Getting There Is the Hardest Part

So, I'm in New York. I can actually hearing the taxis honking at each other as they try to go up Broadway.

Getting to New York was – so far – the hardest part of this midwesterner’s trip, entailing getting up at 4:30 a.m. and hitting the road by five to catch a crowded 6:45 flight to JFK, which lived up to its deprecations as a baaaad airport. After landing and managing the utter lack of signage, I was on my SuperShuttle to Manhattan by 10:45. I was still in the SuperShuttle to Manhattan at 12:45. The straightline distance from JFK to Times Square is maybe seven miles, but our trip was marked first by a series of visits to a number of other airport terminals (we never did find Mr. Pastore), a bonafide jam on the Van Wyck Expressway from the airport, and then a stop-and-go thirty minutes in the Midtown Tunnel, with the windows open, sucking in the terrible fumes. And the crosstown traffic in Manhattan wasn’t exactly quick fast in a hurry, either. At one point, I noticed a colorfully dressed woman walk past us. A few blocks later, we passed her again: she was sitting at a sidewalk café, halfway through her sandwich. We finally made it to the hotel just before 1 p.m.

After checking in, I ditched my stuff and headed out for lunch. Cruising in a big loop around Times Square (which those conniving New Yorkers misnamed: it’s really a long triangle!), I found a nice little pizza joint at 45th Street and the Avenue of the Americas. The pizza – one slice of pepperoni, one of spinach – was great; I enjoyed it sitting in a quiet, leafy plaza right full of lunching office workers. The only downside to the setting was that the other end of my park bench was covered in fresh puke.

After that, I had a half-hour before the first session I could attend in full, so I went hunting for presents for the homebound loved ones. These were relatively easy to find, as there are a number of shopping venues on Times Square. No one seems to yet chosen to turn on the AC in NYC, however: it was probably 90 degrees in Toys R Us, and both that hot and much louder in the Virgin Megastore.

And but so, on the way back to the hotel, I passed this sight, which should probably go into the “Only in New York” category. She was singing, although I don’t think anyone was listening. Her counterpart, the famous Naked Cowboy, was at the other end of the median, albeit without pasties.

Then, I went to meetings. No one was topless. Or playing guitars.