Landed and lounging

Hey everybody, James here. I’m gonna be using Victor’s account until mine goes through.

I had the fortune of flying to NYC which took @ 5 hours. From what I’m hearing, flying is the way to go compared to train.

Eva (my wife) and I spent last night in Austin with her sister who we were staying with. It was a good night of beer and BBQ before our flight. We arrived at the airport with no problems and all our schedules were ahead, including the airport’s. The seats on the plane had TVs so Eva and I bought $2 headphones and enjoyed the inflight “entertainment.” A sprite, some chips, a banana, and a half bottle of water later, we landed at JFK. This is when the real adventure began.

We used a flyer at the airport which advertised for “black car” taxi (limo) service for $40 to get us to Manhatten. It turned out to be a good deal. I forgot how crazy taxi drivers are here in NYC. We braced ourselves and we were off. This driver was probably an ancestor of Magellen himself because he knew exactly how to get where we needed to go on about 100 different streets. I asked him if he ever used a GPS and his only reply was, “No, it’s the city.” I left the issue alone.

We finally got to The Standard hotel and it is a swanky looking place. It seemed like the whole city was out in the Meat Packing District (where the hotel is) eating and jogging. Eva and I got to the hotel before the train group so we left our luggage at the front desk and went out for a drink. We felt a little out of place at the ritzy bars around the hotel except for a corner bar called, “Hogs and Heffers.” This place was a qualiy, hole-in-the-wall joint. Eva and I felt right at home. We only had time for one beer before we got a call from the group saying they were checking in.

The hotel rooms are awesome and I can tell we are going to have lots of fun with their “Peek-a-boo” showers. The shower only has two solid walls and the other two is a window into the room and an open door into the bathroom. The girls were smart and taped a blanket to the shower’s glass window. We will be following the trend in the morning.

I’m starving right now and can’t wait to eat some NYC food!

Tune in tomorrow for a new day and new post. Bye.

James Hernandez