New York Adventures Part 2 of 3

Well I waited about a week to post part 2, but here it is.

This is the continuing adventures of ROAST in New York City. If you haven’t already read part 1 I would suggest doing so.

After arriving and checking into my hotel in Times Square I decided it was time to go find where they sell the discounted tickets to Broadway shows. I had looked up what was playing before getting to New York on a Sunday night (I was sort of on vacation so I can break the Sabbath right? Yeah probably not…but I did anyway!) and had an hour or so before any show would start so needed to find this TKTS (or whatever it is called) booth where they sold these tickets. So I walked FOREVER down Broadway (Or Times Square Avenue I can’t remember which…I think they are parallel so I probably jumped back and forth looking for it).

Here are some pictures I took while looking:

That picture of me I actually took myself, but I am not even looking in the camera which is kind of funny. Anyway, after walking far too south I called my fake-sister Natalie and asked her to Google it for me. She did so and told me where I needed to be/go. So I went (man how did I walk right past the building it was next to and not see it?) and looked at the discounts.

Well they were all about 50% off, but that’s all the information I could really get. I was undecided between “Spamalot” and “Mary Poppins”. I asked the guy that was there answering questions which one I should go see and he said that “Mary Poppins” probably didn’t have as great of a chance of touring as “Spamalot” did (which is actually already touring). So I decided to go see that. I also asked about how much tickets were (before asking about the specific shows) and he said about $60-80 for the Broadway ones, and $30-60 for those that were off-Broadway. That was fine I thought. I had a credit card right? WRONG! Just kidding I did. I was wrong in my thought however that you could purchase discount tickets at this booth using a credit card. CASH ONLY! Luckily I still had around $60 or so (probably less) of cash after paying for my cab.

Anyway, I asked for a ticket and was told it was $60.39 (or something like that) and gave the person $61. Well they gave me back $20 immediately…so….either they didn’t know how to count or I didn’t hear them right. Seeing as I had already had a hard time figuring out the New York economy I decided it was the latter. Either way I was down another $40 or so in cash. The ticket also said $80 on it, so I think that’s where the 50% off came into play. So I think I had about $20 or so left. Well the play started at 6:30 p.m. and it was just about 6 p.m. so I decided I’d head over to the New Amsterdam theatre where it was playing. Enjoy these fine pictures:

Before enjoying Mary Poppins (oh by the way I forgot to mention I thought I was suppose to meet another Accounting student to see something, but she was going to watch the CES devotional (yes…I skipped the devotional making me even more of a sinner) so I went by myself) I decided to eat something as I hadn’t eaten all day (yes….I did remember it was Fast Sunday!....one point for me, 2 against me so far). So I had my first experience with New York City street food. You can actually see the booth I went to to get the food in one of the picture above (blue and white umbrella). I got a chicken shish kabob (which they put in a bun which I thought was odd) and I downed it in less then 2 minutes (hey the musical was going to start soon!). It only cost me $4 cash. I only got this food as I figured I would eat again real soon (as I was suppose to meet the accounting student for dinner at some place fancy later (wasn’t ever decided where)…which I will just say now instead of later that I was flamed as she never answered her phone).

Anyway, “Mary Poppins” was fantastic. I highly recommend it. My seat was in the Mezzanine about 7 rows back. I am a big musical fan and have seen at least 6 already this year (3 in one week!). There was only one song that I didn’t like too much in “Mary Poppins”, but it was still o.k.

After the musical I couldn’t get a hold of the other accounting student as already mentioned. Went to the hotel for a little bit (talked to Heather for like the 2^nd and 3^rd time for the night) and decided to go find something to eat. So after calling my parents (while I looked at souvenirs (I didn’t find anything I was 100% satisfied with)) I went to this pizza place (famous?) and got better pictures of the David Letterman show theatre (I also threw in a picture of what I ate at the pizza place):

Well the pizza was pretty good (although I was confused when I bought it as the slice of pizza next to it looked uncooked (which it was uncooked…they threw it in the oven while there)) and decided I’d go explore more of the city.

Here are the pictures of me going to Central Park and Columbus square. Rather they are pictures of Central Park and Columbus square:

I went part way into the park but decided it was late and didn’t want to get mugged/stabbed/shot/beaten up/killed in general so left quickly.

Well it was about 11 p.m. or so decided I would go to my hotel room and go to sleep. Before I did I took some pictures of Time Square from my room. Oh I also took this picture of a UFO:

On my way back to the hotel (I think it was then at least I can’t remember anymore that or after getting pizza) I snuck into an ATM room at Chase Manhattan Bank. I decided I seriously needed some cash especially if I wanted to get back to the airport. Well I swiped my card, put in for $60, said “Yes” to a $1.50 transaction fee, and got a receipt. Yep…just a receipt. It basically said “Your card is expired…you idiot you shouldn’t have spent so much cash (by the way I WAS able to use Credit Card on the pizza…I think it was around $7).” I looked and sure enough my debit card was expired. I started to panic, called home (didn’t get any sympathy or cash) and decided I would just borrow cash from another recruit the next day or try to get lucky and get a cab that took credit card.

Well I am about posted out for now so I will have to post yet another part (part 3 of 3) soon. You’ll be able to hear the exciting conclusion of what happened with my money troubles and maybe see some more pictures (not that there isn't enough here!)...You may now comment.

New York Adventures Part 1 of 3

As some of you might now (you should probably know by now, I’ve mentioned it at least a billion times in the blog by now) I’ve been doing office visits for an internship this coming winter semester. Recently I was able to go to New York City, New York for the first time on one of these office visits. This is Part 1 of a 3 part series about my adventures in New York. It is a photo journal if you will.

So my adventures began by landing in La Guardia airport after a long flight at about 4 in the afternoon on a Sunday. The first order of business was to get a cab to the hotel I was staying. Here is part of the line I had to wait in to get that cab.

Anyway, this was my first experience ever getting a cab on my own. I am glad you can share in it with me. Luckily I never actually had to hail a cab while in New York, there was always someone else to do it for me. In this case they had a long line at the airport and the guy just directed the cabbies where to park.

None of these pictures came out to well, but the first of the map of New York that was in the cab, the rest various pictures of New York City, and the last is a picture of the David Letterman studio (although in this picture you can’t see it too well). While driving through New York I saw a whole bunch of people and a bunch of people wearing silver capes (I had only seen one person wearing one at first and I thought he was odd, but then a whole bunch as I sat in the cab) . These silver things peoples were wearing looked like Capri Sun containers stapled together and wrapped around these people. It was weird, but I thought “Hey maybe that’s the fashion.”

Anyway, I arrived at my hotel which was the Crown Plaza Royal in Times Square. I think these places are normally somewhere around $500 a night. I got to stay for free luckily as I was going to be interviewing with Ernst and Young the next day.

As I was getting out of the cab I needed to pay the cabbie. Well I tried talking to my cabbie on the way to the hotel, but he was very hard to understand. So when I was getting out he was even harder to understand. So I get the receipt and it’s for $25.70, and the cab I think is telling me that it is this much, but I couldn’t understand him, so I just give him $29 and figure that’s good for tip and what not. Well he says something that I make out to be $4 for a toll (because we went through a toll bridge). So he says something like “1 more dollar.” So I give him a dollar or two. I then ask “Does that include tip?” because I had no idea what the guy was saying or how much I had already paid him, he says something like “No, that’s o.k.” but I go ahead and give the guy an extra $2 more dollars (probably not the best tip, but I had no idea how much I had already paid him…even though I think I just told you). Well I get out and an older couple are getting in, and boy did I feel stupid that I had no idea how much cash I had given that cabbie, and felt bad for the couple for having to wait for so long.

I went into the hotel and you had to ride an escalator up to the lobby. Well I rode it up and I didn’t see any check in, and the escalator kept going so I kept going too. I then see a bunch of people going into conference rooms, and drinking champagne, and a sign that says something like “New York Marathon.” I also see some more of those Capri sun cape things with “New York Marathon” on it, so that mystery was solved (well at least I think it is solved because I figured the New York Marathon was that day).

Anyway, I realize I’ve gone too far up on this escalator and decide to go back down one floor. I finally find the check-in hidden around a corner after wandering around looking for long enough. So I go ahead and check into my room…room 4309. I think I will post part 2 another day as this already is a lot to read for one day and you probably think these stories are somewhat boring.

Wii are sad...

Well I haven't posted for a while I think it's because I've decided that I won't post unless my girlfriend posts and since I wrote her last post (before the most recent one you can find by clicking "Heather" on the right hand side of this page) I decided I didn't have to blog for a while...well she blogged, so now I feel like I have to blog until she blogs again. It will be a never ending cycle (or so I hope).

Anyway, as some of you may know I've unfortunately had to leave Heather for a lot of weekends in a row. Well other then that other bad things have happened to me. I've been losing things I guess you can say.

For instance last weekend I lost my sunglasses, my planner, and my chapstick...

Anyway, so that sucked....but most likely it was my fault I lost these things.

The good news of last weekend was I was actually offered an internship for the winter semester so that was good and these things are easily replaceable (I later found another thing of ChapStick that I had lost before I had lost the latest ChapStick). It may cost upward to $5-$10 to replace those things. Probably not that much if I were able to get another free BYU planner, and a $0.99 pair of sunglasses (that's probably how much the other ones were worth anyway.

Anyway, this weekend I actually stayed the weekend after my office visit in Dallas to see my family (despite siblings who apparently didn't want to see me as they went on dates) and to go to another office visit (in New York) on Monday (I still haven't heard back from the office visit yesterday).

Well while I was watching a movie (Dan in Real Life....very good movie by the way) at the theater this morning I got like 3 phone calls in a row. Well I never get one phone call in a day little own 3 in a row. Well I don't like leaving movies and for the most part I was enjoying the movie, this however seemed suspicious and I immediately thought something was wrong (I forgot to mention this to you Heather but I thought something had gone horribly wrong with you and that was the reason why I was receiving all the phone calls). Needless to say I was worried.

I then get a text.

The text basically confirms (well not confirms...Heather was alright playing her recital as I thought she may be and as you can read about in her blog) my worries and I come to find out through a series of texts and a failed attempt at a phone call (Sorry Jason I had bad service in that hallway leading into the theater) that my relatively new Nintendo Wii (my birthday present to myself) was stolen.

Anyway, after the movie I was finally able to call my friend and found out the details (basically the details are the roommate went to bed at around 2:00 to 2:30 a.m....he didn't lock the door because people were coming in and out all night...a roommates friend came in at around 3:30 a.m. and noticed the lamp was on, but didn't think anything of it. My roommate wakes up in the morning, goes out into the living room and sees that my wii (with controllers and nunchucks and my Metroid Prime 3 game in it), his cell phone, and his ps2 are missing. What they (or he/she) didn't steal were another roomies vcr/dvd combo, a dvd player, a computer and monitor, and a bunch of dvds, wii games, books, and PEZ dispensers.

We have no idea who did it. I then proceeded to give the police officer (who my roommates had contacted about this) my name and told him no one had borrowed my wii and my roommate found serial numbers and what not we needed to give the officer to hopefully track it down.

I HIGHLY doubt anything will come of it. Although I hope you all can have faith for me. I did check to see that they couldn't get my Credit Card number from the wii (as I had bought something from the virtual console) (they can't apparently) or buy any other virtual games with the number (although I think I did still have 200 points left).

Anyway I am taking a collection plate for purchase of replacements of the lost things if anyone wants to donate! I doubt I will get Metroid 3 again as I don't really have the patience to play back up to the point I was at to beat the game.

I hope I don't lose anything more this next weekend when I go out of town for the last time on office visits.

If you want to donate you know where to find me.





THERE I FINALLY BLOGGED HEATHER AND AMY AND WHOEVER ELSE WAS WAITING! :-)