Reestablishing contact June 16, 2008
Posted by faranaaz in Cities, Travel.Tags: Conan O'Brien show, Forever the Sickest Kids, Met, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
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Yo yo yo everybody! Been out of touch for the past three days or so. My apologies. But if Walt Disney World wants to charge people $10 a day for internet, I say they’re barking.
Parker and I are in Florida, doing a bit of an amusement park tour. Hmmm… What to say about it. Well, probably not much. I don’t think I can blog on it all at once. But our overall impression is that it is very much hyped and slightly overrated. Sorry to burst everyone’s bubble. WDW has a lot of good points but it just doesn’t stand up to the weight of expectations. Anyway. Update.
So, we spent that second day in New York since I last posted wandering around the Met in the morning. Very good, very cool, very big and also, very, very, very confusing layout. That place is like a rabbit warren. There are no straight lines to everything. You go into one exhibit and you have to walk all the way back to the entrance in order to make your way to another exhibit. But anyway, nitpicking aside. Here are some pics.
The first exhibit we went to was called Superheroes, Fashion and Fantasy and it was awesome! They don’t allow photography in any of the special exhibits so I don’t have anything to show you except this pic I got off the internet. Also, here is a New York Times review of it just to titillate. Basically it was about how superheroes and comic books reflect society and culture and how many of the motifs involved in superhero costumes have been coopted by famous fashion designers of the world. Very cool. I thought the fashion items were very way out but aren’t those runway items always that way? But – but! We did get to see the original superhero costumes from the movies
- Batman’s new costume from The Dark Knight Returns
- Catwoman’s costume from Batman Returns
- The second (silver) Iron Man costume from Iron Man
- Spiderman and Venom’s costumes from Spiderman 3
- Superman’s costume from one of the original Superman movies
Tres cool! Sameer and I really dug it. Also, the text and stuff they used to explain the links between the various costumes and fashion items were very much related to the issues discussed in one of the seminars we attended at the Comic Con. Yes, we are such geeks.
Other exhibits we liked were:
an exhibit on armour and weapons through the ages
more Impressionist art (Anybody recognize this bloke?)
brilliant view of Central Park and the city skyline from the rooftop terrace
and some metal sculptures of plastic things done by some dude who specializes in that
After that we stopped for lunch and then puttered around window shopping and basically killing time until we had to go in for the Conan O’ Brien show.
Oh, I may have forgotten to mention that we got tickets for that eventually. Cool show. Conan is soooo funny. The guests were Randy Jackman from American Idols and America’s Best Dance Crew, some chick from the Prestige and a new stage play and a band that I’d never heard of but really quite liked called Forever the Sickest Kids. Later that evening we bumped into the drummer from Forever the Sickest kids in Times Square and that was an odd co-incidence. I probably wouldn’t have recognized him if it wasn’t for the crazy hair which all the guys in the band seem to have. But crazy hair aside, they were pretty good, and are worth a listen.
Funny incident at the beginning of the show before Conan did his intro — one of the members of the house band (The Max Weinberg 7) kept blowing on his trumpet during the intro and would not stop. Everyone started scratching their heads after one minute but after three the producers and such started throwing hissy fits. There was a general feeling of irritation among the crew after that I think. Oddest thing about being at the Conan O’Brien show is realizing exactly how many people are on the crew, helping to shoot the show — 17 during one count, and on that tiny stage! You would never know.
Oh, and you know how they always tell you that it’s cold in the studio when they shoot the show? Totally untrue. I was there in a thin t-shirt and cotton pants and I was just fine – me, the Woman of Many Layers.
Anyhoo. After that we puttered around some more and then we hooked up with Sameer’s friends from Koeberg, Natalie and Martin. They are in the States doing a short course at MIT and came to New York for the weekend. So we hooked up and had dinner together, which was great because we hadn’t seen each other in months and months and we got to catch up with some fellow South Africans and reminisce about things we miss from Cape Town, compare notes on things we like about the US, and assimilate the latest office gossip from Koeberg. We ended up staying in the city ’til quite late but made our train comfortably and, after packing, got to bed close to 1am which gave us about four hours of sleep before we had to do the whole taxi/train/plane/bus scenario for the next leg of our trip. It actually went a lot better than we thought it would and though we were a bit bleary eyed the next morning, we were both glad that we’d got to spend the evening with some friends from home.
Next time on The Adventures of Team Parker
- what Disney’s got going for it
- how Universal compares
- dolphin porn and Shamu’s rocks at Sea World
NYC again June 11, 2008
Posted by faranaaz in Cities, Sightseeing.Tags: Bryant Park, Central Park, cupcakes, New York City, Times Square
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We’re back in New York after leaving our semi-permanent home in Chicago. That in itself was such huge drama because we had loads of packing to do (ohmygod we have way too much shit!) and also cleaning and cleaning and more cleaning.
Anyway, so we got up at 5am this morning, washed, brushed and did some last minute packing/cleaning of all the things/areas we were still using. Then taxi to Washington/Wells and then a train to Midway Airport. We arrived late, checked in late, and so they couldn’t guarantee that our bags would get on the plane. By the time we got to the boarding gates, the attendants were making a last call for us. As we were the last two people on the plane, we had to sit in separate rows. When we landed on the other side, we got our overnight bag but found that the other one would only arrive four hours later. So we decided to leave it with the airline and collect it on Friday when we go back to the airport. Then a bus drive to Ronkonkoma station and a 90 minute train ride to Penn Station in NYC. This part was alright thanks to our travel Scrabble but when we got there we found out — here comes the horrific part — that somehow we’d managed to book the wrong hotel.
It’s complicated. (Same chain, same name, same general area, big difference.) The hotel we wanted to book is just off Manhattan Island, in Brooklyn, a few blocks from a subway station. The hotel we got is in Queens, 40 minutes away by an overland train which only runs once per hour. Drama!
So okay after initial dismay, panic, anger, irritation and all sorts of scary feelings we realize, okay no problem this is travelling on the fly or at least, on the cheap, roll with the punches and wotnot.
What can we learn from this experience? Double check your locations and when you print out that little confirmation slip, don’t just file it away until you need to check in. Actually check the address and check where it is on your Google map!
Lesson two: Call the hotel before you leave the airport to find out the best way to get there. Because we’d assumed that it was on the subway line and so accessible from anywhere in Manhattan, we didn’t do this. Instead we got a train all the way to Penn Station, then had to wait an hour to get the exact same train back to a stop half way to where we’d come from!
Sameer says we should call this blog “Nightmare in New York” but actually it was not that bad. Once we checked in, and found that it wasn’t too far from the train station (albeit in a slightly dodge area), and that the room was clean and comfy we started to chill.
So we caught another train back to Penn Station (in case you missed it, this was our third trip on the same line for the day) and eventually, at around 4pm in the afternoon, got to start wandering around. It was too late to go to the Met or the MoMa so we went to — where else — Crumbs and Bryant Park. (Oh, did I mention this was the first thing we ate all day?)
In case you weren’t lus enough the last time we went, here are some new pics that I took with the camera Sameer got me for my birthday.
Too many pictures of cupcakes you say? Forsooth! In the words of Samberg and Parnell, they’ve got “all the bomb frosting” and “we love these cupcakes like McAdams loves Gosling”. 
These were soooooo good! Sameer had the Devil Dog and I had the Blueberry Swirl. Hmmm… I need to experiment when I get back to SA. I love the way the blueberry preserve center goes all the way down to the bottom of the cupcake. Oooohhhh!!!
We took them to Bryant Park and ate them slowly. Then we felt sick. Then we went to go lie down on the grass. It was warmer than the last time we were there so there were a lot more people around just chilling, lying around, listening to music or reading or sunbathing.
We stayed there for a really long time, just lying on the grass, talking, and taking arb pictures with our new toy.
And then we went to Central Park coz we liked that a lot the last time too!
And then — where else when the sun goes down? — Times Square.
And then we had to haul ass again to get back to the train station (again). But it was alright and now we’re ensconced in our room and we have free internet and I’m blogging and checking out all of my pictures from the day and generally feeling good. Now for a hot shower. Bliss.
