Valhalla Island

There is a store a block from my hotel room that sells I love NY t-shirts. Nothing unusual about that, except that they sell 8 for $10. It’s unbelievable. Homeless people should use their donations to buy I love NY t-shirts, it’s the best value they’ll ever get.

There’s a lot I like about Manhattan. It’s less overwhelming than I expected. The one thing that does overwhelm me is the occasional smell. You can be walking along a footpath and suddenly be hit with an extremely powerful smell that almost knocks you off your feet. It goes as quickly as it comes though.

I had an amazing day yesterday.

The weather was perfect, probably 26 degrees, sun out and next to no wind. In the morning I went to the top of the Empire State Building. It’s, once again, New York’s tallest building so you get full 360 degree views. I listened to all the information from all angles and I learnt a lot.

I caught the subway to Central Park and met Dan for a Flickr meetup. Central Park is huge and beautiful. All the parks in Manhattan are beautiful. They’re a stark contrast to regular Manhattan. Madison Square park has a fenced off area for people to bring their dogs. It was great watching the dogs play, it reminded me they exist.

I met some cool people at the Flickr meetup. Some really good photographers that taught me lots.

After that we visited the 5th avenue Apple store so I could pick up an iPod Shuffle (my first iPod) to participate in Improv Everywhere’s MP3 experiment. Only a couple of weeks ago I was listening to a This American Life story about Improv Everywhere. It’s still one of my favourite TLA episodes. To be participating in one was surreal.

We had to go all the way downtown for the IE mission and only just made it. On the way back streets were closed due to a building being on fire that ended up killing two firemen. It was a little bit scary.

This morning I visited Times Square. The advertising was more obscene than I even imagined. Even the Bank of America has a huge, super bright, animated advertisement. Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. actually exists and they have a store in Times Square.

It must be India day because on Madison Avenue this afternoon there was a Indian street parade. It was bright and loud. To give you an idea how commericalised the United States is — every float was sponsored by a bank or an insurance company. The highlight was one float with very-close-to-naked women dancing like crazy.

A little strange that there was two young girls sharing the float with them.

You’d be insane to own a car in Manhattan. I think most residents know this so the car traffic really isn’t too bad at all. For a city with about 20 times the population of Brisbane, it has the same amount of car traffic.

You can walk just about anywhere. That’s my favourite thing about New York. If you can’t walk all the way, you’ll always be able to walk to a subway, trains come every 5 minutes and it only costs $2 to go anywhere. The footpaths are really wide too, perfect for avoiding the people selling things every couple of metres.

I’m pretty exhausted. I’ve only been sleeping for about 6 hours each night and I’ve been walking miles and miles each day. I’m starting to feel my health slip too. I was really happy to find a place that sold bananas yesterday but I’m craving some milk, cooked vegetables too.

Tonight I’m meeting up with Captive Lion from Internet Zillionaire to see some Improv Comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade. It’s not ’til 9.30, I hope I can stay awake and alert for that long.