My Trip to New York City!!! - ChinaTown, New York, orchestra trip

So basically, after 4/16-4/20, this is what kind of beating my body went through:

Junk food...malnourished. Severely dehydrated.
18 hours of sleep, 12 hours on the bus ride, 3 hours a night at the hotel.
Walked about 150 blocks for sightseeing (per day)
No water, just soda.
Used up 2 hours of camera

But all that aside, that was probably the most fun I've had for a few years.

Here's what we did:

Wednesday, 4/16

Regular school schedule. When the bell rang, I grabbed my luggage from the storage room and headed for the bus. Buses arrived at about 4:30PM EST, and we began loading. We left around 5:00, and went to the Mall of Georgia for a bite to eat. I ate three slices of Sbarro pizza and drank a soda. The bus then began the overnight leg of the journey.

What really sucked about the bus was that I had a stupid freshman sitting in front of me. He just loved to move his chair back, and he cranked it all the way down before he went to sleep. When I had gotten up, all my joints cracked and I lost movement for about two minutes. Walking to the front of the bus for a pit stop was murder...every one of my limbs and joints made sounds as I moved out.

It took me an hour to fall asleep, and when I did, he took a picture. (#1).

For the record, the pillow is one of my sister's...I jacked it because it was soooo soft.

Another thing about this bad night was that it was unbearably dry. My throat burned and there was no water anywhere. I was coughing up blood because my nostrils had shriveled up and bled. Yuck.

Thursday, 4/17
We arrived the following day and ate at a bus station. Great stuff, by the way. The breakfast bar was huge and I loved it. No pictures, too busy stuffing my face here. We get back on the bus and arrive for lunch.

Lunch was served at a joint called MARS2112. It's a small restaurant located somewhere in NYC, but I doubt I could have found it with a map. The outside was a bit plain, with a generic spaceship, some posters, and some display windows. The moment I walked inside, I found painted walls and fake stone passages leading into the restaurant. I walked in and was greeted by a guy in a giant alien suit. Fun, huh?

So we're seated. and I'm sitting among buddies. We play some cards as we wait for the food to be served. All of a sudden, one of the guys in the alien suits just jumps out from behind one of my friends. She screams bloody murder and I HAD to take a picture. He tried me, but I was paying attention. I asked him if he liked his job, and he put his hand on my shoulder and said no.

-There was also an alien suit that looked like a power ranger. He moved quickly, and took pictures with everyone. However, when he did his little dance, he got a wedgie and walked around in a funny manner to try to fix it. Sucks for him...he can't even put his hands down his pants if he wanted to.

So after lunch, we go sightseeing...again. My group of friends decided to go shopping around in Times Square...visiting Hershey world, M&M's world, the almost naked cowboy in the street. I didn't get pictures of him...

It turns out we headed out the wrong direction to the coast and ended up about 20 blocks away from where we started...and headed back the same 20 blocks (40 total) to walk the last 10 blocks to the coast. Dammit. We went this distance in about...2 hours. Thankfully, we were only an hour late. We also weren't the last. We only got to the hotel an hour late, but we smoothed everything out.

So we take the ferry to check out New York City from the water. We passed Ellis Island, Manhattan, the Brooklyn Bridge, and got to see some helicopters.

Towards the end of the boat ride, I got bored and went to play cards in the cabin. Over a dinner of green chicken wraps. Gross.

We arrived at the hotel around 8:00 PM. I happened to chance upon some old family friends. I hadn't seen them in years, so naturally, my voice was a couple octaves lower and I was about a foot taller. :3

After the little reunion, I changed into swim trunks and jumped into the pool. After about 30 minutes in freezing water, I went to the hot tub where my female friends were. Truth or dare...>.>. My gawd. What happens in the hot tub stays in the hot tub.

-paragraph censored-

**!&%(*&^*!)^&$*^&$6($&(*@$&^*(@&*(^&@$(*^%(!*&#%*(&$@(*&^(*@$&^*(@&^(

After that, I took a shower and got dressed, unpacking all my snacks for the night(s) ahead. My other two roommates were total douchebags, taking the two beds for themselves. I ended up making one agree to sleep on the chairs for one night. So I pulled two chairs and fashioned a crude bed there. I actually took a very nice 3 hour nap (after watching Austin Powers, Man of Mystery, Family Guy, Southpark, and Evil Robot Chicken). I woke up without any pains. A bit tipsy, but painless.

~All three of us came down with a nosebleed at the exact same time. Weird.

After watching a few hilarious shows , we tried to hook up the TV to our XBox360. We couldn't do it because it required a God Damn creditcard. Stupid greedy three star Sheraton bastards won't give it to us for free. 45$ for the stay? Yeah right. Cheapskates remain cheapskates and douchebags remain douchebags.

So we just went to sleep at about 3:30.

Friday, 4/18

I get up at about 6:30 to the alarm. It was so annoying...One Missed Call theme and an alarm clock. Anyway. The three of us drag ourselves out of the bed and get ready...combing hair and brushing teeth and whatnot. We go to the lobby where everyone has congregated and get some money for breakfast and lunch.

We were dropped off at a random street and left to fend for ourselves. My group decided to see Chinatown. After a 15 block trek and a couple of blocked off roads for the pope, we made it. It was basically a city with tons of chinese billboards and stalls for souvies, much like Taipei, Taiwan. A couple of the girls got lost while shopping but caught up. I got myself a cheesy chinese hat with a dangling braid.

We stopped at a small restaurant, and realized that we were late. So we order everything takeout, and buy about 100 pot stickers, a couple bowls of fried rice, and a couple of dishes over rice. We didn't finish it, but some piranahs on our bus discovered them and devoured our leftovers.

A short nap later, I woke up to the sound of GET UP from the bus leader. We walked outside to see some generic dance studio and met John Whitney. Great guy, great composer, worked for Warner Bros., Lord of the Rings and the whole enchilada. Anyway, we met and the younger orchestras had a short rehearsal together.

During this time we got dressed and then my orchestra (top group) rehearsed with him. He was amazing, but our prepared piece was taken three times the speed. (We played J.D. Meets the Rhythm Section, and my stand partner played the best improv of his life.../endsarcasm. He played what was printed.)

Dinner was served at a Carmine's. The food was so bad that I almost puked. It didn't help that we were spiking each others' drinks with salt. I had to take my cup to be washed a couple times. The waiters weren't happy.

The menu was:

Pasta with marinara sauce, which was just a bunch of pasta noodles cooked with ketchup
Pasta with mushrooms...gross
Chicken Parmesean, which was giant slab of chicken cooked with cheese on top.

I only ate a few bits of pasta and a chunk of chicken.

As we ate, we kept on spiking one cup in particular. Somebody had added diet pepsi and water into a cup to drink, but he saw one of my friends spike it with salt and pepper. Someone else chipped in a bit of oregano and chili sauce. A third hit it with a piece of garlic bread, The last person stuck in a piece of pasta with a lot of sauce. The drink was mixed and everyone chipped in some money. Whoever could drink it would get fifteen dollars. One brave guy stood up at the head of the table, and the drink was passed to him. It took him three times to down the whole thing, and when he finished with final proof, he ran to the bathroom and threw it up. He was fifteen dollars richer, though.

After that little scenario, we went to the Lincoln Center to watch the American Symphony Orchestra. It turned out that the program was rediculously boring. They also cut out most of the Aida: March...which pissed me off because they cut out the best parts. So basically, after the first song, I took the most expensive nap of my life. 200$ nap-2 hours and lullaby. Rock hard concert hall chairs. Drinks not included.

When I finished my little nap, I was never happier to get outside. My happiness quickly dispelled when I saw smokers in need of a nicotine fix. The air reeked of cigarette smoke, and I was dying for about ten seconds. What a disgusting habit.

Anyway, we walked to the bus and got on. The bus leader took a head count, and we drove right off. Unfortunately, in New York, there's still traffic at 10:00PM, so we didn't return to the hotel until 12:00. My roomates and I took showers, and sat down and relaxed. I got the bed this night, and it was comfortable enough. We had missed southpark, but watched CSI instead. At about 2:00 we ordered pizza. Delicious...but it had mushrooms. I had to pick the whole cheese off and eat it. Interesting, but satisfying, even without cheese.

~A pizza is best eaten in the middle of the night. Yummy!

So after that, at about 3:00, we turned in. We didn't sleep, but just talked away two hours before we slept. We got up at about 8:30AM with the bus leader pounding at our door to wake up. God, we overslept.

Saturday, 4/20

And thus, we packed up and got on the bus. I got about thirty minutes of sleep before we went sightseeing again. This time, we headed to Grand Central Station, but took about ten turns just to do it because someone wanted a falafel. Man, Halal food sure is tasty!

Anyway, we shopped around Grand Central Station and took the subway to Broadway. There, I saw the performance of the Lion King. I'm telling you all, it was one of the greatest shows I have ever seen in my life. The actors were great,the bird was hilarious, and...my god. Anyway, breathtaking.

-I saw one of the dumbest signs ever. In New York, everyone honks. But this sign didn't even make most people think twice about honking.

When it finished, we got back on the bus and began the drive home. I wasn't eager to take the drive all the way there, but it was that or 75$ for a Delta plane ticket home. So, I rode the bus. The members of the second bus sat and played out a Chinese poker tournament. I placed second

We also had a Chinese Chess tournament...I won this one.

Dinner was at another bus station. I spent 12$ for a chicken sandwich, a whopper w/ cheese, a water, and an order of fries. I wolfed it all down in 30 minutes.

After this meal, I felt a bit drowsy, but I was able to play out a few more round of Chinese Chess and give a few lessons. I crashed after watching First 50 Dates (hilarious!). I'm not sure when that was though. We drove through the night without incident.

~I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. The aisles were crowded with a few sleeping people. I carefully avoided two of them and stepped on two others. I made it to the bathroom, opened the toilet...and there was a sea of piss there, all over the place. A few pieces of crap were floating about...I just pissed into it. Going back out was easier because they grew the brains to stand up.

Sunday, 4/21

I woke up to see that the window and the outside was completely fogged up. A movie was already playing (RV), and we got off the bus to eat at a Ryan's. My nose bled again, but I managed to finish some food.

We got back on the bus, and I took another quick catnap. I woke up in time for a pit stop, which was good. I only realized that we were back in Georgia when I saw that the vending machine drinks were ONLY $1.25.

The return journey was pretty uneventful. We drove on, watched August Rush (sucked), and then pulled up to the school later. I got picked up, then went to play some tennis. I came back, played MapleStory, crashed, and then got up the next day to go to school. Basically, yesterday and today were terrible...I fell asleep through 4 classes.

Anyway, I think I've just managed to begin functioning again. That's why I'm typing this.

It took me 2 hours to type this all out. That SUCKS.