Tales from the Big Apple

Thats right folks I have changed the name of the Blog as I feel the old is not applicable any longer. I am seldom known as Deutsches and I don't really use this blog to rant much so I thought the new title was more apt. The Khazi hills what and where are they? Well to be specific my family orignates from Afghanistan (It really doesnt show I'm in fact caucasian if you're wondering) and that is the part which my great Grandfather controlled I think. I think my family still owns land there but its being sold. Anyway I'm straying from the point of this exceedingly long post.

I spent most of the last week in the mythical US of A on a media trip to New York. Sceptics have critisised this trip for being a waste of time. True, there was little educational value but when oppertunities like this knock would you say no? 89 of us didnt and we certainly have no regrets.

Preview: I thought it would help if I gave a few opinions of those who went on this trip.
Dave: "It was a terrific jaunt all in all, giving us the oppertunity to see a part of the world heavily portrayed in the media at first hand"
Stewart: "Better than the German Trip"
Louis: "It rocked"
Ashley: "Best trip ever"
Scott: "Loved It"
Jimmy: "wow its cool...wow watta great audience"
Timmy: "TIMMY!!!"
Longhurst: "It ruled"
Troy: "Top Notch"
Gary: "Uh...It was Boring! Lets go to McDonalds" (Nice one Gary)

And coming at you the main story WITH PICTURES!

Tuesday Night:
Ah I was busy getting everything I needed into the suitcase. It all went in quite nicely. At this point where all was going so smoothly my phone convieniently decieded to stop working as the sim was kaputted. I eventually fitted my phone with my brothers sim as it works abroad and his phone was being cut off soon anyway. This was to be an annoying decision as I was bombared from texts and phonecalls from his friends along the lines of "wer iz u u ginger twat, how r u i relle need 2 tlk plz tb!" but all was well and I got some rest unlike some other fools! I'm talking to you Louis and Stewie!

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Heres a museful me deciding what to pack

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My room was a bit messy as a result

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From another view here.

Wednesday:
I woke up at 2.50 after being woken up by my Dad after my alarm failed to rouse me from my deep slumber. I got ready for the big off and was off to the school to begin the laughs before I knew it. I got there after the others but I was on time unlike Ollie Purslow who was late. I personally think they should have left him behind but it wasn't my call.
The journey to Heathrow was quite short and we duly arrived at Terminal 4 about 6 in the morning. This was to lead on to the most boring part of any flight, the checking in. This was not made better by the fact I had an near explosive bladder at the time. I didnt relieve it until after all the passport crap had been done.
We were then given free run of the terminal shops. We were surprised to find there were no fast food joints in this terminal, so we resorted to the more healthy Pret nearby. I had a Super Club sandwich and a very small caramel crunch cheesecake.
After this it was time to board the plane. I found that another member of the party had nicked my allocated seat so I had to sit somewhere else. Unfortunatly this meant sitting next to Luke Buxton the Uber Chav (He had a Burberry bag and all) who is from my primary school class. I was also sitting in what was dubbed "chav central". This made the journey rather noisy although I was able to lose myself in the inflight entertainment. For the first time ever I was on a plane with seat back TV's and I was overjoyed. On the plane I watched The Incredibles and Briget Jones 2, before tucking in to a rather nasty tasting beef breakfast meal.
The flight lasted for about 6 hours before we touched down in JFK. We were then greeted with a couple of surley NYPD men who checked our passports, we then had to queue to have our passports and forms checked, These forms ask the question, "were you at all involved with the German Nazi government from 1932 - 1945," which was hard to take seriously althought I was taking no chances. This went fine for all of us except Sami Yusef who was taken out and grilled as he had a Mulim Surname and was asked stupid questions like "do you speak English?" Hmm. This was before we had our passports CHECKED AGAIN!
We then entered the US properly, my first impressions of it was it smelled of Pizza. We then hopped on a coach which would take us to our destination.

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Stewart was very exited by this.

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I was a bit tired though

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Its a small world after all. As I spotted Eden park hotel on the Journey. I missed the E as the coach was moving and I was fiddling with this annoying camara which kept insisting that fresh batteries were not good enough as the battery cover is knackered.

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They have very large Graveyards there.

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One of the many Bridges into NYC

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FOOLS THEY SPELL MONEY WRONG!!!

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An Ominous sign of how paranoid America can be

It was at this point the coach broke down and we were forced to wait as the driver pulled over the road leviathan in Nutral, much to the annoyance of many New Yorkers. But soon all was fixed and we were off again.
We duly arrived at the Hotel Edison in Times Square and were sorted into our rooms and got our stuff together.

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Here is the room oooh ain't it classy!

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Stewie with his magazine

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Louis my roomie no 2 at the mirror.

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Awwww arn't they cute together

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Heres a view from our window

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Me posin' on the bed

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They were pretty bouncy

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This was the number of Ashley Gary and Troy's room. half eeevil!

After settling in we headed out for a jaunt of the local vecinity with the teachers.

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A very large car in Times Square

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A view there of Times Square

We then went to get some food and ended up in a fried chicken place whilst Gary opted to go straight to Maccy D's, This was to become a common occorance. We then went back to the hotel for some R & R which we definatly needed after being awake for over 24 hours.
We then made off on our next jaunt to the Rockerfeller Centre.

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I saw this ominous sign on the way there

When we got there we saw there was an Ice-Rink there which many of the people took advantage of although they had to queue for sometime. We chose to go to scourage for food, we ended up at McDonalds through Gary's choice (no surprises there)
We then headed back to see all the people skating.

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It is a truly wonderful building to look at

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Here's the Ice-Rink

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Now this was just asking for trouble, Me standing next to a "No Standing sign"

We were then forced to wait in the cold until the teachers got back from where ever they were and noticed there were a few armed police around with big guns. We then headed back to the hotel for well deserved rest.

Thursday:
The next morning was a rather slow start as we were still a bit tired but we then calculated to our delight that due to the difference in time-zones we had been fast asleep whilst you toiled at school on thursday HAHA!
We then popped next door to the 24 hour deli for breakers.

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I had a very tasty cream cheese Bagel

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Stewart also enjoyed it.

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Louis had a sausage and egg roll

We then set out on a walk through central park
Here is a collection of the sights:

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We then made our way towards the only thing of any educational value on this trip, the seminars. On the way I saw this

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I think this is kinda hard on Lee

The seminar was in two parts.
Part one was horribly boring, some old ITN correspondant went on about NY and most people started to doze off.

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Me Louis and Stewie were not happy

After that we saw some clips from programmes set in NY and were asked pointless questions about the clips.
After that we headed off to the Macy's vecinity.

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There I saw this caged chinaman

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We waited outside Madison Square Garden to be given the lowdown by Saville.

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There is the worlds biggest department store

We then went for lunch at a Pizza place across the road
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The Pizzas were bigger than we expected and the 3 of us struggled to finish it

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We then noticed this and thought about the implications of this in Iraq in question of whether the war there was legal or not.

We then went for a quick walk in Macy's
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Can you believe they have a first and a half floor!?

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Damn that Curious George!

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Hehe Wang!

We then realised Macy's was shite so we went outside to see the ol' Empire State
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Here a local seller of "Big News", which is a bit like the big issue, by the name of Mario engaged us in conversation and convinced us to buy an issue which was incidently out of date. Oh well he seemed nice although a bit over chatty. Luckly we werent late because of him as 3 of the girls were late after shopping in Macy's, sigh, women.

We then went up this 86 floor tower to check out the view. On the way in we had to go through a metal detector and have our bags scanned. I was fumbling with my things and couldnt see what to put where until the man operating it shouted "PUT THE CAMARA DOWN" at me which I felt was harsh considering it was a bewildering experience.
We went up the express lift which was very fast doing about 10 floors a second. So much so our ears popped.
Here's some views from the top:

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It was a great sight to behold all in all and it was too soon before we had to head down again. We then headed back to the hotel but sadly Saville led us in the wrong direction which led to a slight detour

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Still though we got to see the Chrysler building all lit up

We were given about 3 hours freetime when we got back to the hotel and we chose to go Ice-skating at the Rockafeller centre. It was fun as I found I was quite good at it. Stewart and Louis on the other hand had a rather more difficult time, it was jokes.

Thursday:
I started the day with a Italien sub and Mesquite Salsa kettle chips twas delicious. But the first call of today was teh Madison Square Garden tour. We made our way over to the famed stadium. We then found our tour didnt start for a while so we went for a walk round the shops.
It was in one of the shops I found this:

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Ha only in America.

We eventually got to go on the tour. Our tourguide was a small fat chap called Jason, who was desperatly trying to be funny but failed a bit. He did win back some major brownie points when he referred to the welsh as the "bastard children of Britain."
Here follows some views of the place:

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After that was done we then entered Penn Subway station which is apparently the busiest station in America and third busiest in the world. What I found a tad disturbing was the military prescence that seemed to be down there. I also didnt think of it as all that busy but the teachers weren't taking any chances as there had been problems before.
After a long journey we arrived at Southferry where we could see the statue of Liberty.

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It was rather far away though

Here are some views of lower Manhatten which seem rather empty if you consider what it used to look like before 911:
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We then were given the choice to either go to the statue of Libertay or go to Ground Zero. Me and Louis and Stewart opted to go to Ground Zero.

Here it is in all its eerie glory, This also marked my dream to go to the top floor of the twin towers but sadly the view is not quite as good anymore. I think what made the site seem even more weird is if you consider how many bodies weren't found and are probably still down there or burned without a trace:

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There were about 6 of these plaques along the metal barrier with about 200 names on each. Makes you think really.

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I then spotted this World Trade building which looks like a blatent rip of Canada One in London.

After this we went to dine in Burger King. I found it was rather poor in comparison to those in England as THEY DON'T MAKE THE BACON DOUBLE CHEESEBURGER!!!. Whilst we waited for our substandard food we noticed the "Burger King Bill of Rights" which was upon the wall. Sadly owing to the fact my proper Digital Camara was buggered and my Phone camara doesn't take great pictures I left that for Stewart to do so you Can find it on Slightly 'Chard.

We then met up with the party and got on the Subway to the area around Times Square were me Stewart and Louis went to see Hitch, which stars Will Smith. All in all I Thought it was a good film with many entertaining moments with a nice kind of message in it. Afterwards we went back to the hotel again.
This evening though we went to have the group meal at Planet Hollywood. This seemed like a good time to me to take some Piccatures of times Square at night as it was our last night there.

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Planet Hollywood itself wasn't too bad although the choice of food was rather limited for my liking. We also on the table next to all the Chavs which proved to be noisy. It was at this point one of the girls, one of those brunette twins I think her name is Sarah, came over and asked us "is there anything in the Ketchup?" Hmm words fail me sometimes.
After this meal we went back but not before I had viewed the Oddities which could be seen there.

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Here is a giant Joker

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A giant Deathstar model

I then headed back to the hotel for teh sleep.

Saturday:
Today we were essentially given the whole day to do whatever we wanted. we chose to do some last minute shopping but first came breakfast at the Deli as usual. Todays Choice of Breakfast was a Pesto Chicken grilled Sandwich.

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I was full after this hearty feast

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As was Louis

Then commenced the shop of teh gods. I still had about $300 left from $490 so It needed to go. I bought a few souveniers and some new Jeans. we then went for a Jaunt in the big Toys R Us they have on Times Square. There was some pretty cool stuff there. There was a large animatronic Dinosaur and a Darth Vader mask there.
We then to Virgin for about the 5th time and perused the DVD collection.

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Here I'm giving Stewart Beef

We then felt it was time to get some eats so we went to the restaurant where the giant car manequin was.

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Here was our salad Entree which I'm led to believe was free.

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Louis wasn't too happy with the size of the bill.
We then spent some time trying to get the correct amount out of our wallets but soon all was sorted.

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Here's Scott our waiter.

After this I decided that now should be the time to buy a new camara for myself considering the old one was rather past its sell by date and ended up buying a very nice one for about $150. You may notice that the quality of the picture improve greatly thanks to this purchase.
Me and Stewart, who had lost Louis and Ashley, returned to the hotel to compare our purchases with the others who were there.

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Scott found this T-shirt quite amusing as did others

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Longhurst found this absolutly classic Julius the monkey doll.

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Matt Huxley also found a Julius doll but one that wasn't as eeevil

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Gary was proud of this hat for some reason. He's special that lad.

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Thumbs up from Stewart (looking eevil)

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Louis had also found an amusing T-shirt

After this the coaches arrived and two of the four groups were loaded on but this didnt include us. Then we had to wait for about 40 minutes as our coach had broken down!!! We finally got on board the replacement and we were off.

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only then we immidiatly met with New York during rush hour.

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A view of the kinda area we were in during the long wait in the traffic.

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A US mail van. They "Deliver for You" but then again who else would they deliver for!

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Hehe Daves Bar

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Panda restuarant?

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A couple of Views of the Empire state all lit up

We then finally got moving and were at the airport before we knew it. Checking all of us in was very slow and it wasnt helped that the other coach had been waiting in traffic longer than us so was late. The fact we were late already did cause some panic.
We then went to the part of the airport I had been dreading. Twas the terrible US customs. They make you take you're shoes off and put them through the scanner and were genrally just twats.
Then I was left to wait as others went through.

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Looks a bit like OSMAR which is a bit like OSAMA! OOOOOO!

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Stewies passport photo

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MATT HUXLEY GOT UPGRADED!!!!!!!

We then found that missing the plane wasn't really a problem as we were deleyed a very long time due to a broken part on the baggage hold. They eventually boarded us but then we were told that the new part hadn't worked, so for safety our bags were being removed to be sent to us later. No one was very happy with this but eventually we heard the good news that they had managed to patch up the problem so the plane was safe enough to fly with our baggage and we finally got away. I was lucky enough on this flight to have a window seat facing Manhatten so I saw the City all lit up as we took off, Twas an awesome sight.

Sunday: I woke after about 4 hours sleep and we eventually landed back in Heathrow in good old Blighty. We were fairly quickly checked in and went to baggage claim which took a while to arrive.

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Poor Stewie all on his own as his bag was the last to arrive.

We then got on the coach and got back to LPBS where we went our seperate ways.
And that was that. It had been fantastic

I feel this Blog should finish with one of the Jokes we told throughout the week:
Tour Guide: We could have made the empire state a floor taller but thats another story.

If that joke didnt make you laugh maybe this will

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Peace out Playas

Dave will return next week with: DAVE IN THE BIG CHEESE (PARIS)

Comments

Chard said…
A truly massive post.
Great value for bandwidth there Dave, even if some of your photo's were ruined by my appearance, and you stealing my Iraq joke!!! TADYR!!! :D
Dauve said…
Sounds like great fun. And what trips do I get? A revision weekend at Youlgrave with Tyler next year. Oh w00ts.
Lewis said…
Great post, albiet MASSIVE!! But it looks like you had a good time, and the photos are all good.
Jon said…
XXXL! That must be huge!

p.s. Actually Tera, only the retake people go on that.
Dauve said…
Oh great. So the nest best trip will probably be the Greenwich observatory then. Even better [end sarcasm]

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