new york culture update #2

american museum of natural history
this is the real deal: they use real dinosaur bones in their reconstruction, not casts. the four floor monolith is incredible, and i struggled to see everything in one day. i suggest two days if you have kids in tow, or you're a kid yourself. and start on the fourth floor so you don't skimp on the dinosaurs. my word they are impressive! i also found out what badgers and racoons actually look like at last. totally worth the sore legs and the effort required to gently shovel little screaming children out of my way.

rent @ the nederlander theatre
three of the regular casts were out for the night. the understudies started shakily but warmed up quickly, such that by the end of the first act, the applauses began to feel deserved rather than polite. to be honest, i've never been one to harp about musicals, but at the end of it all, i was left less than impressed: is this the best america has to offer? isn't broadway the crown of western theatre? perhaps i should've checked out spamalot, phantom of the opera or even les mis instead...

liberty and ellis islands
it is worth getting up early so you're down at castle clinton to get your ferry tickets by 9am. the number 1 train is nice and slow (stops at all the stops) and the queue was already getting out of control by the time the first ferry was off. the statue of liberty was pretty cool, all things considered. but don't bother with ellis island: it's just a big empty building. full of history, yes; worth lining up for the ferry back to manhattan, a most definite no.

wall street
this place is phenomenal. it exceeded all my expectations. so many beautiful, tall, old buildings! i spent a good hour wandering around aimlessly looking up, always up. afterwards i kept going over the brooklyn bridge, and wandered around brooklyn heights. but i'll leave that story for later.

empire state building
the longest, craziest queue of them all: it curled around itself about three hundred times until finally, an hour and half later, i found myself on the eightieth floor, decidedly not outdoors, definitely not on the observation deck, and far from impressed. luckily, this was just a way for the capitalists to plug an audio-tour and cheesy postcards. the audio-tour is absolutely gold. i would highly recommend you secure tony's services, just to listen to his boo-ti-ful accent. the postcards were duds so i returned them, no thanks!

the view from the eighty-sixth floor was excellent. with tony in tow, i looked in all directions and spent a merry hour or so in the clear summer rays. wish i had brought my buffalo brewery hotel bucket hat with me though, i think i got second degree burns.

new york culture update #1

i have concluded that new yorkers love queues. this is not a coincidence. in a city of eight million people all in a rush, shortages are inevitable. yet there is a need to to maintain a veneer of civil behaviour, hence queues.

for new yorkers, queues reinforce their place in the universe:
their city is screwing them all day, every day.
true new yorkers never complain when they find themselves in a queue:
everyone else is also getting screwed,
so they accept their misfortune with dignity; however,
this is not to say they like queueing up:
if they can pull some strings, call in favours, and get to the head of the line, top of the heap, etc they will: after all, it is the new york way.

first impressions of earth

los angeles international airport is without a doubt the worst place i've ever been to.
ugly non-functional architecture;
american flags every where, so crass and unimaginative;
shuffling, blank people completely demorolised -
a spiritual wasteland.

new york was grey and raining, which reminded me of melbourne and ballarat,
except all the cars were on the other side of the road;
subtle differences in the buildings and the cars and people:
bigger, brighter, more obnoxious, super-real;
the american dream in every gesture and word.

the smell of raw sewerage on the nose, the blast of loud chatter in your face, the heat of the streets against the skin;
the terrible condition of the roads and the horrible drivers using their horns freely -
the garbage on the sidewalks (don't they have bins? don't they recycle?) -
the conscientious lack of eye contact on the subway -
remind of of taiwan.

before the tunnel between queens and manhattan was a field of tombstones.

time to go

after forty-two weeks of subacute care, i knocked off work at the qe one last time around 830pm on friday. walking down the ramp, looking back at the flat, sprawling, ugly monolith, a flash of nostalgia quickly quelled. no more overnight on-calls! no more disabled parking permit applications to fill out! im free at last!

but you (think you) know i (think i) love it.

however, this is not just more end-of-rotation rhetoric spurred on by the relief of finishing a physically and emotionally exhausting rotation or the five weeks of annual leave hot on its heels; no, its long past time for me to get back to acute, learn how to put drips in again, dealing with acute nurses, real codes, rushed communications with patients and their families, senior colleagues watching/looking over my back. i dont know. i cant tell. how its going to go. whatever.

home for three days then onwards to nyc. practically a whole twenty-four hours spent on planes and airports. bugger me. i hate flying.

its all happening

paid for the tickets yesterday: im off to new york city in two weeks! in an afternoon frenzy, i joined the yha and booked accommodation in nyc and dc as well. it'll be interesting sharing a room with eleven other people. i wonder if i'll sleep at all. heath and jono are pretty excited. after all, they're right: it's bloody exciting. only thing is, still not sure if i can do the quick detour to fortaleza. the ten day turnaround for the visa was cutting it a bit close. the plan now is to go to the embassy in dc and see if i can grease some palms and get it quicker in person. hopefully the tickets would be cheaper in the states as well.

allied health cocktail party last night was absolutely mad. a really good turnout for maso's last day and jonesy's birthday. everyone frocked up and looked fantastic. really it was a complete zoo at side-by-side. three random ophthalmology registrars were on the prowl, drinking moet by the bottle. the lap-dancing poles received a lot of love from drunken dancing punters. the eighties music videos went down a treat - doesn't it always? multitude of conversations with a multitude of people - i don't really remember but i dimly recall that they felt important and meaningful at the time with the double bourbon on the rocks. the chips with bolognaise and cheese from the silver bullet on the way home had never tasted better.

wished i had some photos to share. but i forgot. i think miyuki took about a billion though.