Night Walking

In the days prior to my NYC trip, I decided that I wouldn’t bother doing the touristy stuff (Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, etc.) that I did last year.

However, once I arrived, and observed from my cab all the shops and people, I immediately thought to myself, “Screw this, I’m going to Times Square!

I checked into my hotel, set up my laptop, put on some sneakers, threw the rest of my luggage in the corner and set out for Broadway. I knew I’d be on my own until I met my coursemates the next morning. And a certain blogger didn’t bother telling me he was in the area, either.

It was around 4:30 when I left the hotel, but the streets didn’t seem crowded at all. It wasn’t until I approached Broadway that the trickle of cars and people turned into a flood. It seemed like each red light held back two walls of opposing pedestians, who, once the light turned green, would rush forward and cut swaths through each other.

It didn’t take long before I realized that Manhattan city blocks are, well, full-sized blocks. As unsafe as I knew it was, I couldn’t help but stop on the occasional street corner and gaze at my fold-out map to figure out where the hell I was.

Once I actually got to Times Square, I saw and heard a large throng of screaming women. I looked where they were pointing and, to my surprise, there was Jim Carrey on the second floor of the MTV studio, gyrating in the window at the crowd below.

Carrey is far away in the photo I took from across the street, but there were large-screen displays that showed a larger-than-life figure looking back at us. Carrey certainly looked much older than his days as a pet detective.

nyc_carrey_sm

Once I was done exploring that night, I had walked all the way to 48th street. My feet hurt, my legs ached and there wasn’t an empty cab to be hailed. I had walked about 30 city blocks over the course of the night.

This entry was posted in Life. Bookmark the permalink.