What I've been up to?

So as some of you may know, I recently took a trip back to my hometown. A little place called New York City. Heard of it? I thought so! I won't go into heavy detail, as I'm probably the only one that cares.

Here are the fourhighlights and onelow pointof the trip:

1. The Food- Seriously. This is not only a highlight of my trip, but it just so happens to be my favorite highlight. See I now reside in, although growing, a much uncultured state. Arizona. All I can get here that's worth mentioning is Mexican food, BBQ/Southern,and maybe one or two Chinese restaurants. Big deal. So, in turn, with every return to The Big Apple comes a weight gain of at least 10 pounds . I just can't help but indulge myself in wonderfully fresh mozzarella that tops the pizza at places like Lombardi's and Patsy's. Or the massive sandwich's served at the many Jewish delis. OhI could just go on and on!

An example of a typicalLombardi's pie.

2. The People- Yes, another generality. But like food, Arizonan peopleare just not culturally mixed enoughyet to produce the same affect and feeling I get when walking down one of the many streets in basically any neighborhood in NYC. When I say this, I do not mean places like Times Square and Rockefeller Center. No, those are tourist attractions. When I say people I am referring to the medley of beings who wander the streetson their way to work or whatever it is that their schedule permits. You'll see just about every kind of person on just about every street. Bums, men in suits, street peddlers,musicians, members of the workingclas, hardened faces of the lower, freaks, geeks, and just about every thingelse you can muster up. Take a walk around the block on your next visit to New York and you'll see. (A tipfrom onetourist to another, if you want to see thepeople to whichI am referringstay in the subwaysor headdown to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.)

3. Ellis Island Museum- Around midway through my trip, my parents decided to take a little detour down to Ellis Island. While I'll admit I was a little reluctant at first, once we actually got onto the island (via a ferry), I was pleasantly surprised! There really isn't a whole lot to say other than the various exhibits throughout the main building are very interesting. The medical area interested me the most, as some of the techniques and tools used back then were quite... daunting . The "Wall of Honor" is pretty cool to see as well. It was quite a surprise to find my Grandpa's name on there! I was genuinely a little excited to see that, until my parents decided to tell me that they had paid to have that done ($500 I believe?) back in 1990 right after his death.

Wall of Honor on Ellis Island.

4. TheRock and Roll Hall of Fame (Annex) - Ihave avery devout devotion (that's fun to say ) to thegenre of Rock.More specifically, Clasic rock. It was great to see the pioneers of this ****of music paid tribute to.Some of my personal favorites including The Who, Frank Zappa,Led Zeppelin, and (early) Black Sabbath hadexhibits there. Even lesser known groups like Bruce Springsteen and The Beatleshad sections of their own! Not a fan of ****c Rock? Don't worry! They have small exhibits dedicated to all types of rock's subgenres including Punk (Ramones, Sex Pistols,etc.), Motown (Temptations, Marvin Gaye, etc.), and even artists with more poetic lyrics like Bob Dylan. The John Lennon exhibit at the end was pretty neat too, although I did feel it became less about the music and more about stricter gun laws and ending the war in Iraq. I understand Lennon was an advocate for those types of things and sang about them often, but Yoko (she designed the exhibit personally) took it a little overboard...

While it's not exactly as grand as the real Hall of Fame, I still enjoyed it.

5. 4th of July - I started off the day with the hour and a half long train trek to Coney Island with hopes to see the famous Nathan's hot dog eating contest. Yes that one. There was quite the crowd going there with the same idea apparently asI believe the number of people there reached 100,000! That's alot of people to pack into the small intersection they held the event on... So despite being nearly trampled by locals attempting to break through the mob and get to the beach, I must say it was a load of fun to watch the two headliners Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut go head to head! And both of them broke their previous records! Chestnut ended up winning the event with a total of 68 hot dogs eaten!!!! Wow.

Later on in the night, we headed down to one of the many viewing areas for the fireworks. All I will say is that they where absolutely stunning to see in person! But, what stunned me even more was the amount of people there. Just in my little area there were roughly (according to a police officer) 300,000 people!! Ican't evenbegin to describe the sight to you.

Kobayashi (left) and Chestnut (right).

And now for the one low point. And boy is it low...:

BED BUGS!!!!!!!

Yes, bed bugs. Recently New York Cities' many Health Departments have been fighting the outbreak of these little critters. They are infesting hundreds of apartments a day and don't seem to be slowing down on their journey to world destruction! Many people are becoming victims... including me!!!

It just so happened that the apartment we decided to rent was infested by these little sons o' b****es! I am now suffering from literally hundreds of itchy bites from them, and boy does it suck. The only thing that helps all of these embarrassing and annoying little red bumps go away (over a week's time...) is the use of two doses of Benadryl per day and constant application of topical creams like Hydrocortisone. My Mom and Cousinhave about 3 times the amount of bites as I do . And somehow, my Dad managed to stay completely unharmed...

Luckily for us (or my parents really), after a heated argument with the people who rented out the apartment, we received ALL of our money back.

That's all for now! Stay tuned for part 3 (music and movie updates)!

Thanks for reading!