Having wandered around every level several times and got my hands very cold, I returned to the shelter of the lower level and looked at the crystal displays they have there. They were done by the same people who fashioned the huge chandelier in the main entrance way – that is something to see in itself. I haven’t included a photo of it because I could not get a good enough angle on it to do it justice or to encompass enough of it to give a proper impression of just how huge it is – about six metres in length!
After getting to the top of the rock and back down again I decided to check on the state of admission to MOMA. It was the same so I headed out down Sixth Avenue. Boy, have I made a mistake. Today, being the day after Thanksgiving is the traditional day of shopping. The streets were crammed with people going in every direction. The queue for Radio City tailed round the corner and half-way up West 58th Street! As I fought my way down the road – actually that is a little misleading as I didn’t fight. I found the easy way to cross streets – just stand behind some big fat lump heading in the same direction and follow in their wake! If one could slow down enough to match the forward speed of the waddling lard bucket then it was pretty plain sailing. (How many metaphors would you like mixed people?)
As it was cold and I had ingested a few coffees during the morning I was in need of a pee. (The reason I give this much information is that “rest rooms”, as toilets are called here, are not easy to find unless one wants to buy something and public ones are like rocking horse poo.) I did however have a brainwave, especially as it came into view in all its bedecked humbug glory – I would go into Macys. Being a large department store (I’m sure everyone’s heard of them) they would be bound to have some.
If I believed in the children’s stories of going to heaven or hell after death then this would be my hell! Total purgatory! The place was full of brainless morons just wandering about like friendly fire rockets with no guidance systems! It was packed out and must have violated the fire and safety regulations of even the Indians flocking to the Ganges. It was a lesson in the insanity of sad people dangled the carrot of saving an American Dream on something already stupidly overpriced and then reduced to a semi-sensible price – a study in gullibility if ever there was one.
Anyway I managed to fight (almost literally) my way to the seventh floor, by use of the escalators, in order to reach “the men’s room” – for which I had to queue! The “women’s rooms” queues were the cause of several blockages in aisles.
On my egress I then had to face the daunting task of trying to get out of this melee. I stopped on level five and got some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream because; it is nice, and I could sit down and eat it. This was a great spot for some people watching. I watched gaggles of females struggling through the crowd with bags bulging from their sides. I saw a similar number with bulging sides and bags in their hands. I saw vain idiot males checking their reflection in every reflective surface (most of these seemed to be Latinos – I don’t know why) to make sure they still looked like well groomed pimps or homosexuals “on the pull”. If one can bastardise a Sherlock Holmes story title – A Study in Vacuous!
Having finished my ice cream I bit the bullet (obviously not literally as I would have used the bullet to slaughter as many people as I could with one shot) and headed for the exit. I didn’t even attempt the elevators – there were four of them and a large queue of bag laden cattle in front of each – I stuck with the escalators as these at least moved. As I approached the ground floor I wish in hindsight that I had taken a photograph of the crowd below. I have to complement the staff on their crowd control methods – I would have resorted to tear gas and live ammunition long ago – which were very good. The centre aisle was for incoming only and they had set up a set of barriers to channel people onto escalators. The side aisles were for exit only. Like a trapped wild animal sensing freedom I made for the exit!
As Macys is situated at the junction of Broadway and Sixth I thought I would head up Broadway to Times Square – in for a cent in for a thousand dollars – and get a Subway back to freedom, well the hostel at least. As I was hungry now I decided to go into Planet Hollywood on Times Square. I hadn’t been in one of these places before so I thought I would have a look. It was full of movie memorabilia, some of which actually interested me. The other thing I found wonderful about it was that it was only half full and I had plenty of room to move about and getting a table to myself with no one (or no two hundred) to crowd me was a wonderful bonus. I ate well and emerged full and ready for a sit down.
I got to the hostel and checked in. My first impressions were unimpressive as I was on the fourth floor and had to heft my luggage up some steep and narrow stairs (no lift in this place). I got to my dorm and had further suspicions. It was a twelve bedded dorm with “en suite” which may sound good on paper but is shite in practice, especially in this case. The “en suite” consisted of one toilet and one bath/shower in the same room. This was fine whilst no one else was around but I wondered what it might be like when the place was full up.
I stowed my stuff, made up my bed, had a shower (no hot water) and went up to the lounge. My misgivings about this place got another boost when I saw the lounge. It contained four PCs on desks, for Internet access, a large plasma screen TV on the wall, about four bar tables and if ten people were in it it was full – there were and it was! Thoughts of sitting down and reading my book went straight out of the window as the TV was on, the PCs were in use (all of them) people were sitting about talking (loudly because they had to overcome the drivel from the TV) and all the chairs were taken. I surveyed the scene, executed a perfect U turn and returned to my dorm. I lay on my bed and listened to some sounds until I dropped off.
I was awoken a few hours later by the arrival of two couples jabbering in Spanish and crashing about with their luggage. Oh double bugger, it is a mixed dorm. This in itself doesn’t bother me at all, it was the thought of one bathroom and women taking three times as long as even the most effeminate ponce bloke in the bathroom.
I decided not to worry about it, got undressed and into bed properly and went to sleep.
I was awoken about 2:30 by a bunch of drunken Dutchmen who proceeded to stagger about, laugh, giggle and talk in loud voices. They eventually settled down after a while.
I was awoken at 4:00 by the Spanish speaking couples who came in speaking Spanish – loudly – and then proceeded to go through all their bags and then spend about half an hour wishing each other good night. I was just beginning to give serious thought as to how I might murder them all silently when they got to sleep (I had two pillows and I could probably use my belt as a garrotte – the blade on my multi-tool was long enough to sever a major artery but that would be messy – but the wire on one of my chargers would probably be better as it was much thinner and made of copper wire...) but they did eventually settle down and I fell asleep again before I could become a murderer.
We shall see what the morning brings – well later on this morning...
No comments:
Post a Comment