Wet Side Story.....

This one is supposed to be BEFORE the Paris one!!!!! READ ME FIRST!!!!!

Ok, so to explain the title of this post, (clearly a parody of West Side Story) it was raining on our last day in NYC. And I mean RAINING. So what do Kim and Lisa decide to do? That's right....we decide to walk to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is across the other side of Central Park, and about 20 blocks down (that's a long way, for those who are currently scoffing with disdain our renowned laziness). And in the pouring rain, with only the tiny travel umbrella I gave Kim for her birthday as our cover, it's an even longer way. Especially in our Crocs...which are rubber.....and have holes in them.....and we had socks on.....and jeans. You get the point. We're idiots, and yesterday we were wet, cold idiots. Especially when we walked home, got lost and crossed the park once or twice.....or three times, then got back to the hotel looking for a clothes dryer, which were all taken, and so we had to pack our wet clothes into zip lock bags. Good times.

Oh, sidenote; I have no idea what day we did what, so the following not be chronologically factually accurate.

But let me take you back to a special day, in which Kim and Lisa took a wander through lower Manhattan. In the Soho/East Village area (we can't tell them apart), we wandered into a lovely park in the middle of a busy intersection. There were some couples sitting, some old men reading newspapers, and a couple of middle-aged potential hobos.....oh, and there was also a trannie and statues of same-sex couples. We had accidentally stumbled into a gay hangout. As Kim so eloquently put it in her ever-expanding journal, "Known gay hang out? Black transvestite is clue".

Soooo, accidental-tranny run-ins aside; the next day we were off to do the Circle Line!!! Just like George Clooney and Michelle Pheiffer before us, we set sail aboard America's favourite sightseeing boat, and took in a big dose of New York (and a little Jersey). So we saw lots o'Manhattan (including the State of Liberty; I have a bunch of photos that I like to call the Liberty Series - they all look the same), and lots o'bridges, and also some teeny-tiny NYC Marathon Runners as they crossed the aforementioned bridges. It was long, freezing cold and totally fun.

Afterwards, being Kim and I, we had a fries (Kim also had a hot dog), and then a milkshake - which, unbeknownst to me, was made with cake-batter ice cream. America can do anything. I was violently ill that evening (cake batter clearly has wheat in it), so we decided to see a movie and call it a night. We saw that new Hugh Jackman Christian Bale one. Both hot, hot, hot. Oh, and the movie was good too. Very twisty-ploty.

But one thing Kim and I realised that night was that seeing a movie in a cinema full of Americans can only be likened to seeing a movie in a cinema full of (another Kimism here), "monkeys or children". At each climactic point, they would loudly gasp and cry out in shock, sigh (loudly) in sympathy with the characters, or laugh hysterically. I'm sure it doesn't sound so bad, but Kim and I were extremely weirded out.

Oh, we went to Barneys. It's awful. Unless you're looking to spend a shitload of cash, then I'm sure it's fabulous. To relieve my retail-depression, Kim let me go to Bloomingdales (which was fun), and to Century 21 where I picked up two adorable Calven Klein bras for 40 bucks. My other good bra broke, and I'll be damned if I'm trodding around Europe in hideous undergarments for the next 6 weeks.

Redbank, NJ was another NY highlight. About an hour away from Manhattan, the lovely New Jersey town is home to Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash (a la Kevin Smith). So we took a ride out there and spent a little time in Redbank, which is beautiful; lots of pretty trees and lovely people. Not at all the armpit of the nation as some have implied. Would actually rather live there than NYC - or perhaps that's only because we spent about 2 hours there. Either way, it\'s nice.

Next up is Empire State Building, which - despite Kim and my stubborn refusal to believe - is not actually the Chrysler building. I swear it's not what it looks like in movies. It\'s ugly and boring. So after swearing that the sign MUST be wrong, we headed inside and lo and behold, the sign was not. We mixed them up. We're not clever. Then more walking, a great gluten free dinner with brownies, and a fun subway ride home to good ol\' Dexter House. 'Twas a good day.

Anyway, London is great so far. Got a few dirty looks at the station, but were also greeted by a lovely Aussie (made us miss home....I think Kim almost jumped over the desk to embrace the man), and nice cheap internet!!! We made two friends...one Aussie and one mucho handsome South African. Our reservation got mixed up, and we're in seperate rooms for now....my roommates sleep in their underwear. Not pretty.

More adventure updates soon.

Love, Lis