Different Worlds Part 1

Well after the show in Newburyport, we were excited and slightly terrified about our first show in New York City. Also, it was mine and Jake's first time ever even in the city, and as much as we pride ourselves on being big city Chicago boys, it's still a little intimidating to drive into New York.

First off, we took the Triburo Bridge to get to Manhattan where our show was, and like impending doom, the whole city was shrouded with fog, so we knew there was a giant somewhere, but we couldn't really see it. We soon got our first "welcome to New York, you sonofabitch" by paying $5 to cross a bridge (and to think I thought $3 on the Chicago Skyway was ridiculous). We found the venue, which was clearly a place where you need to pull in your own crowd. So needless to say, no one was there. Also, apparently trash is picked up off the street, because the streets were covered with trash (in bags, though there was plenty of loose trash as well).

Then we had a total surprise when our friend Grace (who has been one of our most loyal fans for a couple years now) shows up out of nowhere. We should point out, she lives outside of Chicago. She provided a tremendous source of comfort for us, and we can't thank her enough for managing to be at our first New York show. We love you dearly, Grace!

More people did trickle in as we played, and overall we played pretty well, considering Mike and I were still getting over sickness. We also met a great band named Less than Treason, who I'm sure we will work with more in the future.

Then the adventure really began. Our good friend Amy came out and suggested that since we were only in town for the night, we should really experience more of the city. So our mission became clear. Ride the subway into downtown and get a New York slice of pizza. And what better place to go than Grand Central Station.

So in the span of about half an hour we experienced the New York Subway (which goes by numbers and letters, so score one for Chicago, since it's far cooler to say "Brown Line" then "the #7"), Grand Central Station, and Times Square. My take on Times Square is that it's an adult circus where everyone is pissed (and all the clowns are hookers). So at 1:30am we walked through the field of lights and sounds like we were in some Hunter S. Thompson acid trip, and eventually stumbled into Ray's Pizza to experience our New York Pizza. We folded our slices and went to town. It was pretty good, I won't lie.

After venturing back through "Hell by Fellini" we were more and more blown away at just how many people were out at 3am. This city is crazy! There were department stores open at 3am, and people actually going in and shopping! What kind of drinking do you need to do to decide that the one thing you need in the middle of the night is a DVD, or some packing tape.

My personal favorite part was the fact that food vendors are on the street all night. In Chicago, food vendors are done by 8:30 at the latest, so hats off to New York on that one.

Now you may think that getting from New York to Jersey City (where our friend Amy lives) would be a piece of cake (heck, it's just on the other side of a tunnel), however, we would prove that was no easy feat, as you do still need to find said tunnel. After performing a couple illegal turns, driving through a building (Grand Central station no less. It was kind of awesome), and driving through what appeared to be Haiti, we decided that following Amy's handwritten directions was no longer ideal. Luckily my car charger fit her dead phone which had GPS, which we used to finally get back to her place.

The next day was even more stressful, as Jersey City would prove to be even more perplexing. According to Google Maps, there were about 12 steps before even getting onto any sort of highway. Those steps seemed to include alleys, driveways, and airport runways, all of which seemed to have secret codes needed for discovery and entry.

So eventually, after a few thoughts of "we're never going to leave this city" we did emerge and headed up north to Interlaken, New York, in the middle finger of the Finger Lakes.

We only drove about 4.5 hours, but it was a different world. More on that later.