Day 9 - Dresden/Dusseldorf/New York City/New Jersey

It's been a whirlwind of a day! Well, well, well...I'm back stateside again. Currently in New Jersey. The day of travelling went rather smoothly. I was sort of grumpy in the morning from lack of sleep and lack of food. I didn't eat until I was in Dusseldorf. In which, I had a reinersnitzel (spelling?!). It was pretty decent food for an airport. I'm really going to miss the high quality of food that Germany has as a standard.

I made it through like 10 levels of customs security and flew away toward the US. I had a window seat this time and caught a spectacular view of London during the trip. That place is huge!

The flight was 7 1/2 hours. Not too bad, but long enough to make your legs hurt. I don't do well with seats that aren't on the aisle.

I flew into JFK airport and took the subway all the way to Hoboken (Jersey City). Then I hopped on a cab to my hotel. I was very releaved to be done with the commuting but wouldn't allow myself to sleep. I wanted to get this jet lag taken care of quickly. It's a lot easier coming this way than going that way. If you can undertand that one.

So I called up my friend Buz who had just moved to Uptown New York from Bloomington. We met up at Madison Square Garden and hung out in the east and west village. Pretty much pub crawling. The NY scene is pretty exhausting from everything going on, but the places we went to were real cool. Lots of very cool and nice people. Lots of awesome pubs.

Well, we stayed out until like 4:30am and I didn't get back to my hotel until at least 5:30am. I had to catch a path train and taxi.

OH YEAH. forgot to talk about near-death-experience chapter two. Why is it that I almost die everytime i'm in Jersey? So when I was planning on going to go meet Buz, I didn't know how I would get over to New York (you have to cross a bay and such). I didn't have the extra money for a cab because they're really expensive. So what do i do? I bet you could guess....I DECIDE TO WALK AGAIN! I'm not sure why I put myself through these situations, but I guess that's just me. So I knew that I could probably find a bus that ran through the Lincoln Tunnel if I walked toward the water for about a mile from my hotel. The only problem is that the only way to get where i wanted to go was via freeway. So I start walking on the side of this freeway (on the shoulder) and find myself on this bridge that has no shoulder over a river delta type thing. cars were flying by me just feet from slamming me into oblivion. It was very scary, but you know what? I got to Madison square garden for $2.30. HA! That's unheard of.

So anyways, I only got a couple hours of sleep last night and I'm drained. I'm actually in the Newark airport writing this waiting for my flight to Seattle. I got to the airport about 6 hours early because I had to check out of my hotel at 11 and I had nowhere else to go. NYC would have been too expensive and I would have had to haul my luggage everywhere..

It's all good though. I'm going through the normal motions. Itunes, Cinnabons, Cooking Light mags, and coffee. The terminal is packed because the airtraffic is heavy. I can't wait to get back and relax.

This travel blog has been a really positive experience for me. It's nice to go back and remind myself of all the things i've done. I really could have written a lot more, but some things are better explained vocally. I apologize in advance if for the next few weeks all my rants involve "Germany this" or "Germany that". It was an amazing trip that I'll remember forever. I can't wait to come back.

br