We land, and it takes forever to get everyone off the damn plane. But eventually, we're in the terminal at LaGuardia. I head for ground transportation to find out how to get to the shuttle I had booked a few days before. The lady at the desk asks for my confirmation number, and then calls the shuttle herself. She also has a couple weird questions on her form, like if I've been to NYC before, and when. I realized later that I gave her the wrong year (I said it was 07, when it was really 08), but oh well. I'm one of the last people onto the shuttle, and then we take off. The driver is NUTS. I wonder idly if this is how other people feel when they're in my car.
In the process of dropping the first couple of people off, we end up way down on the south end of Manhattan, in the financial district. We pass the new World Trade Center going up, and it's a pretty cool looking building. Didn't manage to get my phone out and the camera open fast enough, so I don't have a picture of it. In fact, most of my pictures from the shuttle ride are just a little late, both because it wasn't an actual camera and because this guy was driving so fast. But there's some cool stuff anyways. I doze off a bit, and wake up to the driver asking “Who's on Bowery?” That's me! I hop out and grab my bags from the back, and he points me down the street a couple doors, and then leaves. So I drag my bags the 20 or 30 feet down the street from the corner, and find the sign for Bowery's Whitehouse. The door's propped open, so I walk on in.
The room has a few scattered tables with some really cool aluminum chairs around them, and a desk at the other end. I go talk to the girl working the desk, and she tells me that check-in doesn't start until 3 (the website says they'll check you in early if your room's ready, and she didn't even check, but whatever). She says I can leave my bags there, if I want to go walk around or whatever. I transfer some stuff into my purse and then take her up on it. She locks them in a closet, and I go on my way. My first stop is at a drugstore to get a couple things – make-up brushes for the new make-up I bought just for the audition (I don't generally own that stuff) and some face lotion, since my bottle was too big to carry on the plane – so I pull out my phone and use the Maps app to find a drugstore near me. Looks like there's one half a mile away, so I march off to find it. The walk is interesting, mostly because it's a much different atmosphere than the one I experienced last time I was in NYC.
See, last time, we had a hotel in the Theatre District, and saw shows every night. We did all the tourist-y stuff then: Central Park, the Empire State Building, Times Square, Madame Tussaud's, FAO Schwartz, etc. I never made it farther south than the aforementioned Empire State Building, which is around 34th st. My room this time is on Bowery street between 2nd and 3rd streets, just outside of the area considered the Lower East Side. They are like different worlds. It's a hard thing to describe if you haven't simply experienced the difference for yourself, and the best I can do is to say this: Midtown, especially around the Times Square / Theatre District area, is all about bright lights and pretty colors. It's NYC putting on it's best possible face, which is probably why all the TV studios line it. It's tailor-made for tourists, with a lot of the national chains and fast-food restaurants people already know from home, and after experiencing other places in NYC, it feels almost sterilized. Sure, it's bustling, and it still has a definite “New York” feel to it, but it's a lot different than what you get towards the Lower East Side. If Midtown is the woman who won't leave the house without a face full of make-up and every hair in place, the Lower East Side is a college student who rolls out of bed and stumbles down the street to get breakfast, and doesn't give two shits what you think about it. This isn't to say that the Lower East Side is “meaner” or more dangerous or anything; it it just seems to care less about looks, and more about personality. There's a patina to the area that doesn't exist in Midtown, a sense that it's just more lived-in. Which makes it infinitely cooler, in my humble opinion.
But that's all rather off-topic. I wandered down to the Duane Reade and picked up the stuff I needed, plus a bottle of water, and then wandered my way back towards the hotel, but then realized when I was halfway there that it still wasn't going to be 3 o'clock when I arrived. So I pulled out my trusty phone and started looking for a place to eat (Side note: I kind of felt like it would be a crime to eat at some massive fast food chain while I was there, when there are literally thousands of little independent places to get food. So I tried really hard not to. And I only failed once!). I was super pumped to find out that I was about a 5 minute walk from Katz's Deli. For those not in the know, Katz's is the location of that famous scene in 'When Harry Met Sally.' You know; “I'll have what she's having”? It is also reputed to have some of the best pastrami and corned beef sandwiches in the city (if not the universe). I decided I just HAD to try this NYC staple, cholesterol be damned. So I set off, and a few minutes later I was pulling open the door to Katz's Deli.
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