New York the longest blog ever

Sorry fans, lol.  This might turn out to be my yakkiest blog ever.

The reason we are here is Rachel's TD account has won an award for advertising.  Luckily for her and for me, she as the planner was sent down to pick it up.  This means she has to go to an awards night tonight and I have to kill 3 hours.

After we met up at the airport, we taxied over to our hotel.  Well actually her hotel, I'm just tagging along.  It is the Sheraton Times Square , literally a 10 minute walk to Times Square.  

What a crazy town, there are people everywhere.  Masses and masses of people swarming the streets, blocking traffic.  Ten people are dressed up as the Statue of Liberty.  I have run into 4 Elmo's, Woody, Mickey, transformers, Star Wars.  Something for everyone.  It's March, what is everyone doing in New York.

The smell from the food trucks was amazing and they were everywhere.  Rachel and I have decided that we have to eat at the first truck below.  There was always a huge line up of people waiting for his food.  There were people sitting on walls eating his food and we even saw another food vendor with his food.  Honestly I don't know how he could feed as many people as he did.

Lights everywhere and more shows than you could imagine.  Wicked, Rocky, Chicago, Cinderella, the muppets, etc, etc.   People lined up for all the shows.  

Ads 10 stories high.  Click click cameras everywhere.  Smile 1 2 3 as tourists take pictures of other couples.  Everywhere iPads, iPhones are being passed to complete strangers to take pictures of each other.

And then there have been some complete idiots.  I asked a receptionist guy in the Thomson Reuters building if there was a nice restaurant nearby.  "This is an office building madam". I almost hit him with my camera.  Are there any nice restaurants around.  "Wellllllll there's one on the cornerrrrrrr". Seriously it was a Hard Rock Cafe.  So unhelpful.  

Dropped Rachel off at her event and off I walked with my camera.  It was a little chilly on my hands wish I had brought mitts.  Headed down to 42nd st, up 8th ave, back along 7th avenue, up to 53 and then down Broadway.  It is pretty hard to get lost, oops probably shouldn't have said that.

More and more people just keep coming out of the woodwork.  It is a very comfortable city to be wandering around on your own.  Whether you are taking pictures or just wandering there are lots of people by themselves or in groups.  And lots of cops walking the streets, and all of them being very helpful to tourists trying to find their way.

I ended up sitting at the bar at the Olive Garden, one yummy pizza, 2 nice Chiantis. After about 45 minutes a lovely young lady from California joined me and we proceeded to yak for the next hour.  Pretty well everyone at the bar was by themselves.  Again it was so comfortable for everyone, people had their iPads or phones out.  One girl was watching a show on her phone and laughing away.  I wouldn't think about going to a restaurant by myself in Aurora. Here it is so common.  

Finish my wine and head down to meet up with Rachel.  There is this homeless person outside the building where Rachel is, so I decide to take his picture.  He puts his sign down, shakes his head and says come on put some change in.  

Fine I put a couple of bucks in and he lets me take his picture.  Rachel is running a little late so I get his whole story.  Not only is he not homeless now, he was 8 years ago.  He has been able to buy his own house and some new clothes.  He says he has never been on welfare or collected a penny from the government.  A person came up and gave him food, he says any food he gets he gives to other people.  They all seemed to take care of each other.  A part of me was a little affronted that he did this, but then I thought I would have paid a couple of bucks to get my picture taken with a guy dressed up as the Statue of Liberty.  He has been in movies, advertisements and on a postcard.  I found quite a famous homeless person :).  He was very entertaining and 20 minutes went by lickety split.  

Rachel came out and was in shock when I took her over to introduce her to my new friend. Lol but did agree to have her picture taken.  

She is all excited they won Silver. Woohoo.  She was very nervous about the whole event but thankfully there was an older man (probably my age or younger) who asked everyone at the table to sit beside someone they didn't know.  He was also the keynote speaker so was quite chatty. 

We headed back to our hotel with a stop looking back at Times Square so I could take a picture of Rachel with her trophy.  A glass of wine in the bar and off to bed we went.