Day 2: "Watch Your Heads. Yesterday a Bird Shit on My Face."

I love quotes; I really like to listen to what people have to say. I forgot to mention it yesterday but the title of Day 1 came from my tour guide of Downtown and today's title for Day 2 comes from the tour guide of Brooklyn. Direct quote.

It's an indication of how today was. New York City shit on the face of my plans.

Now. I am very detail oriented and I enjoy schedules. I do. My sense of adventure is squelched by my sense of logic. It's who I am and I've accepted it. If a day like today had happened to me in Phoenix it would just be another day. Which is why I can't say it was a bad day. It just didn't go according to plan.

The day ends with me needing to call Monica to have her come downstairs in her pajamas and let me into the building whose front door I cannot get unlocked.

Let's go back.

I initially had the whole day mapped out perfectly. I would take the train to Battery Park. Do the Brooklyn tour. Get on the Uptown Tour Bus or the Subway depending and go to Museum Mile to go to the Museum of the City of New York. I would then walk around Central Park for a bit while waiting to do the Night Tour again so I could take pictures of the Manhattan Skyline at night.

So I get on the train and go from Queens all the way to Whitehall St. (check it out on a map--it's a long ride). Circle a building because I didn't know what to do, again, until I recognized Fraunces Tavern George Washington's favorite haunt and found my way to the pickup spot. I was feeling quite good.

So I bought breakfast off a cart in the street! Coffee and a muffin, but still! This is a big step for me! I don't eat off carts...but I did AND I sat on the stairs of One New York Plaza like everyone else.

The bus comes by with Larry and Gilbert to collect us and show us around Brooklyn. We started at the South Street Seaport, a little into Chinatown, and went over the Manhattan Bridge which is just as scary during the day as it is at night. You're still suspended very high over a lot of water, PLUS, I was on top of a double decker bus. But we made it into Brooklyn and saw Prospect Park, the arch at Grand Army Plaza, lots of nice shopping and restaurants. There's a museum because about 8 years ago a man was looking at maps of the city, opened a man hole in Brooklyn and found a Subway track people had forgotten about. Forgotten. Completely forgotten for the last 45 years. How does that happen?

On the ride back into Manhattan, Gilbert "decides" to stop the bus on the bridge so we can take pictures. Everyone but me thinks this is a great idea. Jerk does it 3 times...and then we get off the bridge, drive 2 blocks into Chinatown and the bus breaks down. Lying tour guides and their drivers "stopping" on the bridge! So Larry kicks us all off the bus and tells us where we can meet the Downtown tour.

I don't want to meet the Downtown tour. I've taken the Downtown tour. But that street in Chinatown smells like fish, trash, fish as trash, and cigarette smoke and I don't want to get lost so I go to the Downtown tour. There's still plenty of time to get to the Museum and I can get out wherever I want. Except that none of the stops were where I needed to go. So I took the Downtown tour, again. To Times Square. Where I've been.

Surprise! While one person told me my ticket for the Cruise around the harbor doesn't expire for one month, another person told me my voucher is not a ticket, which i knew, and it must be changed at the gate within 48 hours of my being issued my voucher. And someone else said, validate and exchange them at the South Street Seaport. So I consult my map, pick a train, walk for about half an hour to find the train, go through the Diamond District (so sparkly!) get on the train, realize my map is wrong and the train I'm on doesn't go as far as I want it to and decide to try the transfer option. So I get off the train a while later and am looking at the new train; the new train that will take me back in the direction I've just come. No matter where I look there is no way I can transfer trains and not head back uptown at this station (Monica told me the transfer is underground...secrets are not fun!).

So I decide to walk, leave the platform and find myself in...

...Chinatown! Where else right?!

So I walk. From Chinatown to the Financial District (check it out on a map--it is a long walk).

I ended up walking for about 2 hours 30 minutes, give or take, total, not just from Chinatown to the Financial District. From the stop in Times Squares, to the train, to Chinatown, to the Financial District. 2 and 1/2 hours. But I walked through the Civic Center where the City Court House, Municipal Building, and City Hall are located. I stopped twice at two different parks to consult my maps, the first time next to a woman, potentially homeless, who was sleeping. When I decided which direction to go and got up she was sitting straight up and staring at me. Creepy New York. The next stop I made to a different park, a homeless guy who had taken his shoes off and was playing with his feet watched me enter, watched while I looked at my maps, watched as I got up and left, and as I walked down the street. I know because I turned around to make sure he wasn't following me. Yucky.

But I make it to Battery Park and get on the Downtown Tour because it goes right past the South Street Seaport where the guide and a helpful British couple tell me I can't validate and get my tickets here it needs to be done at Pier 83. The South Street Seaport is at the bottom of New York City. It faces Brooklyn and Queens. Pier 83 is a few blocks from Times Square. Where I had just been 2 and 1/2 hours of walking ago.

So at this point it was 3:30 p.m. and I had to choose because the Museum closes at 5 p.m. and I have no idea if the Cruise line even exists. But I chose the tour of the harbor, and took the Downtown tour, again.

Once we get back in Times Square I ask the helpers where I go and they direct me to the Waterway buses. Free buses that stop at city bus stops, free to those using the Ferry. The ride with that guy to the Pier is now the second worse ride I've ever had in my whole life. That guy was insane!

I get to the Pier and get my ticket. It's 5 p.m. I have 2 and 1/2 hours to wait for the Night Tour to start. I sat down at the Pier to think about what to do, took some pictures of the water, and the moon that you could see in broad daylight, before getting back on the Waterway bus.

I haven't been on a bus since we moved to Phoenix from Canada. I didn't get to do anything on that trip so I literally do not understand how the bus works. It was free so that was nice and I learned that 1) you need to flag a bus down even though you are standing under a bus stop sign staring the driver in the face, and 2) you need to alert said driver to the stop you wish to get off at. So the driver of this bus was chatty and I was the only person on the bus and he never asked where I was going; asked everything else and gave me a "You get it girl!" when I told him about school. The next thing I know I'm back at the Pier. He says to me, "stay on the bus and I'll get you around if you have time." I say, "Sure." And the bus starts and he drives in the opposite direction towards the East Village. Eventually it is 6:30 p.m. and I am back on the Pier. I find the bus that's going to 50th St. get on it and sit in the back away from the driver. I get off and find the pickup for the Night Tour and get on that bus.

I haven't eaten anything since that muffin! But I want to see New York with the sun setting since it's so warm outside today so I eat some trail mix, chug some water and off we go.

The same guide as last night is the guide tonight and he varied the jokes a bit so that was nice. My favorite was when he was talking about how Barry Manilow is from Brooklyn and he had to learn all his songs in school including the Copacabana, Mindy, and I Write the Songs that Make the Whole World Cry. Classics. But I got some great pictures of the Manhattan Skyline and the Statue of Liberty.

The tour ends and I'm back in Times Square, again. And I head over to the Subway I scouted earlier that has my train but end up on the wrong side of the platform where the train will go Downtown not Uptown like I should. So I go back up to the street, circle a building because I don't know what to do, find the other platform and can't get in. My unlimited metro card is being declined for not having any tokens.

Part of New York's no tolerance program is trying to avoid turn style jumping and double dipping where someone like me with my unlimited card would pass it down the line to 7 people and no one had to pay for rides on the train. So when you swipe the card you have to wait 18 minutes to swipe it again. On either side of the platform. So I couldn't get in. But I forgot this was the rule because by now I am exhausted, achy, and have a raging headache.

So when I ask the guy sitting behind the glass what's happening he and his buddy decide making fun of a tourist to their face is a good idea. But they let me in through a door they buzzed open for me because they were in such a good mood from their little laugh fest. Glad to know that making fun of people when they ask for help is the highlight of your sad sorry jobs fellas. You're welcome.

But putting them down doesn't help me either because I just wanted to get back to the futon waiting for me in Queens.

After almost impaling myself because of a raised sidewalk outside the subway station I walked in the right direction to the apartment and then couldn't get the front door unlocked no matter how hard I jiggled it and finally had to call Monica because I'm helpless.

So that was Day 2. It wasn't a bad day. Everything went wrong which is fairly typical of the way things go for me, I was just hoping that streak of bad luck would take a break while I was here wandering around with no clue where I am.

But, it's another day tomorrow and hopefully a better one. I might not mind getting as lost when I have less structured plans as in tickets I've bought and can't use because I can't find the place.

Tomorrow's goal: Circle Line Cruise around the harbor, The Museum of Modern Art tonight (because it's free) and in between that maybe Central Park or another museum, possibly the Met.

A few of my favorite pictures:

Worldwide Plaza. I stumbled on it while trying to find a train. Under the white tent to the left was a jazz band. The couple in the middle were swing dancing.