Amtrakification (part 2)

Bundled off to the "premium" waiting area to wait out the flood in the proletariat bleachers, Bryce and I settled in to wait for The Train That Might Stop. I checked a few times with the customer service desk, both times getting varying degrees of, "Sure, it'll stop here. I mean, it has passengers right? It's not like the conductor can just kill those folks and dump the bodies! Har har!"

Then the announcement came - our train's arrival was imminent! We should stand by for boarding instructions. A few minutes passed. We basked in the warm glow - we were going to make it, only 4 hours late. We picked up our bags and stood in the waiting area. Then the announcement came - final boarding call on platform snorflegarb! How long had it been? Was there a non-final boarding call? What platform was the train on? It didn't show up on the monitors. We rushed out.

I looked at Bryce. Bryce look at me. "What platform did she say?" I said, eyes wide. "Fifteen!", he replied. "Are you sure?!" "Yeah! I think..." It had fallen out of my mind completely. Rushing frantically to the station common area, we looked for our platform. The stairs to platform 15 were a quarter-mile away and protected by barbed wire and angry badgers. Cutting our way through the wire, booting aside the badgers, we galumphed down the stairs with our (my) enormous suitcases (actually just mine; Bryce had packed sensibly) in tow.

The platform was empty. Oh no.

We galumphed back up the stairs, straining our collective back and blood pressure. We bolted back to the central room. Magically, the room had transformed into an older, more primitive place. All the landmarks were different, and the signs indicated that we were far from Amtrak Central. Damn those deceptive badgers, we had made a wrong turn! With sinking hopes, we dashed back to the great room. Feebly, we tried two more platforms. One was a train being refilled with $5 bottled water by a crew that didn't speak English, but knew enough to inform us that this train was "finish". The other was platform 12, across from which we watched our train, on platform 13, leaving without us.

We held our heads and cried. Well, ok, only I cried, but mostly from all that exercise I wasn't used to getting. Bryce held his head; we slouched back to the premium waiting area. I went back through the Amtrak line to exchange our tickets for the 3 AM train, moments before they closed the ticket counter for the evening. Even the hardened Amtrak crew felt my pain and gave me many helpful tips for not missing the next train. ("Be in the great room when they announce your train! You'd better not be here when I get in for the morning shift!")

For the next few hours, I played online poker and fretted while Bryce slept. Was my enormous suitcase too big for the train? The signs regarding carry-on baggage placed around the station were severe and non-compromising. I began to picture a scenario of being permitted on the train, but denied my only luggage. It was possible, likely, in fact - at least, the scenario matched the rest of our evening. I started to plot an escape, even going so far as to buy two online tickets on a 7 AM Chinatown bus. Several hours later, it occurred to me to ask customer service; they said that the 3 AM train was rarely if ever full, and that big bags would not be a problem.

And then, a miracle happened.



The 3 AM train was on time! This time, we took no chances. We scouted out all alternate paths to every available station platform, identifying both escalators and back-up stairs. Bryce spotted a group of old people to push in front of, and I bribed the hookers and junkies to distract the cleaning crew to give us a few more precious minutes to board. We loaded up on provisions at the Penn Station Corner Store. And then, it happened - the train arrived.

Down we raced to the platform! Bam, onto a nearly empty car. Slip, went our baggages into the oversized carry-on bins. Crash, went both Bryce and I, onto the not-quite-bed-length Amtrak seats, where we spent the next 4.5 hours, almost-but-not-quite-sleeping. Clackety-clack, and we were on our way to Boston. 12 hours late, at the speed of a bus for 4 times the price and 1/4 the reliability. But, damnit - we rode the wide-open rails! Surely that counts for something...

Amtrakification (part 1)

Having never had the pleasure of riding the wide-open rails across the lovely United States, Bryce and I thought it would be lovely to experience the thrill of a train journey. We eagerly booked our tickets (in fact, we both bought a set and had to cancel one later) and waited for the day to arrive.

After a lovely day of distraction at the Museum of Modern Art, we suddenly realized that the time for our departure was drawing near. Hurriedly, we scrambled back to the hotel amid the heaviest subway traffic we'd seen to that point, retrieved our baggages and our laptopses, and ran to the 1 train, en route to Penn Station. We buffeted complete strangers with our larger-than-average luggage, and then we were off, booking up the ramp to the underbelly of Madison Square Garden, where Penn Station resides.

Signage was oddly missing, but we found our way to the Amtrak kiosk and printed off our tickets. Whew, no sweat. We found our train on the departure board and hung out, waiting to board. Then, we checked the board again - nothing. Our oversized luggage began to call to us, and we knew that we'd need to check it soon to have any chance of making the train. Approaching the baggage check counter, we learned two important facts: our regional train to Boston was not in possession of a baggage car, and it was 4 hours late. The kindly baggage handler informed us that we could leave our bags with him, so we did, and went to eat lunch.

After dinner, we came back to check on the status of our train. Customer service informed us that everyone else scheduled for that train had been bumped to an alternate train some five minutes after we went to lunch, and that baggage handling had led us astray. Swearing at the god of train schedules, we investigated alternatives. At first, it seemed possible that we could take the 7:00 PM. Yay! A 20-minute wait in line yielded the information that this train was full, and our next option was either the 3 AM red-eye, or our long-delayed train that might or might not make a stop in Penn Station, and, following that, might or might not take on passengers and might or might not continue through to Boston. Armed with this uncertainty, we camped for awhile longer. During that time, water poured through the ceiling of the waiting area, and we were forced to evacuate to another part of the station.

But the fun was just beginning...

New York City: Day's Three & Four

While I would love to start off this post with a picture, my laptop has broken, and may be lost to us forever, thus I will direct you to my Flickr page were you can see all the NY pics we've taken so far (barring today, as today is the occurrence of the tragedy of coming back to the hotel to a broken laptop). The URL is http://www.flickr.com/bcrawfo and it should show you everything you need to see.

So today we went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island! Woo! We started of the morning by wandering around Battery Park looking for something resembling anything and were sorely disappointed. After much wandering and asking around, we came upon Castle Clinton, an old fort built on the coast to protect the New York harbor around the time of the War of 1812. There was one little kiosk in the fort's courtyard, and a line of 500 people waiting to get tickets, one. ticket. at. a. time. So needless to say that blew. Well, much relieved were we to leave that line and find that the line for people who actually have tickets started at the docks, wound through Battery Park, around the backside, around two statues, three street vendors, a guy playing the steel drum, a guy playing a violin, two cop cars, and an ambulance before finally reaching the end of the eponymous Mother of All Lines (to reach, as Ethan put it, The Mother of Us All - the Statue of Liberty. Quite poetic fellow).

Well, needless to say, we made it onto the boat, went over to Liberty Island, and walked around looking up and listening to the audio tour (which we both agreed to each other, on quite a consistent basis, that we could not possibly hear each other because of) and took pictures from the ground, because we weren't allowed to go up, reason unknown. Very cool, and good to see.

Then we ferried over to Ellis Island which is also very cool. We took pictures of the metal slab that has my grandfather's name etched on it, and toured the whole building, and read a bunch of very interesting facts, and saw so many pictures, and artifacts, and all kinds of stuff. There's the Registry Hall, which was the main deal where people were registered and inspected for noxious and unclean diseases (something Ethan kept insisting either I or [my] mom had - actually he just kept saying your mom all day, which is all Heather's fault because her comment is the funniest damn thing ever) and was basically intact, with just minor restoration and some cleaning. Very cool again.

From there we walked around Wall St., saw the NYSE, Federal Hall (first Capitol of the US), went into the Trump Building for two seconds, saw the JP Morgan building which he deliberately built four stories tall, though he knew he could build bigger, just didn't need to (or was feeling snooty about it or something :)). Then we subwayed into Little Italy which actually was very Italian all over, though it neighbors Little China, and that one's starting to take over. But Little Italy perseveres. Apparently the heart of LI is Mulberry St., so we found a nice looking restaurant on Mulberry and I regaled Ethan with tales of how my paisons were going to take care of him during dinner and he should just fuggetaboutit. He had no idea of my connections.

And lastly, we subwayed over to the West Village, which is West of Greenwich Village, and went to a jazz bar a nice guy at the restaurant had been telling us about. We ended up playing chess, drinking a couple beers, and jamming to some really fun live jazz music. Let the record show, that I vanquished Ethan in chess by a record of 3-2-1, the 1 being a tie. Basically I'm the best chess player alive.

New York City: Day One's and Two

Dinner at WD~50 was very inspired, tasty, original, and fun. We did the sampler menu and wine pairing which ended up being 12 courses, and I think 10 different wines (and the best sake Ethan had ever had). We went a little nuts on the way home and went into a 'closed' park, but it had the view of the century, a sort of courtyard view of these huge skyscrapers with the Chrysler building in the distance. We saw the Empire State Building on the flight in, but haven't been up it yet, and that night we ate at Big Nick's Burger Joint and Pizza Joint, which was a lot of fun. How we ate there after eating dinner an hour and a half before can only be explained by a tough, never-say-full willpower, and the fact we walked two miles after taking the wrong subway, ending up in Harlem (which was cool because we randomly found the Apollo Theater) and subwaying back the way we came.

Today we spend all day at the American Museum of Natural History and I saw so much stuff it's hard to recount it here, but we'll post more pics later. We're going to go and catch dinner and do Phantom of the Opera baby! :) More later.

Note: The top picture is Ethan meditating on the meaning of 60,000 year-old bison, and the second is one of our entrees: the pizza balls. They were awesome! :) Like liquid powder, with some kind of sauce keeping them together, and dried Shitake mushrooms to boot.

Dribble on a Landmark: The Cage

In a little place called Sapokanikan by 16th century Native Americans (and called "The Independent Republic of Greenwich Village" by Marcel Duchamp) lies the heart of bohemian culture, fresh-from-the-market thinking, new and improved ideas, coffee & tea houses, independent record shops, and big beefy (and sweaty) guys banging boards, draining treys, and muscling down low in the post. That's right people - it's basketball time! The West 4th Street Court, or "The Cage", is the center of street-basketball in New York City, and also caters to a yoga class serving the physically disabled*.

Many famous NBA ballers have come from the rough and tumble** asphalt of The Cage to make their mark: Dr. J, Jayson Williams, and Anthony Mason! This dude used to scare the hell out of me and everyone within fifteen feet when I was kid!

*Lie

** Due to the court's smaller dimensions,
a more physical style of play has developed,
perhaps leading to the reason I still can't
sleep at night...

Eat a Landmark: Katz's Deli

Katz's is a spot that must be visited. Besides putting me in touch with my somewhere-in-there Jewish roots*, being featured in the classic man action flick When Harry Met Sally, and serving over 2,000 pounds of salami and 12,000 hot dogs per week, they also apparently make a killer pastrami sandwich, a beatiful creation I plan on clogging my arteries with for four straight days. They are also patriotism incarnate - back when being a white, American wasn't just cool, it was the law (WWII) Katz's Deli was urging on sales with the ever evocative and catchy slogan "send a salami to your boy in the army" and boy did they ever.


*Hungary's got Jews right?

The Countdown Begins

Colorado Springs/Seattle - Here we are: the beginning of a wonderful journey, full of grand sights, delicious tastes, train rides, plane rides, back sides and, of course, hookers & blow, all detailed in full 1080i HD* on the funniest, smartest, truthiest, available-anywhere-good-shit-is-sold, blog in your face: For Serious.

Our dateline is our location, and our location is changing in 10 days, 13 hours, 55 minutes and 57 seconds and I (for one) hope you're ready.

We'll be coming to you daily** with new updates, pictures, videos, and hard-hitting analysis of our vacation to Gotham and Bean Town and we hope you enjoy the ride as much as we'll enjoy bringing it to you.



*Where available
**Assuming we're conscious enough to post