There is really no other way to describe my trip to NYC except as a whirlwind of adventure and maybe a little misadventure.
First things first: the city prevented me from seeing Bon Jovi. Cool points lost = 29

Aside from obvious sadness over the loss of seeing “The Jovi” (though I have to admit I later compared seeing Bon Jovi to finding a cockroach in our hostel), New York was one of the most amazing places I have ever been. I think I mentioned before on my quick post from Irma’s house that it was already on the list of places I need to go back to. There was so much to do and see, there was no time to do anything but have assloads of fun.

I think one of the primary reasons we were able to enjoy ourselves so much is that we sketched out a rough schedule of things to do, based mostly on area and distance from the hostel. We didn’t plan out every minute (neurotic is not fun), but we planned it well enough that we were never at a loss for things to do and we managed to get everything we wanted done with the least resistance possible.

We left on Thursday night, 11pm out of Toronto’s Greyhound terminal. We barely squeezed onto the bus, leaving about another bus and a half load of people standing in the line wondering if there were more buses coming to cart them into the U.S. Lucky for us, we managed to get seats together, albeit they were right beside the washroom facility, which stank. Word the wise, if you’re taking the overnight Greyhound between Toronto and New York, go in early to make sure you get a seat, especially if you want to sit with your travel companions. The ride was alright, though my sleep was lacking. I had finally fallen into a deep sleep when we got to customs. I was shaken by my previous experience of being yelled at on the way to Niagara Falls when the customs agent was screaming at me, but going through was a breeze. They were a bit annoyed we didn’t have our return tickets on hand (considering I had no choice but to pick them up at Penn Station…), but they were quite nice on all fronts. We actually got into NYC over an hour early, since we skipped a stop in Syracuse.

We got on the subway pronto and went to our hostel to see if we could check in or at least drop our belongings off. It was about 11 in the morning and we didn’t want to be lugging backpacks to the Met and Guggenheim all day. We were staying at the Royal Park Hotel and Hostel on 97th and Broadway. We couldn’t check in but for a $2 fee we could check our bags, which we of course opted for. We made our way directly to the Museum of Natural History, sticking to the shaded sides of the streets of course! The Museum was packed with groups of summer camp kids, but I suppose that’s what we get for going on a Friday afternoon, right? Overall we found the MoNH to befairly confusing, with really poorly done maps, but we had a blast none the less. The planet-arium show was particularly awesome. “Hello, I’m Robert Redford, here to give you a non-creationist view of the Universe”.

The rest of the day was occupied by hostel checking in and going to the Met (which I loved and strongly recommend). We noshed on some delicious pizza from this tiny joint, allowing me to cross off #124 on my list, eating a slice of authentic New York pizza. We hit the hostel early in the evening, as we were both exhausted from our trip and walking around in the heat all day. We still had two days to get through, but my first day had given me a high opinion of the city.