The bus ride was okay for...well, a bus ride. I was even able to sleep a bit. The bus dropped us off at 4:15 am at a stop about three blocks east of New York's Penn Station. As I began walking towards Penn Station, Madison Square Garden quickly showed itself, thus giving me a greater understanding of just how close together everything important really is in the Big Apple. I would eventually find places farther apart throughout the day, but it still gave me comfort knowing that I would have plenty of tourist activities during my short stay. I also began to feel right at home (my Boston home) when a panhandler approached me at Penn Station, claiming he was a diabetic and needed $10 to get something at the McDonald's stand on the corner. That was the most money I had ever given a panhandler, and I knew he probably wasn't diabetic if he was going to get something at McDonald's, but I was already apprehensive about New York's reputation for muggers without adding the 4:30 am ambiance. As I moseyed into the station, I began wondering what I had gotten myself into. Hundreds of people from all walks of life lined the station walls, keeled over their luggage in the most uncomfortable sleeping positions, while most of those awake were either arguing with their cell phones or arguing with themselves. Mohawks and enormous afros must have added six inches to the the average height of the people there. I wonder if I'm that scary looking in the morning. Even before the Subway signs warned me to watch for pickpockets, I was already clutching the outside of my jacket pocket that carried my cell phone.
The trip was great--well worth the bus fare and the shin splints I would acquire by the end of the day. I spent a couple of hours reading in the Subway--waiting for my line to open up for the day. I then ventured to Central Park. On the way, as the subway whisked through the stop at 59th Street, I was reminded of Simon and Garfunkel's 59th Street Bridge Song, a lyric quite complementary to the ever-frazzled disposition of which I have been trying particularly hard to dispose--part of the reason I had come on this adventure. Actually, just about everything I saw in New York got me thinking about everything, and I wish I had more creative words at my disposal to describe it. I ended up cruising through Times Square for a while before hitting Central Park. Times Square literally puts Boston's Newbury Street to shame. Everything is there, not just your high-priced retailers and exotic outdoor restaurants. Times Square has those too, but so much more for anyone to enjoy.
I didn't realize that Times Square is basically a long strip stretching from the southern border of Central Park to beyond 40th Street. I guess the New Year's Eve celebrations have had me assuming it was an actual square--a really big one, no less. My favorite part of Times Square was the Hershey's Company, where I went and bought Reese's-flavored Whoppers. Even though I'm not a big fan of Whoppers, it was peanut butter! And I had to get some sort of souvenir besides the digital camera I bought. I also encountered an Elvis impersonator, a no idling sign that threatened a $2000 fine, the building where they film the Late Show, and a branch of New York's finest right in the middle of the Square. 
I later took the literary walk through Central Park, which also surprised me. I didn't realize Central Park actually had tourist attractions of historical value. I saw statues of Columbus, Shakespeare, and Sir Walter Scott, among others. And I saw a random black wizard with a long white beard near the playground giving a tour to some high school students. He had with him a sign that said Blackwolf, who I later learned was a character from the 1977 movie Wizards, a post-apocalyptic science fiction/fantasy about two opposing wizards who represent the battle between magic and technology. I just thought seeing a wizard in Central Park was really cool.
After brief visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History--both of which cost money just for the tours, so I didn't get to do much more than admire the Greek and Roman sculptures as well as Theodore Roosevelt's statement on Manhood--I ended my stay with a tour of Ground Zero. I knew my stepfather would be disappointed if I left New York without visiting the place, and since I was on my mission when it all happened, I still know very few of the details. The tour was given by two people who had loved ones that had died during the attack. Most of the tour, however, featured the logistics of the World Trade Center, such as the fact that David Rockefeller paid for it to be built to revitalize a city that was deteriorating in morale and economic prosperity. I also learned that the entire Liberty Island could fit into the site where the towers once stood, and that when the towers were hit, they took 10-12 seconds to fall, tumbling to the ground almost like a pancake. Part of the tour took place in the memorial that is currently under construction. As I gazed out the large windows from the third or fourth floor of the memorial, I saw the construction site that I assumed was the actual towers being rebuilt, when in fact it was part of the memorial itself. I felt kind of sheepish after finding out otherwise on my own.
Either way, the fact is that I somehow did not save the picture I took of the site, which saddens me. Oh well, I'm over it. That was the gist of my trip, and I won't bore you with the bus ride home. I did feel more cultured and experienced after going to New York, and I can't wait to go back there with friends so I can be in the pictures that I take--you can't be in too many pictures if you refuse to take your hand off your camera. Maybe whomever I go with will convince me to relax in that respect.
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