Goodbye New York

New York has pretty much been awesome. Blue cloudless skies and increasing warmer every day.
On Wednesday, Leigh and I took the subway to the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge and walked on the pedestrian path across to Manhattan, wound our way down to the South Street Seaport (think Chicago's Navy Pier), then took the subway up to try to get in to David Letterman's show. I had called earlier and been put on the standby list. The two people in front of us got in, but we didn't. We found out that a better way to score tickets is to show up at the box office in person on the day of the show to be put in to the "lottery". After perusing just a corner of Central Park, Leigh went to try to see a screening of the Sarah Marshall movie and I headed north on the subway to see if I could scalp a Yankees ticket. I had put an ad on craigslist for a bleacher ticket (face value $14), the cheapest, but got no response. So I figured I would just show up at game time and SURELY someone would have an extra. When I arrived, there were 125,000 people still trying to squeeze through the gates to get in. No one tried to sell me a ticket. I walked around to the main gate and still no one tried to sell me a ticket. I saw three people sitting on a ledge, a guy and a girl with Yankees jerseys and another guy a few feet away. They looked nice so I asked them if scalping was illegal and if there would be a way to get a ticket. They thought maybe I could buy a ticket from StubHub, so I tried but couldn't. So I meandered kinda back towards them and they told me not to give up, they'd find one for me. Soon there was a guy selling a ticket, but he wanted $50. I asked the nice people if they were going to the game and they said "not really". I must have looked confused. Then one of the guys says "I can probably get you in, come with me" (I followed, assuming he knew where to buy a ticket). Then he sticks out his hand and says "I'm Will, I'm an undercover cop". Dope! While ticketholders were still crowding to get through security, Will ushered me up to a lady with a badge guarding a ramp, spoke 2 seconds to her in Spanish, she moved the barrier and we entered the stadium in left field. Then Will led me to another lady with a badge to whom he spoke Spanish again, she looked at me, giggled, slapped him on the arm, and gave me a seat in a row of folding chairs, 8 rows up. The game turned out to be pretty eventful, final score 15-9 Yankees over the Red Sox, and I got to hear a lot of Manny Ramirez taunting. I sat next to a bunch of typical NY guys who made me eat peanuts and tried to buy me beer. Every time their team scored, the fans gave each other high fives. The (drunkish) guy in the row ahead liked to say "Give it to me baby red!" when he high fived me. They all talked to me (about Alaska and the Yankees) until about the sixth inning when they weren't sober anymore and entertained each other for the remainder of the game with dirty jokes about Jews, Italians, gay Irish dinosaurs, etc. The undercover cop guy came to check on me partway through the game and then I thought about leaving early (the game lasted over 4 hours) because I was kinda cold, but didn't want to run into him on the way out. So I stayed til the almost end. On the way back to Brooklyn, I made the mistake of looking at a map on the subway and soon had four different guys arguing amongst themselves about what route I should take. I kept trying to tell them that I had it and that THEY were the confused ones, they didn't listen. That is one example of helpful NYers, I have several. The moral of the story is that I went to the Yankees/Red Sox game for free while the other 54,667 people paid at least $50-75.
Thursday morning Leigh went to meet up with another friend and I headed to the city to sign up for Letterman. Put my name in for the show and they called 20 minutes later to say I gotten a ticket. I wasted some time by hopping on a bus to see more of the city, then had to return at 2 to pick up the ticket, then at 3:45 for the show. The show was just okay. I didn't get on TV and the coolest guest was Kelly Ripa. My favorite part was when the band messed up. I did a year's worth of clapping. I like Leno better, Letterman's gimmicks just aren't as funny to me. After the show, I met up with Leigh and went out for Ethiopian food, then walked a few miles towards the Empire State Building (blah), then met up with David O and some of his friends at a semi-lame bar. We stayed out late but didn't drink, since prices are ridiculous. $6 a beer?

Friday Leigh left and I took the subway to the Meatpacking district because I'd been told to go see something there on Friday, I just couldn't remember what I was supposed to see. Nothing much going on, so I took on a bus to the north end of Central Park and planned to do a lot of walking. However, it was pretty warm and I needed to save my feet for the Museum of Modern Art, which instead of $20, costs zero dollars on Fridays from 4-8. I know that I am not a big fan of museums, but always feel obligated to them once in awhile, as if its my moral patriotic duty. I thought, at least I like photography exhibits if nothing else. Well, obviously all tourists do indeed love museums or just feel guilted into going like me, since every one of them was there. Too many people, too much "You call that art? I could paint that with my toes" and a closed photography exhibit reminded me once again how disinterested I am in art. But I did make it to some of the famous works, took obligatory photos, then rested in the lounge and talked on the phone. Eventually it was time to meet up for dinner with David's friend Dave, whom I had met the previous evening at the bar. Dave and I ate Thai food and he made for good conversation (about Alaska and his desire to quit his NYU professor job and go travel) and for free dinner. After dinner I went to my first rave. A rave is, according to my imagination, a dance party with glowsticks, hypnotic techno music and perhaps a lot of Ecstasy pills. Held in Union Square, this "Silent Rave" was slightly difference. A silent rave, according to NYC, is when a ton of people get together to dance to their ipods. So thousands of people, ages 8-50, with headphones, dancing in (relative) silence for a couple of hours was my first rave. It was really fun. One guy had a pineapple with glowsticks sticking up from the top and every time he raised the pineapple, everyone cheered. I don't get it, but maybe that's the point.

Saturday, yesterday, I took the train to New Haven, Connecticut, to visit my college friend Danae who is recovering from surgery. What, in January, was supposed to be outpatient exploratory surgery of an ovarian mass turned into internal bleeding, emergency surgery number 2(they actually ran through storage areas with her on the gurney), 4 blood transfusions, the wound becoming severely infected, a third surgery, and overall a total of 18 nights in the hospital. Now its 3 months later and she is at home with an open wound the size of a baseball stuffed with gauze(better for healing from the inside out and preventing infection) and blisters and a rash from an allergic reaction to the vacuum pump that was sucking out tissue and fluids to aid the healing process. Her mom has been there for several weeks missing the birth of a grandchild and Layne, Danae's husband is exhausted. Layne is a PhD student at Yale and has also been going to Danae's "special-ed certification" classes and doing her homework, while waiting on her, helping her out of bed, helping her go the bathroom, etc and putting up with his mother-in-law. Danae needs to pass this semester because they need her income next year, so Layne is stressed ("I need a vacation" he says).

I trained it back to the city today, missed the Pope (who cares), and then did some more wandering/walking/sightseeing but I'm about NYCed out. I did about everything I wanted to do, although I'd like to bike around Central Park on another trip.

Tomorrow my flight leaves for KC at 4 pm, but Brandon has baseball games rescheduled from a rainout. So I called United to see if its possible to fly standby earlier in the day. It is, but the flights are all sold out. I am going to show up anyway and see if I can Amazing Race it to KC. I looked the flights up and the problem is Chicago to KC. There are flights every hour from NYC to Chicago and some have available seats, but the 3 flights out of Chicago tomorrow morning that I'd want are completely booked. My plan is to try for the earliest flight out of NY, at 6 am. Putting me in Chicago by 7:30 am, I will then have a chance at all three flights to KC. Its first come, first serve so I'm feeling a little overconfident at this point that I'll be able to get to KC early enough. Then I thought, hmmm, what happens to my bag that's checked on the 4 pm flight? I don't want to have to drive all the way out to the airport later to pick it up. Well, according to United, if I get confirmed on an earlier flight at least 45 minutes before that flight's departure, the ticket agent can (supposedly) have the bag transferred. Yeah right. So I'm going to repack, using my smaller daypack and perhaps a big plastic bag, and try to maximize my carryon allowance. That way, maybe I won't even need to retrieve my big pack from the airport, I can just grab it on the way to Alaska (via Florida) next week. Pretty genius if it works. And Amazing Racing it to LaGuardia should be fun...catching a couple of subways, then a bus should take awhile at 330 am, when service is minimal. I love adventures.

Other NYC observations.

1. People have been really nice, friendly, happy, etc. Saw a guy run ahead to open the door for a mom with a stroller, a guy giving up his seat on the subway to Leigh, a girl asking me where I got my pants because she liked them (my only pair of pants on this trip, I've been wearing them for at least a week straight, I bought them at a thrift store). Plus the undercover cop was nice, the Yankees fans, other strangers who have given directions, all of them nice.

2. Most New York guys are gay. Not just look gay or act gay. Are definitely gay. I hate skinny jeans! David O might be one of the manliest in NY, with his white man's fro, bandana, and facial hair.

3. There are lots of cops. Undercover cops. Dog cops. Cops on the corners, cops at the silent rave, cops in the subway stations, cops with megaphones directing subway users at the Yankees game. Cops, cops, cops.

4. Didn't see any celebrities other than David Letterman and Kelly Ripa, and they don't count. One of my goals was to spot a celebrity on the street but I decided to give up, since there are only a handful of celebs that I'd probably actually recognize in passing, the other 99% I wouldn't even know if they had their name tattooed on their forehead. I decided to look for rats instead, because you always hear about the rats in NY. I've only seen one, on the subway tracks.