America day 6

Aunt Dee lives in an amazing home, in an amazing neighborhood and has an amazingly non creepy collection of plastic dolls and rabbits. We were advised to not drive into or near New York because of a snow dump from last night. Instead we took a very infrequent $15/person/way Bolt Bus from Cherry Hill New Jersey to the middle of Manhattan.

My first offical impression of New York was amazing. We hopped off the bus, half frozen from the -11 degrees F (C), and got screamed at by a construction worker flinging sand onto the pavements. We then ventured our way towards Bryant Park, where they had installed an ice skating rink and a lot of small shops and stalls. It was at this location that I finally lived out my dream of getting served a hotdog by a bored and aggressive vender. It was just like the movies; he lazily squirted on sauce and plopped on way too much relish.

We knew we only had 7 hours in New York until our next Bolt Bus, so we decided to tactically visit the rockerfeller building and see another ice skating rink and some famous tree. After that we sprinted our way to the broadway theatre via a pizza place. The show was called "a bronx tale" and it was amazing. If you're reading this, you'll know me well enough to know that I hate any form of artwork including plays. This was completely different, I loved it. The accents were really enticing and the story line was refreshingly different from a standard Disney plot line.

Time was running out so we decided to hustle our way to central park. It was beautiful. Really glad America hasn't sold all of it's soul for more apartment buildings. I'm going to try and attach a photo to this blog post, but in the likely event that I'll forget, just google "Central Park in winter". Same thing.

We were really pushed for time now so we decided to catch a subway to the 9/11 memorial center. It was exactly what I had expected. Filthy, poorly sign posted, and inefficient. It was quite amazing to see all the personalities in the New York subway, they had everything from uptight wealthy workers to downright crazy people. One black chick had dressed up as Santa Claus with a delicately written sign on her saying "Nigga Claus". She had a boom box too and was screaming to everyone "Nigga Claus is BACK! White Santa is dead!".

The 9/11 memorial had an atmosphere about it that was hard not to pick up. Even the light construction noise and cars tooting in the background didn't distract from the ambiance. Will have to go back to do the full tour when we get more time.