That sounds messy.
Trip report!
I flew from Brisbane to LAX, and managed to get zero sleep but watch 5 movies and read half a book. I hooked up with JimmyJ in LAX in a bar near our departure gate and we drank, talked shit and eventually boarded our plane to Boston. As chance would have it I was sitting directly behind Jimmy, but we both slept most of that flight. We split a cab from the airport as we were staying pretty close to each other, and I dropped my bags and went in search of beer and food. I found a nice little craft beer place around the corner called Otherside which also had some good vegan eats and planted myself. I hooked up with Bradford and his girlfriend (Bianca) and we chatted until I eventually had to pull the pin due to get some much needed sleep. The next day I made it on PT and foot to Geekhouse and after a tour of the shop Brad threw a bike at me and I headed out to explore Boston and in particular the Universities. I went through Harvard and MIT and went around the backbay area a bit as well. I stopped through Fenway Park and the Boston Brewhouse, chatted to some randoms and then met back at geekhouse in the afternoon to hook back up with Jimmy and Brad. We went to polo and met a whole bunch of the Boston Polo crew, played until about 9 and then went to get some food at a nice vegan chinese restaurant called grasshopper. The next day I met up with Brad and Bianca in the morning and we rode along the river to check out the Head of the Charles boat race. We split up after a few hours and went back into town to have a poke around the sights of Boston city. In the arvo I boarded a train to Providence for my conference and arrived in Providence to a proper hotel.
The week in Providence was cool but mostly full of work junk so I won’t go into detail here. On the Friday I checked out and jumped the Amtrak to Penn Station in New York. As soon as I left the subway and hit street level I was just blown away by the masive scope of the city. I walked to the bed and breakfast I was staying in on East 24th St and threw my bags down. I made straight for the subway to get over to Brooklyn. I went through the King Kog shop and had a chat to the guys there who said to give a shout out to all the Australian crew. I then went to the Brooklyn brewery grabbing a couple of New York slices from Vinnies pizza (they use Daiya, so freakin’ amazing!!). The Brooklyn brewery was sweet and I scored a whole bunch of free beers from people I bumped into and the bar staff. I had only bought 6 beer tokens so was not prepared to be as tipsy as I was and woke to a bit of a hangover on Saturday morning. My room had no windows which didn’t help. Undettered by my poor state or the rai that was fallign outside I made it on foot south to Atlas cafe for a panini and coffee, and then over to NYC Velo. I kept going south to Babycakes and then started to make my way back north. I spied a grog shop with a heap of nice lloking beer so went inside to get some temporary refuge from the icy cold and wet conditions. It turned out to be a wholefoods so I stocked up on goodies to bring home and as I was leaving the rain had turned to snow. It was just incredible making my way back north with giant snowflakes dropping around me (only the 3rd time in recorded history thy’d had snow in October). I was seriously underprepared for snow so was lad to get back to 24th st and dry and warm. I chilled for the afternoon trying to orgnaise my flight back home due to the Qantas stuffup. It turns out I’d be in NYC an extra day so I planned out the next days activities then headed across town for dinner at Blossom. Blossom is a vegan fine-dining restaurant and I had the most amazing meal there, finisihed off by a "cheese"cake which just melted in your mouth.
The next day the sun had come out, I had wanted to go to Central Park but it was closed (like most of the other parks) due to the snow brining down branches of trees which hadn’t dropped their leaves yet. I instead went to the Empire State building, Macy’s, Rockafeller, Radio City, then south to China town for some veggie dumplings. I ate my way through 4 steam baskets (such a pig), and then tried to walk it off through Wall St, the courthouse district, ground zero and battery park. I subwayed it back up to the Lower East Side and checked out Chari & Co. and then Lula’s sweet apothecary. I stayed low the enxt day and got a shuttle bus to the airport, scaredthe shit out of me as the guy enjoyed doing 130kph on the interstate while weaving through the other cars. But I got home safe and am now back at work.
Observations:
Boston is full of single speeds and crappy beaters, almost no fixed gears.
Clothes are cheap.
Tax screws with your head.
Lane markings don’t mean shit.
Red lights don’t mean shit to anyone.
What the fuck is the metric system.
I was in NY at the end of '09. I sure as shit wouldn’t want to ride anywhere on the road! Everyone just leans on their horns and as you said, ignores any road lines and lights. It looks like you had an awesome trip.