In Today's Exciting Episode, Brian Meets the Statue of Liberty. (she's shorter then she looks.)

So it's Sunday, and what good is a Sunday that you can't go out, and get some fresh air, and do something different - like riding the NYC subway. Ah, now that's some fresh air! Dragged a friend from NJ under the river (it's called a tunnel, you drive through them) and onto the island of Manhattan. After the beginning of a total loss of my finely honed subway system navigation skills, we finally arrived somewhere between Downtown and SoHo, whereas I had to use cell phone navigation (where you use your cell phone in desperation to call a friend who has a clue, or fast internet access to MapQuest) to get us to the Apple Store in SoHo.

Now the last time I was at the Apple store, it was very early in the morning, and the local streets were empty. Not so today. On streets that are one way, approximately two and a half cars wide, there are cars parked on both side of the street with other cars, most likely looking for a parking space, trying to squeeze through the crowds of pedestrians and narrow streets. I think parking in Manhattan is a lot like that slider puzzle game, where there’s one piece missing, and you have to put the picture together. There’s actually only one open parking space in NYC. It just kind of moves around.

Anyway, back to the Apple store, so my friend is a PC user who is only impressed by the glass staircase. Oh well, his loss. I admired the new iPod, with it’s amazing nonmoving touch sensitive volume “wheel”. Way cool. But not as cool as a beautiful day in NYC, so enough chain store shopping, it was time to roll. Up the street, down into the subway, and rolled south into the Financial District.

Here’s the cool part, I managed to find exactly the right subway exit (lucky) and ended up at the top of the stairs at street level, standing directly in front of a NYC friend’s front door! He has a loft apt, and I mean a loft, probably about 1200 square feet in 1 big open room. Hellacool! Stuck around a few minutes, talked about the building that had recently collapsed in the neighborhood. But time (and weather) waits for no man, so we set off south again, this time on foot, to see the Ocean.

Down at Battery Park you get to see the ocean, well, kind of, but you get to see a lot of water, so who really cares about the pesky little details. And at Battery Park was where I got my picture taken with the Statue of Liberty. Now, from the park, you can see the real Statue of Liberty off in the middle of the harbor, a very inconvenient distance away. Fortunately, this being New York City, a city where no need goes unanswered, there were various people dressed up in costumes to be photographed with. And thus it came to be at the end of September, 2002, I discovered that I am taller then the Statue of Liberty. (she was standing on a box) I have a picture (it cost a buck, this is a capitalistic country of course.) Life doesn’t get any better then this.

After that, stopping at the World’s Largest McDonalds at Times Square on the way home just failed to overwhelm. Oh well.

Things that were missed and will have to be checked out on my next trip:
Chip Shop – for deep fried…well anything, including dessert.
The Sex Museum. – do I have to explain?!?

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