- Prologue: Trouble Returns From Travels
- Volume I: Getting To Poland – 30 Hours Of Delays, Kissing-Ass, And Getting Drunk In Airports
- Volume II: The First Night In Poland, Selling Strip Club Tickets
- Volume III: Getting Yadstopped
- Volume IV: Where Is Alpha Dwarf?
- Volume V: The Wroclaw Dash
- Volume VI: “I-So-Would” Go To London
- Volume VII: The First Solo Dolo Day
- Volume VIII: To The Top
- Volume XI: Barcelona, First Of The Worst
- Volume X: Get Me Outta Barcelona!
- Volume XI: All Roads Lead To Rome
- Volume XII: Where Gladiators Fought
- Volume XIII: Absinthe Is Trouble
- Volume XIV: Goodbye, Europe
- Volume XV: Back To The USA
This is the sixteenth and final post of the Trouble’s Travels series that is more of a running scratch pad of my trip than anything else. Tomorrow, I will conclude the entire series with an epilogue, which is fitting as it has been exactly a month since I returned from the trip. I’m cramming a lot into this post, so here goes. Where are we in the story? [blockquote align=center] I had a long journey to get to New York City from Prague. First, I caught a flight from Prague to Brussels, Belgium. I then hopped a flight to Geneva, Switzerland, and finally got going on my trans-Atlantic flight to JFK. [/blockquote]
Saturday: Central Park
Holly and I decided to walk all the way from our hotel (8th and 45th) to Central Park, and then to walk through Central Park. In hindsight, that was a terrible idea. The north end of Central Park is something in the 90s – so we walked around fifty blocks total.
This was the point of the trip where I got snippy with her. She’s a major picture-holic, and I felt like she was getting more enjoyment out of taking pictures to post on Instagram than spending the time in The Big Apple with me. Some of the shots she took did come out beautiful, though, and we had a nice little discussion regarding the picture-whoring. Central Park is amazing, considering it is smack dab in the middle of one of the largest metropolitan areas of the world. I could completely envision myself living on the Upper East Side and going for runs in the morning there.
The problem was getting back. Taking a bus in Manhattan is something I will never, ever, EVER in a million years do again. I think it took about an hour to get back on the bus, and it was only a few miles. We eventually got off the damn thing and walked the rest of the way back to the hotel, which my tired feet did not agree with.
Saturday: Meet Up With Law Dogger
After getting back and grabbing a quick shower, I headed out to meet my fellow Return Of Kings writer Law Dogger. We met up at a cool little bar in what I think was technically the East Village district. He has done a lot of travelling in his life, including spending several months in Eastern Europe as recently as last year (check the Roosh V Ukraine thread, I believe it’s 50+ pages at this point), so it was awesome to get to share my own stories and compare his experiences with my own.
While we didn’t go out and do any gaming, it was good to talk to someone about my travels from a “red pill truth” standpoint. His understanding of cultures, and the differences in men and women in the United States versus Europe – is something that I can’t talk to my friends and family about. I mean, I’ll try, but I already know exactly how it will go. I might as well be talking to a concrete wall.
Truthfully, Law Dogger is a talented writer, and his travels have enough material he could easily launch his own blog. Dude, please do it!
Saturday: Gaming The Subway & The Empire State Building
I wanted to get a view of the skyline at sunset at some point during my trip, so after meeting up with Law Dogger I headed off to the Empire State Building. At this point, I was reasonably buzzed, bordering on drunk. Some of those beers were actually pretty strong. I was completely confused as to which subway line to take. Naturally, I turned to the nearest cute girl and loudly asked where the hell to go to find the Empire State Building. She giggled, and said she couldn’t help me because she was new in town herself. She had come all the way from Ireland. We talked a bit on the subway before she got off, and I stayed on to try to find Holly before sunset.
We didn’t quite make it up to the top for sunset, but we still got some cool pictures.
Sunday: All The Shit We Didn’t Have Time For
Sunday, our last full day, we decided to do all the things we saw on the bus the past few days, but didn’t have time to explore more in detail. First up was the 9/11 Memorial, which was chillingly (not sure if that’s even a real word) beautiful.
After that, we went and checked out Wall Street. We have a hilarious picture of Holly standing by the bull, with a little Asian girl sitting below the bull’s nuts. I wish I could post it. We also went to the New York Stock Exchange, and then walked to the famous Grimauldi’s Pizza in Brooklyn. Which, by the way – is completely overrated. Much like Rome, I thought the little shops on the street were far, far better. I had suspected Grimauldi’s might be a tourist trap, but even some locals had told us it was good – so I was disappointed. It wasn’t bad, but not blow-your-socks off good.
After devouring the entire pizza to ourselves, we decided we had better walk back across the Brooklyn Bridge to earn those calories back.
Sunday Night: Boston Red Sox At New York Yankees
I have been a Yankees fan since the beginning of time, which is odd considering I’ve spent my entire life in California. I grew up playing shortstop in little league though, and idolized Derek Jeter. I had seen a couple Yankees games previously – once when they came to Oakland to play the A’s, and another time in Los Angeles when they played the Dodgers, but going to Yankee Stadium had always been a dream.
Finally, that dream came true. What a great way to end the trip. Old man Jeter didn’t play, but the Yankees beat the Sox and I stayed until the final out, much to Holly’s dismay.
Monday: To The Top, One Last Time
We still had a couple of tickets from our tour bus pass to use, so we went to the Top Of The Rock at Rockefeller Center – which Law Dogger had told me was better than the Empire State Building. You know, if you’re in New York, you feel like you have to go to the ESB, right? Wrong. Go to The Rock instead, it is a better view, better service, and superior in every way. If I ever live in New York, when people come visit me you bet your ass I will be saying, “No, we are NOT going to the ESB!”
Monday: (Almost) Missing Our Flight
Remember this?
“Jesus Christ, is she moving here?
That was my first thought, as her suitcase was heavier (she had to remove things at LAX to get it <50 pounds), and significantly bigger than mine.
Well, while I was lugging those two suitcases down multiple flights of stairs, Holly found the platform of the train I had told her to. The problem was – that platform served A, B, and C subway lines. We needed the C line, but instead, we just hopped on the next train that came, which was an A train.
Oops.
We were nearly to Harlem before I realized. A cute girl told us to take the A Express south all the way to the AirTrain, saying it would be faster than transferring. Except the Express train simply was not express at all. Our flight was at 5:00, but at 4:00 we were just getting to the AirTrain – which of course is fucking broken. Finally at 4:15, we’re on the train, but realize that we are departing from terminal 8, which is the last stop on the way.
Oh, and our flight is boarding at 4:30. I come to the realization that there is no way in hell we are going to make the flight. But then, a stroke of luck happens – it’s delayed until 5:45.
We rejoiced, but not for long. You see, this flight would take us to Boston from New York, and then to Los Angeles. The flight to Boston was supposed to land at 7:00, and then we would take off to LA at 7:45. The problem was, our NYC -> Boston flight was now delayed until 6:00. Which meant we weren’t going to land in Boston until 7:30, which isn’t exactly enough time to de-board a plane, get through the airport, and then board another.
I told the American Airlines reps this and they proceeded to try to find me a new flight. The problem was, they were so slow, by the time they told us we had to get on our normal flight and hope we could make it in time – it was 5:15 and we’re supposed to board at 5:30. So do they take us through a special security line, considering they had been holding us up for the last hour? No, we get stuck in normal TSA lines which are going NOWHERE. Finally, at 5:25, estimating that we are still twenty minutes away from getting screened, I convince TSA to let us skip to the front of the line. We got through by 5:30, and made the flight with plenty of time to spare.
American Airlines sucks and I would never fly with them again.
If anyone from AA sees this and wants me to remove this, get in touch and get me some free shit.
Oh, and there were about twenty planes on the runway waiting to go out, so we didn’t leave on time, either. Fortunately, there were about 40 of us getting on that Boston -> LA flight, so they held that plane until everyone boarded.
We arrived in Los Angeles at about 11:15pm, and got back to San Diego around 2:00am after stopping for some much needed Taco Bell (yeah, welcome back to America…).
I was glad to be home. But, a day later all I could think was:
“How can I go back?”