Visual Sunday: NYC Trip

So as many of you know, i just got back from our school trip to NYC Saturday morning at 1am. Here is a mini rundown of what we did. Enjoy!


We left for NYC around 1pm on Sunday afternoon. As you may have guessed, this is at the Liberty Bell in Philly. We stopped there around noon on Monday to see the Bell, tour Independence Hall (which, due to snail-paced overnight driving by our aged bus driver and some snow in West Virginia, we missed. No big deal though, i have seen it hehe), and grab some yumminess (a.k.a. Philly Cheesesteak). Our first encounter with security personnel on a powertrip came at the Bell. We were greeted by shouts of a late-twenties white guy with a shaved head. He thought he was somebody, "Alright ladies, we need less talkign and more moving. I can end this fieldtrip for you right now and send you home if you don't be quiet. Now please remove all watches-belts-jackets-jewelery-shoes-cameras-binoculars-and-anything-else-that-i-might-want-to-see." Naturally, we inserted funny things in here, most of which involved underwear or the like. Oh yeah, that is Lauren and Savannah in the picture. Both are juniors, and Lauren is single as she would like me to tell you.



Ipods...yeah. Honeslty, probably half of the NY population has them, so to fit in, ben, anna and lauren felt obligated to tote theirs along all day. Notice the array of colors...ooooooo. If you look carefully to Ben's left, you can see White Lightning's aunt...isn't she sweet?



Pidgins are cool. This is taken from the top of the Empire State building. The process of getting to the top was quite the topic of conversation tuesday night. It is a classic case of getting the tourists hopes up, dashing them, then repeating the process a few times, until finally the payoff comes, but no matter what it is, it can't be good enough after the emotional rollercoaster ride. At the ole ESB we entered to find some mostly empty cattle lines (you know the black "Trans-barriers" that weave back and foth a bunch of times) whic hw ebreezed through on our way to buying tickets. That done we waited in more cattle lines until stepping on an elevator. Yay, elevator=top, right? Haha, no siree, elevator=6 floors fro mthe top and more cattle lines for taking a cheesy picture and listening to sales pitches for audio tours...wohoo. Finally, that glorious and all too short, 6 story elevator ride comes and voila, you are at the top, feeling unsatisfied and obligated to spend lots of time there. After all, you just stood mooing for hours.

That much waiting warrants two pictures. Who turned on the fan for the photo shoot?


Two words: original gangster. That's right folks, Lauren and Anna just wanted to fit in with the other hardcore people on the subway. One of the most entertaining homies i rode with hopped the train wit hhis PSP in hand and a friend at his side. Apparently he was playing MLB 2005 and thought that the Yankees players were "my niggas" and the opposing players were "mothe--" well you know what they were. But listening to his running commentary o nwhat was happening in his video game was definitely worth the $2 subway ticket. But the truly burning question i nmy mind the whole time was, "Did he steal that PSP? Cuz seriously..." I know that's bad, but definitely true.



Speaking of the Yankees, Tuesday night, we got to see the greatest game of the year. That's right, A-rod hit three homers including a Grand Slam and posted 10 RBI. Clinton Corley got the second home run ball after we badgered Benji Molina, the Angels bullpen catcher, for an inning. Finally he meandered over to the fence and tossed it to Clinto...sweet action. I actually have a pretty entertaining video clip of arods GS, and hopefully i will get that posted soon.


WHat's that we're wearing? Could it be? Surely not...oh but it is. Yeah, we wore school uniforms all day on wednesday...what a bunch of studs. But hey, what are you gunna do about it? Wednesday was pretty dreary/foggy/felt like Scotland. We saw Miss Liberty, Ellis Island and the all-too-politically-correct United Nations (screw world peace...who let them build that complex of fakeness on US soil? That would be Mr. Rockefeller).


F.A.O. Schwarz. Wow, what a museum of gaudiness and potential spoiled brats. The place has filed bankruptcy and not surpirsingly. No one goes there to buy stuff. Who's gunna dish out $10,000 for a giant stuffed giraffe, or 150,000 for a giant piano, or $16 for an ice cream sundae, or even 400 for a pimp lightsaber replica...ok, maybe the lightsaber. But honestly, no one goes there to buy toys, they g oto look at toys that are beyond imagination. Which brings us to the picture, an authentic scaled down ferrari replica. Complete with mid-mounted gas engine, three speed manual transmissin, cd player, all startng fro ma mere $15,000. There was a hummer starting from 30,000. or you could pitch in another 5ish and get a real hummer. ridiculous.

Dinner wednesday night at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Wowzers. So it was definitely rainign that night, and most of us guys decided to walk the 13 blocks anyways. I mean we have umbrellas, and rainjackets, so we should be good. About half way there the rain drops decided to start combing their powers. One of these babies could have drowned just that, a baby. Lethal water action. I was thankful for my scuba background. Finally we reached the uber-fancy hotel wet to the bone. Chris (the one in the undershirt) straight up took off his dress shirt and undershirt in the middle of the restaurant. It was hillarious, all the waitresses started staring and a maid walked up to him to ask him if, of all things, he wanted her to throw his shirt in the dryer. What nice people! The Maitre d' offered us all towles and was totally understanding of our situation. Probably because we dropped over 2 grand at the place, but hey, being treated well is always fun. In retrospect, the girls probabyl made the right call by dishing out 3 bucks each for a taxi. Although, they aren't nearly as hardcore as us.

This is at the Today show thrusday morning. Now i could have put up a picture of Matt Lauer or Katie Couric (o wait, Katie and Al Roker were in Nashville that day...figures), btu i chose this guy because he is there every dang morning. I never knew why, and i still don't. When i asked if i coudl take my picture with him, he responded in an unrecognizable english dialect. I smiled, nodded, and motioned for Craig to hurry the heck up with the picture. We did get on TV though

Columbus circle, on the edge of massive Central Park (850ish acres!). No really entertainign stories here. Lots of moms were excersising wit htheir strollers. We even saw a class of mom pushign strollers, led by some mid 20s male hollering out commands behind his own (babiless) stroller. Weird.

And finally, thursday night, before seeing Beauty and the Beast, a group of us dined at the Times Square Brewery located in Times Square (who knew?). It was kind of disappointing. Our waitress didn't really like that a bunch of highschoolers were taking up her tables even though the place built in an 18% tip, so it wasn;t like we could screw her over. She kinda had an attitude with us. She wouldn't split up the tickets(apparently it would have slowed down the cooks in the back...i think she was just lazy), so that made for the typical post-meal confusion about who owes what. Good times though, and hey, it was our last meal before boarding the bus for our 25 hour bus ride home, so who cares how much it cost, right? We were on vacation.