Day One, New York

I'm having an exciting and lucky voyage so far, and it seems that every bit of bad news is followed by great news.

Bad news: JFK airport is really, really far away.
Good news: We got the right subway; then I risked a bus in midtown Manhattan and it took us right near the hostel.

Bad news: The hostel room is kind of hot.
Good news: The windows open; even after getting upgraded from a 6-person to a 4-person room, in actually it got even better since our other bunkmates never showed and thus gave us a private room. Sweet!

Here are the bunkbeds with the two-inch mattresses. They're covered with plastic, which can be a little distracting with all the rustle, but I was so tired last night I could have slept anywhere. Travis is the shapeless lump on the second top bunk.


Larger view of the room. It has a mirror!











Bad news: We got really lost trying to find the MoMA.
Good news: We eventually found it; it was free Target night so we didn't pay anything; our ticket also gives us free admission to PS1.

Bad news: I got really hungry walking around the museum. Really hungry. Then we had to walk around forever to find a suitable eating place.
Good news: It was a fantastic eating place. I ordered the lasagna and it came in this cute little dish and had spinach pasta. I would have taken pictures of everything but it was fancier than we had expected and I believe photographing the food would have seemed out of place. Travis got the salmon, which was super tasty. We also got a side of onion rings, which looked like onion shoestrings but came with some very good garlicky sauce.

Bad news: We went way past our stop trying to find Sing Sing, a cleverly named karaoke bar.
Good news: We managed to find our way back without much hassle and rode in a brand new, state of the art subway car that had the stops listed electronically on a panel above the seats.

Also, we had a homeless person in the car.







Oh, look. Here's Travis and me enjoying a subway ride.







Zzzz, five minutes later. Travis can't be on a moving conveyance for any length of time without falling asleep.





Bad news: We had a complicated time finding the karaoke bar.
Good news: I got to see Meredith for the first time in two years, and there was some crazy girl who was bankrupting herself with many, many karaoke songs. She was sort of impressive, though, since she wasn't content with just singing the words and would vocalize the intro and synth parts as well. I bet she was a professional.

Bad news: We left the bar.
Good news: We went to an automat! Because I am sheltered and know nothing of the world, I was like 'is this going to be some sort of laundry facility that has vending machines? Ew." Bamn! I was so wrong!

It was this neon pink room with no door that you could just walk into, not talk to anyone, and pick your food out of little glass windows. It was called Bamn!

So many options, so many fried foods.











I ordered a swirl cone in vanilla and green tea. Tasty, tasty.








Unfortunately for us, the fried macaroni and cheese was all sold out. It had to have been a popular choice.





Now, we're just relaxing in the Google lounge absorbing the free internet. I figure we'll go somewhere for breakfast-lunch and browse through the Fodor's guidebook that I had the good sense to bring along for what we're going to do this afternoon. I'm thinking the Forbes museum, since it has the original Monopoly set and a collection of over 10,000 toy soldiers or something. Oh, how exciting.