hello new york, you're spectacular. what else is new?

If I went into detail about every place/thing I’ve experienced in the two and a half days that I’ve been in New York, this would be an absurdly lengthy post, so I’ll refrain (but only slightly because this place deserves that much talk), but, let’s just say I had an amazing tour guide, who, consequently, happens to be a pretty baller hostess as well.

I flew into JFK Thursday night, mainly without a hitch… excluding the level orange ‘high risk of terrorist attack’ threat, getting threatened by TSA guards, and being accosted by an unregistered taxi driver… apparently, and it would have been nice to know this ahead of time, once you walk out of JFK from baggage claim, you should definitely proceed directly to the row of shiny yellow cabs and just pick one. You go to them, they should not approach you. However, in the event that you're an idiot, and there's a guy waiting by the door asking if you need a cab, and you say 'yes' (in my defense, I was just answering a simple question), you should not simply allow him to take your luggage as he tells you to follow him to his vehicle. Also, once you have seen said vehicle, and it's a silver jeep with tinted windows and not a yellow taxi, you should really just ask for your bags back. But, if you all of the sudden realize how stupid you are too little too late (ie. now that your bags are already in his trunk), I guess you should just do what I did... and ask to sit in the front seat. I figured if shit was going down, I'm stabbing the fucker in the leg, no question. But, like I said, nothing terrible happened, so crisis averted.

Friday, I got to explore all over God’s green earth on my own until about 2pm, so I was able to see the main parts of lower Manhattan, but the standout experience of the day was definitely the Bodies Exhibit… so.freaking.amazing. It’s basically a huge warehouse-turned-museum that houses large amounts of factoids about the human body, accompanied by a ton of cadavers and parts for effect. Useless information [+] kind of gross and gory exhibit [=] I’m enthralled for hours (where else would I learn the fact that there’s a tiny bone in the face that is connected to every single other bone on the skull?).

Some other noteworthy events of Friday:

- exploring Soho, Wall Street, and the seaport

- taking the subway for the first time, but second time because I suck at life (got a MetroCard single use pass, accidentally turned the bar the wrong way, and subsequently got locked out. second time around was more successful.)

- dinner at the Yale Club
- faceplanting at the Yale Club. three times. no need to go into detail.
- first legit taxi ride, complete with nonstop horn honking

So I’m about to sound like a complete nerd for the remainder of this post, but I’m not really worried about it, so I guess people are just going to have to deal. The morning consisted of roaming through a bookstore, or, rather, THE bookstore, because Strand is world renowned… if you’ve been in, you understand why; followed by a visit to the Union Square Market, where the greatest blueberry and ginger jam in existence is sold. Seriously.
Anywho, I’m kind of an art history/architecture dork (and if you didn’t know that about me, then you definitely don’t know me well enough to be reading this, haha), so, in a nutshell, Guggenheim, The Met, time square/Time Warner Center, Columbus Circle… obviously, I found Saturday to be ridiculously wondrous.
We wrapped up the day with dinner at Katz’s Deli (it’s where Harry met Sally), because living in the lower east side means you can walk anywhere. Heavy-ass dinner, followed by the Best Brunch in New York (Sarabeth’s) means I left New York never wanting to eat another thing again in my life. I love New York… but not enough to own that lame-o t-shirt.
Onward to Halifax!