New York, New York

Here I am in New York. No Pictures, because I am using the fella's laptop and I don't know if I can download pictures. Besides, I haven't taken any yet. So--

This is my second time (ever) in NYC. The first time was five or six years ago, so needless to say, we don't come here often. Impressions:

Manhattan is an island, not a sand bar, like the island I live on. Lots of water and lots of other islands. Not much in the way of surf--but then I haven't been out to the "beach" islands.

There doesn't appear to be any such thing as traffic lanes. If a driver can squeeze a car into a space, he squeezes, forget where the lines are painted on the street.

Lots and lots of people, lots of languages. Galveston has as much variety, but not nearly as much quantity.

It's really hard to sleep on an airplane.

We got up way, way before dawn so we could drive across Houston to the Other airport to catch an early flight. It is actually possible to avoid all traffic slowdowns if you're crossing downtown at 5 a.m. And we had to leave the island at 4 a.m. to get to downtown Houston by 5. Yes, it is that far. Houston comes all the way out to meet us (okay, there are nearly a dozen little towns/suburbs once you reach Galveston County, but it's city all the way.) I kept trying to sleep on the plane, but it kept not working.

We checked into our hotel and rode the subway down to Chinatown for lunch, because I was in the mood for Chinese. We wandered around and goggled at the buildings and stuff in the stores and such. NYC doesn't have as much Chinese-styled architecture as San Francisco, where I was back in July/August. (This laptop keyboard is weird. Keep missing letters and spaces.)

We rode the subway back to Times Square, where our hotel is, and went looking for a drugstore or some place where we could get drinks and stuff for the room. Then I took a nap. I was really tired, and wanted to be able to stay awake. Because we went to see Spamalot. (Or is it Spamalot!?)

It was totally wonderful. Loved "The Song that Goes Like This" and "What happened to My Part?" and--well, just all of it. Clay Aiken was "Brave" Sir Robin. One of the understudies did Lancelot, and he was so good I'm scared to think what the --overstudy?--the regular guy would do with it.

Anyway, it was heaps of fun. And then we went out to dinner at a Brasilian restaurant, Brazil Brazil. That was quite good too.

Today will be a full day--not quite sure what it will be full with, but... I might be able to report back tomorrow. If I can figure out how to get on line, and stuff.