Hobo in the Big City
When you think "Hobo Mecca", what's the first thing that pops into your mind? Besides exciting skin conditions. New York City, right? Ok, and Hoboken, that's a given. What? No, Montreal doesn't have hobos. They have clochards, which I think is French for "men who sleep in orchards".
Nomenclature aside, I had the chance to visit NYC over the weekend. Amazingly enough, I managed to work my hobo charm and secure a place for The Girl and I at a very nice hotel in Midtown Manhattan. For $35 a night. Ah, the power of the Hobo Network.
Our friends Brian and Leah took us to Brooklyn, where we saw an excellent show, had some good pizza and some really, really nasty iced tea:
Brian agrees that my tea tastes like the ass of a lemon
AND I encountered the most awesome (awesomest?) example of grafitti I've ever seen:
Then we enjoyed a hair raising cab ride back to the hotel (after, of course, the obligatory mad dash for the back seat in the hopes that one can avoid sitting in the front seat with the cabbie, who (according to the locals) has no choice but to hate you because you make him move all of his crap), during which we almost died in several exciting and interesting ways.
Greenwich Village was very nice, and I encountered a fascinating sign:
Sadly, I had to put my tuba away, as Danger is only my MIDDLE name. That night saw us at yet another excellent show, wherein I donned actual Real Person clothes (and a tie). Sadly, it turned out that we were probably the best dressed people at the show that night - there were people in baseball caps and football jerseys milling around at intermission. When did people stop dressing nicely to go to Broadway shows?
Regardless, the next morning had me heffing applewood smoked bacon, the pure porky pleasure of which reduced any lingering cultural malaise from the previous night. In simpler terms, bacon is fucking GOOD. As was Central Park:
Lunch at Cafe Lalo, a brief stop at St. Patrick's cathedral and the Museum of Modern Art gift shop, and then it was time to head back to Philadelphia, which turns out to be the home of the Worst Hotel Ever. Folks, if you manage to get a deal on the Interweb for a suite for $79 a night, there's probably a pretty good reason.
The reason in this particular case was not revealed until we had already checked in and paid, at which time the desk attendant said "Oh, by the way, you may want to read this," and handed us a folded piece of paper. Written on the piece of paper, in language couched in words like "regretfully", and "we hate you" was a message to the effect that they were going to shut the water off the next day. Between 9am and 4pm. Yes, ALL DAY. Tense Words were exchanged, at the end of which we were offered what was meant to be an appeasement: a free continental breakfast. AH, so to make up for the fact that we would have NO WATER for the ENTIRE DAY, we would be given the gift of a breakfast that was ALREADY FREE. Classy, Hotel Windsor, classy.
The room was Not Nice in the same way that the guy who breaks kneecaps for your Uncle Guido is Not Nice. Relatively decent looking from a distance, but don't get too close. Seriously, there was a spitwad on the wall. At least, I PRAY that it was a spitwad. But the sheets are clean (we immediately burned the comfortor and doused the flames with Holy Water, just to be safe), so we decided to stay, and just get up early the next morning.
Morning came, we got up early, and The Girl trekked downstairs at 9 for our free complimentary breakfast. And came back with two tiny boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, sans milk. And she had to fight to get THAT. Classy, Hotel Windor, very classy.
Still, all told, it was one of the best trips I've had. Besides...who doesn't love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
Nomenclature aside, I had the chance to visit NYC over the weekend. Amazingly enough, I managed to work my hobo charm and secure a place for The Girl and I at a very nice hotel in Midtown Manhattan. For $35 a night. Ah, the power of the Hobo Network.
Our friends Brian and Leah took us to Brooklyn, where we saw an excellent show, had some good pizza and some really, really nasty iced tea:
Brian agrees that my tea tastes like the ass of a lemon
AND I encountered the most awesome (awesomest?) example of grafitti I've ever seen:
Then we enjoyed a hair raising cab ride back to the hotel (after, of course, the obligatory mad dash for the back seat in the hopes that one can avoid sitting in the front seat with the cabbie, who (according to the locals) has no choice but to hate you because you make him move all of his crap), during which we almost died in several exciting and interesting ways.
Greenwich Village was very nice, and I encountered a fascinating sign:
Sadly, I had to put my tuba away, as Danger is only my MIDDLE name. That night saw us at yet another excellent show, wherein I donned actual Real Person clothes (and a tie). Sadly, it turned out that we were probably the best dressed people at the show that night - there were people in baseball caps and football jerseys milling around at intermission. When did people stop dressing nicely to go to Broadway shows?
Regardless, the next morning had me heffing applewood smoked bacon, the pure porky pleasure of which reduced any lingering cultural malaise from the previous night. In simpler terms, bacon is fucking GOOD. As was Central Park:
Lunch at Cafe Lalo, a brief stop at St. Patrick's cathedral and the Museum of Modern Art gift shop, and then it was time to head back to Philadelphia, which turns out to be the home of the Worst Hotel Ever. Folks, if you manage to get a deal on the Interweb for a suite for $79 a night, there's probably a pretty good reason.
The reason in this particular case was not revealed until we had already checked in and paid, at which time the desk attendant said "Oh, by the way, you may want to read this," and handed us a folded piece of paper. Written on the piece of paper, in language couched in words like "regretfully", and "we hate you" was a message to the effect that they were going to shut the water off the next day. Between 9am and 4pm. Yes, ALL DAY. Tense Words were exchanged, at the end of which we were offered what was meant to be an appeasement: a free continental breakfast. AH, so to make up for the fact that we would have NO WATER for the ENTIRE DAY, we would be given the gift of a breakfast that was ALREADY FREE. Classy, Hotel Windsor, classy.
The room was Not Nice in the same way that the guy who breaks kneecaps for your Uncle Guido is Not Nice. Relatively decent looking from a distance, but don't get too close. Seriously, there was a spitwad on the wall. At least, I PRAY that it was a spitwad. But the sheets are clean (we immediately burned the comfortor and doused the flames with Holy Water, just to be safe), so we decided to stay, and just get up early the next morning.
Morning came, we got up early, and The Girl trekked downstairs at 9 for our free complimentary breakfast. And came back with two tiny boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, sans milk. And she had to fight to get THAT. Classy, Hotel Windor, very classy.
Still, all told, it was one of the best trips I've had. Besides...who doesn't love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
coughed this up at 5:52 PM
3 El Commentos:
Wow, that's even better than my Worst Hotel Ever story. But then again, we didn't stick around to see what a night in the Worst Hotel Ever would actually be like. The crunchy towels the size of washcloths and the two pre-opened bottles of room temperature tap water on the headboard were enough for us. In fact, we only lasted approximately ten minutes, which was how long it took for the cockroaches to start pouring out of the walls.
My worst hotel ever story leaves yours for dead... It involves no light in the toilet (yes Americans I say toilet! scared?) crunchy floor and a thousand elephant sized roaches...
On a lighter note, it sounds like NYC was good to ya
OKay here it goes: we stayed in this place in Sardenia, Italy called Hotel Giusey. First of all, there was some sort of gathering of criminal/mafia looking dudes chilling in the lobby that stared at us in silence as we checked in. Once we got to our suite, several things about the room immediately disturbed us. First of all, there was a window between the bathroom and the bedroom, except with no glass. And no door on the bathroom either. The toliet had no seat and the shower had no shower, it was just a shower head over the toliet. Finally, their was a sliding glass door that opened upon... NOTHING. Really, just a 3 story fall to your death. It was the only place in town, so we were kind of stuck..
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