doing the tourist thang in nyc

Wednesday 1 May, 2002 at 12:19PM (Nereus) :: permalink :: comments (0)

Hello. Wow, it's the first of May already. Ok what's been happening lately.. hmm. Lots as it happens. We decided to do the tourist thing the other weekend and go check out the Statue of Liberty up close and personal, which of course means a ride on a boat. Well, we missed the boat as it happened (no pun intended), and it was the last sailing of the day. Kind of annoying right? Particularly when you're in a long queue to buy the ticket and get to three people away from the ticket window when they make an announcement that they're not selling any more tickets for that particular cruise.

Since we were there, we decided to take a harbour cruise instead, which turned out to be better than just going to the statue. The cruise took around one hour and was a narrated trip. It turned out that the guy doing the narration was a bit of a comedian, so it was pretty amusing. We checked out Manhattan, Staten Island, Statue of Liberty Island, Governor's Island, and went under the Brooklyn Bridge during the cruise and had a really good time. IceQueen and I sat on the top deck in the open, right at the front of the boat (which was a medium sized launch) and took quite a few photos as well. I'll probably post a few when we get the film developed. If you ever visit New York City, I recommend taking the cruise.

We also went to the movies in Greenwich Village, which involved a trip past the site of the World Trade Towers ..it's still a mess there. We narrowed down our choice of movies to 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' (obviously a comedy,) 'Rain' (a New Zealand movie with an old acquaintance from school, Marton Csokas, starring in it,) or 'The Salton Sea' (Val Kilmer). We ended up having dinner at VG (yup, the place where IceQueen's bag was stolen) and then returning to the theater to watch 'The Salton Sea'. That is one good movie. If you have the opportunity to see it, then go for it. It's of a similar genre to Pulp Fiction, has some really funny scenes as well, and still manages to have a good story line. Here's how the NY movie guide reviews it:

Welcome to the scummy world of L.A.'s 'tweaker' underground, where crystal meth addicts party all night and then keep going. At the center is speed freak Danny Parker (Val Kilmer), whose life has gone adrift since his wife's murder. He's in cahoots with a noseless drug lord (Vincent D'Onofrio), and he's snitching for the police; his reasons for both hide a personal agenda. Though it borrows much of its tone and nonlinear style from such recent films as 'Fight Club' and 'Memento', 'The Salton Sea' works in its own right thanks to a snappy, offbeat screenplay and knockout performances from Kilmer and D'Onofrio. The film zips along, though its brevity is at the expense of character development and an underused supporting cast (including Luis Guzman, Adam Goldberg and Peter Sarsgaard). But if you're looking for something different, 'The Salton Sea' may well be your fix.

What else is up.. went for a job interview with [censored] the other day.. turns out it's commission only so it's not what I'd consider 'secure'. The funny thing was, when I went in for the interview, every person that worked there seemed to be Jewish, and I mean everybody. Some of the questions they asked in the interview were very unusual - they were asking about my family and what my parents did for a job and things like that, which seemed pretty irrelevant to me. Go figure. There was also about 45 minutes spent doing a computer-based questionnaire which seemed to repeat the same questions again and again. I walked out of there with one eyebrow raised wondering what they're really up to...

IceQueen's Dad came over last weekend and had a chat with me, basically to give me advice and support and tell me not to get overly concerned about not finding a decent job as yet. Apparently it took him nearly a year to find a job here, and he has three PhD's! I felt a bit better after that, it was good of him to do it. I needed it, particularly after receiving a not so pleasant or supportive letter last week from my Mum in NZ. Such is life. IceQueen, as always, is completely wonderful. Ok I think I've raved on enough for now. Catchya later. :)