Wednesday, May 7, 2008
I arrived at school just before six (in the morning!), which was extra early so that I could get a seat on the bus with my friends. Turns out the only people there were my friends.
We watched “Transformers” on the way there. When we got to the border, the tour guide paused the video… right when the subtitles said “sexual healing”. The border guards came on the bus to check our IDs and one of them commented on it, but other than that, we went through pretty quickly.
We stopped at a rest stop along the way. As we drove up, there was some Asian guy doing stretches and he looked pretty ridiculous. I bought Skittles. Desmund bought a blue energy drink and then poured Red Bull into it and it turned green. The pop vending machine was pretty high tech and awesome. There was a game with a tower of DVDs and you had to press a button at the right time so that your light would match up with the other light to win. Jesse spent a bunch of his money on it but didn’t win. And then we left.
Somewhere along the way, the tour guide was telling us about some mountain made of a type of rock called schist and told us a story about how a helicopter crashed into it and ended the story with “and that’s when the schist hit the fan”. So the whooole rest of the trip, people were making remarks like “holy schist!” and “you’re full of schist!” and, for the uncreative who just wanted to use it in a sentence even though there was no schist in sight, “look at all that schist!”.
We stopped at Times Square for dinner, but Jada, Zac, Jesse, Kyle, and Jon deserted Jen, Desmund, and I. We were able to follow Zac’s bright blue shirt for some time, but eventually lost them in the crowd. We decided we might as well just eat somewhere, since we weren’t going to be able to find them. And so, we broke the “no traveling with less than four people” rule as soon as we set foot in New York City. We stopped at a pizza place, and wouldn’t you know it, there was the rest of our group! I had a big slice of pizza and a coke. This is when it started, when I realized my mom was right and I should’ve brought my own food with me. It’s not that New York food is bad (after all, I wouldn’t really know), it’s just that I felt sick when I even started to think about eating anything. But I don’t eat much anyway, so it was no big deal. After that, we had time to stop in the MTV store, but soon had to meet back at the bus.
We then departed for Circle Line for our speedboat tour. Ends up we got their early rather than late (which is what they were counting on), so we ended up waiting around and sitting on the ground for an hour or so, debating whether Jada’s shirt was red or pink.
Then we got on the boat, The Beast. The boat tour guide informed us that it would be very windy and wet and if we turned our head the wrong way, our glasses could just fly off our face. And so I put my hat and camera and camcorder away and placed my hands firmly on both sides of my head so that if I couldn’t take pictures, I could at least still see — I wasn’t about to lose my eyesight on the first day in New York! Everyone else wearing glasses, however, did not heed this warning… and were absolutely fine. And so I hardly have any pictures or video of this event. We slowed down at the Statue of Liberty and luckily had a very nice sunset that day and were able to take some nice pictures.
Then we went back to the dock and they turned up some classic rock tunes on the boat and everyone sang along. One particular song sticks out in my mind and that is when they played Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman”. Everyone sings along, “Pretty woman, walking down the street
Pretty woman… uh la la la la…”
And I go “UUUUUUGH!”. People! It was hilarious and yet incredibly nauseating at the same time. Now okay, okay, I know the song was before their time, so I don’t expect everyone to know it. But if you’re gonna sing the song, you should at least know more than one line! Can that be a rule, please?
From this time on, the bus driver would occasionally play classic rock songs for us on the bus, depending on our mood. Most people would sing along (with the chorus or first line, I mean), but most of the time, people would yell at him to shut it off. They would also yell at the tour guide when he was telling us stuff. Sure, some of the stuff was boring, but it could’ve been exciting to someone else. Seriously.
We arrived at the hotel and I had a shower while the rest of my room went off to who-knows-where. I was told that they would be in the lobby, so I went out to the lobby to find my roommates but all I found were the teachers sitting at a table having a meeting. Uhh, whoops. I quickly walked to the end of the hall and promptly turned back around, not knowing which room they were in. Luckily I had thought at the last minute to bring my room key with me, because otherwise I would’ve had to ask the teachers to let me back in, and that would not have been fun.
Everyone eventually came back and we sat around, watched TV, went to sleep. Fun stuff. Jada set the alarm for 4:00 so that everyone would have time to get up and have a shower in the morning (we had five people in the room, unlike most others who only had four… long story). That was… fun. Not.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Had breakfast at the hotel. I was looking forward to this, because I was planning on having Fruit Loops. But this hotel, for some reason, didn’t have any. They also had this overly complicated contraption for dispensing cereal. I ask another girl if she knows how to work it, but she has no idea. I examine the machine and begin to understand it. I pull out the knob and… cereal pours out all over. “Durrr…” I push my bowl under the opening to catch the remaining bit of cereal. “Well… that was smart,” I remark. And wouldn’t you know it, it was crappy Cheerios! They were plain, not the Honey Nut kind! Uuugh! Apple juice was good though, so that continued to be a staple of the Jenny New York diet.
Off we went, to the Apple Store. There I used an iPhone to call home (for free, suh-weet!). It was a very confusing device, especially since it was attached to a set of headphones which did not appear to have anywhere to speak into. But it worked and I reminded my mom to tape the CBS Early Show, where we would hopefully be appearing in a few minutes.
We went upstairs and outside and stood around the taping area. Four or so news anchors came out with servants holding umbrellas and they shot what seemed to be a little opening tag. I couldn’t tell what they were saying at all. I’m told people could see my green hat on the monitors, and thus on the live broadcast. I later realized that one of the anchors was Julie Chen, host of “Big Brother”. The other female anchor taped another quick bit with some old ladies who were in the crowd, and one of the male news anchors taped something where he was talking to a guy in the crowd who apparently they were just talking about on the show, but neither of these occurred near me.
I’m told that sometime during all of this, Ivanka Trump walked by, but most people didn’t notice because everyone was occupied with keeping their spots. I think I might actually have unknowingly got her on tape, but I’m not sure. There’s a chick with long blonde hair and dark eye makeup, which I guess could be her.
Then they had us all move over behind this “Facing Hunger” set up with grocery carts and piles of canned goods, so it would look like there was a big crowd. One of the anchors came out and filmed a segment with a guest and a few times, the crowd was instructed to cheer. Again, I couldn’t hear anything, but now having watched the show, it looked totally fake. We were supposedly cheering when they mentioned that they’d raised $2 million or whatever and how this would feed five jillion people or something.
And then it was over. It was actually kind of boring. Except that one second when someone yelled out “Bon Jovi’s gonna be on!” and my heart skipped a beat, but just as quickly as that happened, I realized they were just joking.
Next was Battery Park, which would lead us to the Statue of Liberty. As we started walking down the path, four or five black guys came running up to us carrying briefcases and pushing carts covered with bedsheets — street vendors. It was a crazy feeling, they were like zombies! As soon as we set foot on the path, it’s like they smelt the tourists and came running.
One guy came up to Jen and offered her some sunglasses. She asked if he had any Chanel and he showed her a pair for $75. She quickly put it back and said no thanks. “Fifty dollars!” he says. She says no. “Ten dollars!” he says. She buys it. It was simply astounding — she didn’t even have to do any work. I was amazed by it all.
Then we went on the boat, took more pictures of the Statue of Liberty, and then stopped at Ellis Island to see the Immigration Museum. It was really boring. Well, I actually didn’t give it much of a chance, I was just tired and hungry at that point and didn’t feel much like walking around anymore. Jen and I went outside and sat at the bottom of the steps. My Creative Writing teacher was sitting behind us, at the top of the steps, and I hear her say “uhh… Nicole!”. If you’ve read about my Creative Writing teacher before, you would know that she doesn’t know my name. Yes. I heard you. I know you’re talking to me, but that’s not my name, so I’m not answering you.
She tries again. “Uhh… Stephanie!”. It’s getting awkward. I sit there, ignoring her. Finally she calls out “uhh… girls!” so I decide to turn around. She says something about thinking I’m Nicole and Jen is Stephanie so I point at Jen and say “Jen” and then point at myself and say “Jen”. Whatever she said to us afterwards must not have been important, as I can’t remember it.
Then we went for lunch at South Street Seaport. I bought my mom an “I heart NY” shirt for four dollars, which was pretty sweet. Then Jen, Desmund, Asha, and Brendon and I went for lunch. I had a hot dog and coke and actually managed to eat an entire meal! Woo hoo! Then we wandered around the place — it was kind of a mall, but like, not — until it was time to meet up back at the bus. There were two street performers outside and a big crowd gathered around them, so we stopped there. There was a group of girls from our school all lined up there and the one guy jumped over them. They built up to it so much, and I have like twenty minutes of footage of just waiting for him to do it, and it was all kind of disappointing in the end.
Back at the bus, we split up into smaller groups. My group went to the WTC Tribute Museum which was located just outside of Ground Zero. After an hour or so there, we walked down to the Skyscraper Museum, where everyone took pictures of their reflection in the ceiling and then waited outside for another hour. It could’ve been kind of cool if there was a tour guide or someone there telling us what we were looking at, rather than having to read everything ourselves.
Next we did a bit of walking. We saw the New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street, a Trump Building, things like that. Got pictures, nothing too exciting to report. Except, we went to one of these churches and I was standing around inside and I hear one of the teachers call my name, so I turn around and she tells me to take off my hat. Whoops. I left shortly after that, because I don’t want to be in any place that does not want my hat in it.
Previously on this trip, all I’d gotten on my hat(s) were compliments. The teacher-in-training dude from my Creative Writing class (who, for some reason, seems to know my name when my actual teacher doesn’t) complimented me on my two different hats, which I wore the first two days, which then made me think “hmm, I should get more green hats and then have a different one every day!”. I’m sure everyone was disappointed when there were no more new green hats. The tour guide also mentioned to me when we were walking along that he always knew where to find our group because he would look for the little spot of lime green. Glad to be of service.
After all that walking, we went to the Brooklyn Bridge. And walked across it. Uphill both ways. And downhill as well, but you know what I mean. Somewhere along the line, I ended up walking with Desmund, and on the way back, somehow we both decided to run back. So we did. I said we would run back to the middle part, about halfway across the bridge. Less than a minute or so into our run, I realized how much it hurt. But no, I kept pushing — it’s not that far, I can make it! Five seconds later and I realized, no, I was not going to make it. So much for that.
Back to Times Square for dinner. Or, if you’re with my group, for shopping, and then dinner if we have time. I don’t recall where all we went, but I didn’t buy anything. Actually, this might have been when we went to Abercrombie and Fitch. Let me tell you, that store freaked me out. I knew about all the shirtless guys — the statue, the mural, the model — from the Improv Everywhere thing, so that didn’t phase me (Speaking of Improv Everywhere, a lot of the places we want have IE connections — Circle Line, Virgin Megastore…). But the store is just plain freaky! Every shirt comes in eight colours: light blue, royal blue, green, pink, orange, yellow, black, and white. Every section of the store looks exactly the same. It is so easy to get lost in there. Especially because there’s a basement and an upstairs, so you can’t even just go to the bottom floor and then find the door. And then the like dance music, and the darkness? It’s just completely insane. Kind of glad to get out of there. Desmund and Jada had their picture taken with the shirtless model outside the front of the store.
After that, I had an ice cream cone. I’m still not sure if I gave the guy three one’s or two one’s and a twenty. Loonies totally kick dollar bill’s butt. Seriously. And not having toonies just completely throws off everything. Anyway, then we all go and sit outside the Hard Rock (which apparently has a glass case with Keith Moon’s pants in it!? And we didn’t bother to go in past the gift shop!?), the designated meeting place in Times Square. The history teacher comes up and asks me if I ate dinner. I said yes. She asks what I had. “…ice cream” I replied sheepishly.
And then, back to the hotel. I think on this day again, the rest of the room deserted me to go play poker. I watched “American Idol”.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Finally, a day where I didn’t wake up with a headache and… it’s miserable out. For breakfast I tried some jam on bread and when I realized it was gross, I had half an apple. Oh well, try again tomorrow.
Off to the bus, first stop… The Dakota. Around this time was when the tour guide decided to stop saying “right” and “left” and just started pointing, so I wasn’t sure which entrance he was referring to as the one where John was shot. We got out, took pictures from across the street, and went to Central Park. First stop was Strawberry Fields, where the “Imagine” circle is located. Everybody crowded around, trying to get a picture, so I waited forever to get mine. And seriously, how many of these kids even know who John Lennon is? The guy that covered those songs from “Across the Universe”?
Walking around Central Park was very nice, but would have been nicer had the weather been too. We were supposed to go to the Harlem market, but it was closed because of the rain. Then we stopped for lunch by Tom’s Restaurant, which was used as an exterior shot on “Seinfeld”. I was tempted to buy a Snickers bar and eat it with a knife and fork. Jada, Jen, Brendon, Asha, and I went to this Italian restaurant nearby where I had blueberry pancakes for lunch. The waiter asked us what we wanted to drink: “water, sparkling water, coffee?”. Everyone else just said water (or Jada, who ordered $5 sparkling water), and then he came to me, the last one at the table. It was a pretty classy place, but I decided to risk making a fool of myself and asked “do you have any pop?”. “Uhh… pop?” he asked. “Oh! Soda! Soda!” I corrected myself. Ah. And yes, yes they did.
Next on the list was Yankee Stadium. It took awhile to get there because apparently there was some little blue car we couldn’t get past and couldn’t back up and I dunno. But lots of waiting. Eventually got there. It was cool, we got to go in the dugout and the press boxes and the clubhouse (aka the locker room). Couldn’t take any video though, and no photography or anything in the clubhouse, or else they would erase our memory card and throw us out, and that was enough of a threat to stop me from trying.
Then we were dropped off on Fifth Avenue for more shopping. We went to the bathroom in Trump Towers, which were actually not that nice at all, and smelt like pee. Which, I mean, obviously, but it should at least smell like nice hand soap, and not like someone pissed on the walls. Went to Tiffany’s, but not for long. Went to some small but very expensive store where an umbrella cost $700. Jada and Desmund and I ended up walking rather far away from the shopping and into the hotel area for no apparent reason but to take a picture of a sewer with steam rising up from it by the zoo. We headed back and stopped at FAO Schwartz, which is a giant toy store, which is where they have the piano on the ground that Tom Hanks played on in the movie “Big”. I wasn’t originally going to go there, because I thought it was on the itinerary to go there as a group the next day, but actually, most things on the itinerary were only suggestions, as in “you’ll be in the area where this thing is, check it out, but it’s not mandatory”. But luckily we went, although we didn’t have enough time to play on the keyboard.
And then came our final stop at Times Square. I think most of the time was spent in the Virgin Megastore. I happened upon a red Frank Zappa t-shirt which I bought for my brother. I wasn’t planning on buying anything, but I saw this and just had to. You see, I don’t go thinking “buy something for mom” and try to make the gift fit the person, but if I see something and I think “mom”, then I’ll buy it, because it already fits the person. But then of course I felt bad because I didn’t buy anything for my dad, and so I tried to find gifts that would fit him, but failed.
Didn’t buy anything for dinner that day, but went back to the hotel and split on a pizza with Jen, Jada, and Desmund. Jen orders it and then leaves with Jada, with my understanding that they are waiting for it to arrive in the lobby. Later, Jada calls from Jesse’s room and asks us to bring her $5 sparkling water with us when the pizza arrives. What? Since when were we told to pay? I don’t know how to pay for pizza! Well, the pizza arrives eventually, and the guy says it’s $17. I counted $22 that we all put in on the bed, so I gave him all of that, unable to do the math in my head and realize that $22 is not $17 + 15%. Nevertheless, we took the pizza and the water in the vodka bottle to Jesse’s room, which greeted us with some green masking tape that said “the door’s open, go away”.
Desmund and I were informed that we could not join in the poker game because it was a tournament and they had already started. Desmund later took Jesse’s place when he was down to three chips while Jesse played with his Transformer. He proceeded to kick Desmund out of the tournament as soon as he had begun to win. It was an interesting and smelly time.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
I finally hit the breakfast jackpot and found some square cereal that was sweet and cinnamon-y. Hurray! And the weather is finally nice for a change!
We walked around Greenwich Village for a bit, which was nice, but if I had known where Peter Tork and all the cool peeps had lived, it would have been better. There was some crazy guy in the park who was talking to everyone and who said something amusing, which I cannot recall. I think it was something about how he was scared about how many Canadians there were.
Then we drove to Little Italy, which I don’t much remember, and then a big group of us walked around Chinatown. My group in the end was myself and Jen and Jada, as always, but we started out with Jesse, John, Kyle, Desmund, Ryan, Zac, Brendon, and Asha. Jen and Jada bought a lot of stuff in Chinatown after negotiating the prices way down. I’m not one for jewelery or perfume, so it didn’t much float my boat. I looked at the purses, but didn’t actively pursue them. I don’t look, I see. That’s my shopping method.
Anyway, we were walking along, minding our own business when this guy selling stuff yells out at us “Canada? Ca va?”, apparently out of nowhere. I mean, we weren’t draped in Canadian flags, but I guess my toque in the middle of May gave us away.
We ended up in Soho and Jada bought a dress for her cousin’s wedding. Much more shopping and going in pretty much every store we passed by. Finally we stopped in a cafe to grab some lunch for on the bus. I was immediately drawn in by the strawberry cheesecake, but it was much too big. And then, ooh, the chocolate chip brownie! Soooo chocolatey! But no, it will give me a headache. And so, I settled for a lemon bar and a Sprite, which was still good.
Next was NBC studios. Jen and Jada and I ended up going first, without the rest of the school groups, because there were tours every fifteen minutes or so, and they only had three tickets for the first tour, so they picked us, since we were a group of three. While we were waiting, this guy came up to us and was like “can I see your tickets?” and so Jada gave him hers and then he scolded us for just giving some random dude our tickets.
No video or pictures in NBC, which really sucked. We went to where they film “The Nightly News” with some anchor dude. It was kinda cool. There were crazy lots of lights and shit. In all the hallways, the ceiling was covered with like a foot of solid wires. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating, but it was solid wires all the way across, and it looked pretty deep. Then we went on the “Saturday Night Live” floor where there were lots of pictures and a room with masks and stuff. And then, the cool part, we went in a room overlooking the set. And, since it was Saturday, the TV roadies (oh, right, I think they’re called the crew?) were hard at work, moving stuff around and whatnot. There was one pretty sweet set on the left side of the stage that was blue and orange and cool and then I realized “hey — it’s Match Game!”. And sure enough, five cast members came on, decked out in seventies attire and sat at the seats. I recognized the “Bret Somers” character immediately, as well as “the black guy”. I considered telling the tour guide that the black guy is supposed to be in the first spot, but decided against it. Wasn’t in a condescending mood that day.
I’m told the other groups got a glimpse of the guest host for that week, Shia LaBeouf, and one girl was banging on the glass and screaming, which apparently got a wave of acknowledgment from him. I say our five cast members was cooler. The tour guide told us about the guest host and the musical guest that week, and asked if anyone knew who it was. “Oh please, don’t let it be anyone good!” I prayed inwardly. Luckily, it was someone no one has ever heard of. Strange reaction, you think? Realistic, I say. I knew we weren’t going to see them, so if it was like Def Leppard or someone, I would’ve been super pissed to know I was that close.
Then we had time to wander around Fifth Avenue or wherever it was that we were. Looked in a few stores, not much to see. Jen was pretty tired and so she waited by herself while Jada and I walked around. We came back to the meeting spot after an hour or so, and Jen was pissed that we had left her, but we didn’t really want to drag her around to all these places where she would’ve just been sitting outside anyway.
And then it was off to Macy’s, where triple J plus Desmund looked at dresses. Or the double J looked at dresses, while myself and Desmund tried to figure out how the security device attached to the dresses would kill you. We met up with Jesse and Jon and Desmund and had lunch or dinner or whatever it was at KFC/Haagen Daas/Dunkin’ Donuts. I had a donut. I then joined the guys while Jen and Jada did more shopping. We went to Game Stop and they had Rock Band, but, surprise surprise, some kid was hogging it. Bastard. We stopped at a few little souvenir stores and then back to the meeting place at Herald Square, where we sat at a table with bird poop on it, which Jen then covered up with a coupon, and which someone else accidentally picked up.
Then came the Empire State Building. Or, should I say, forty minutes waiting in line, two minutes walking, five minutes at the top of a building, and twenty minutes waiting to get back to the bus? It was insane. And I had layered on like five sweaters plus my toque plus gloves and it wasn’t even that cold. It was nice to get back on the bus and relax.
As we were waiting for everyone else to come back down (luckily we didn’t stay too long in the gift shop, because those behind us had a much longer wait to come back down), a foreign lady selling flowers came up to the bus and was talking to the bus driver. He tried to get her to leave, saying we had spent all our money, but she persisted. “Mother’s Day! Do you have Mother’s Day in Canada?”. “Yes,” the bus driver replied, “we have mothers in Canada”.
Back at the hotel, it was poker night in our room this time, because it was supposed to be top secret. Except, we never actually played poker, and instead watched “Saturday Night Live”. I was planning on posting a link to the “It’s A Match” game on SNL (which was actually called “Matching Game” when we were there on the tour), but it’s been removed. Instead, I will show you a clip from a hilarious commercial I saw in New York.
The “Match Game” parody actually wasn’t that bad the second time I saw it. It was lame and not funny in the way that “Match Game” is lame and not funny. They had the “how * is he?” line at the very end, and all the names of the characters parallel whoever they were. I recognized the Charles Nelson Reilly character and the dumb chick, who I was certain was always a blonde, but who my brother tells me was more often a redhead. Oh well. They were missing the Richard Dawson character though, and I don’t recognize the magician guy (who was the only cast member in that skit that we didn’t see).
After the show, or during it, Jada mentioned the dress she bought in Soho. And somehow this evolved into Jesse donning the dress and him and a parade of the rest of us holding cameras marching upstairs to freak out other students. We would knock on one door, to get the fake boobs that some kids bought in Chinatown, and then another door would open to see what all the noise was about. And then as we were leaving, someone from down the hall would accidentally step outside and witness something that they wished they hadn’t. And it went on and on, and we had reactions ranging from “he actually looks pretty good” to “is he wearing underwear?” and “…………..NOOOO!”. It was… an interesting time.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Not much to say about the final day, but we watched “The Wedding Singer” on the way home, which was a pretty darn good movie. Especially with all the eighties references, and especially with the end and Billy Idol. Yes! There still are good, funny movies I haven’t seen!
We stopped at an outlet mall on the way home. I went with Jen and Jada to the Converse store, but quickly went off on my own to explore. Ooh, rebellion. I checked out KB Toys to see if there was any figurines I could get for my dad or any nice Barbie’s for my mom, but nada. It is disgusting how much the Barbie aisle has been taken over by crappy new dolls.
I ran into Jon at the food court where I had lemonade and two large chocolate chip cookies. Jesse came by and Jon went with him, while I sloooowly finished eating. I then stopped at the Harley store to find my dad a t-shirt, but they seemed to only have army and navy and police stuff. Then I ran into Desmund and eventually we all ended up back together at another clothing store. There was a couch and an Xbox at the back of the store, so I stuck around and failed at the skateboarding game until it was time to go back to the bus.
There was another rest stop along the way, and another tower of DVDs game. Jon tried and won on his third try. Jesse was pretty shocked. It was awesome.
Next stop, the duty free, where the kids walked around and went back on the bus and waited for the teachers to come back with their booze. Then, the border. I was worried because I only had one receipt, for the Frank Zappa shirt, and none for the shirt from the street vendor. Honestly, why would he believe I only bought one thing? Turns out it was all for nothing, because they didn’t even come on the bus. The bus driver said that he went inside and the guy cop started asking all these questions and the girl cop was like “aww, just let them go”. And so they did.
And there you have it. New York. It was fun, but it’s also fun to be back with my jam sandwiches. I’d definitely go again if given the chance, but it’d have to be with my family so that we could check out all the little places where normal kids wouldn’t want to go. And pictures, if I’m not so lazy, will show up here eventually.