2015-07-22: Hellllloooooo New York

I have always wanted to spend some time in New York. I have a lot of preconceptions about the place.

I think my ranting about John Wayne and Johnny Cash might have been a touch garbled

Many of my favourite movies and songs are about the place. Actually all I can think of at the moment is They Might Be Giants - New York City and that seems to insinuate NYC is not that great compared to his girlfriend. He does give a decent checklist of tourist items though.

John Wayne Airport serves large beers from 0600.

We can do a They Might Be Tourists checklist!

Tourist Checklist: New York City

1. Statue of Liberty
2. Staten Island Ferry
3. Co-op City
4. Katz's
5. Tiffany's
6. Central Park
7. Brooklyn Bridge
8. The Empire State where Dylan lived
9. Coney Island
10. Times Square
11. Rockefeller Center

Rating: 0/11 (I assume all of these still exist)

And of course I still have to make it to Arby's

For our first day we have grabbed a hotel near the airport so we can orient ourselves and get things planned. The area is not as salubrious as the picture on the flyer made out. There seem to be a fair amount of people renting rooms for relatively short periods of time.

Possibly more aspirational than realistic

The large gentlemen sitting in quite nice black cars in the parking lot are not, I suspect, picking up their daughters. The large gentlemen seemed to quite like Popeye's takeaway.

New York City doesn't have much space.

When I was a teenage there was a really good burger place called Popeye's. This is not the same place. This Popeye's do southern style food. We grabbed some fried chicken (acceptable) and sides and had a bedroom picnic listening to the goings on in the adjoining rooms.

Beans (or peas) in gravy is probably one of the easiest ways to entice me into eating something. My favourite poutine has peas and chicken topping. One of my favourite lazy sunday things in Sydney was to smoke a chicken and have it with peas in thick brown gravy. These beans are disappointing and I doubt we will return to the chain.

Could probably make good money setting this system up in the foyer of the hotel.