Urban Death Maze (aka NYC)

Urban Death Maze (aka NYC)

Posted by Trevor

Kristy and I share a love for free stuff. Whether it's a free tiny sample of ice cream or a free 16 oz drink with a purchase of $10.99 or more, nothing makes our day like getting something for nothing. In this case, it was a free vacation to New York City.

When we got bumped off our honeymoon flight in January earlier this year, we arrived at Cancun three hours later than planned but $800 (in airline vouchers) richer. Because Kristy has friends who live in the Bronx and I had never been to New York before, we decided to finally spend the vouchers and burn some of my vacation days and head to the Big Apple.

While waiting to board our flight from Seattle to New York, we got bumped... again. So once again, we arrived at our destination (New York) three hours late but with another $800 of vouchers in our pockets. Oh, how we suffer so....

Who's cool? That's right. I am.

Since we were staying in the Bronx with Kristy's friends, Nicki and Nathan, we rode the subway several hours each day back and forth to Manhattan. We only survived by heeding Homer's advice: "Now remember, criminals prey on small town folk like us. So if anybody asks, we're sophisticated millionaires from the Ozarks."

Sophisticated Millionaires from the Ozarks

Actually, on the quarter mile walk to the subway station on our first day, we managed to get lost within the first five minutes. This was unsurprising and completely normal for us (I will feel sorry for our poor, disoriented, GPS-dependent children), but being lost in the Bronx is a little scarier than being lost in Provo or Bellevue.

We had to ask these guys for directions.

After finally making it to Manhattan, we hit up Canal Street and checked out Times Square. Since Seattle is the biggest city I had ever seen before, at every skyscraper in New York, I was always like, "Whoa Kristy! Take my picture in front of this building!" She rolled her eyes every time at her hillbilly husband because we weren't even in Times Square at this point, and those huge buildings were probably only apartment complexes anyways.

Hoooooly cooooooooooow, that's tall!

Ohhh... I see your point now.

We then made our way to a recording of the Colbert Report. (Click here if you've never seen Colbert.) We had been trying for months beforehand to get tickets to the show and were finally able to a day or so before we left Seattle. We thought that Ben Affleck was going to be the guest, but it ended up being the author of some lame book about prep culture. (Click here to watch the episode we saw. We're sitting about halfway up on the right.) Even so, it was a lot of fun to be there in person.

Best friends

And of course no trip to New York would be complete without buying a huge, greasy slice of pizza from a wife-beater-wearing Handsome-Rob-look-alike. He stiffed me on change, but his muscles were as big as my face, so I let it slide.


The next day, we went to the Museum of Natural History. I asked Kristy to take my picture in front an Olmec head, and I believe here exact words were, "OK, but only if you don't pick its nose."

Oh, you mean this nose?

We saw the dioramas and dinosaurs and diamonds and stuffed animals, but never did find a Teddy Roosevelt/Robin Williams statue, so we were a little bummed.

What do you mean you couldn't afford a 14,000 carat engagement ring!?

We also had to check out some famous sweet potato fries at a restaurant across the street called Isabella's. The fries came with a brown-sugar dipping sauce which could probably even make Arby's food taste delicious. I'm not a guy that normally likes sweet potato fries (or food, in general for that matter), but this stuff is seriously the nectar of the gods.

10,000 calories of pure deliciousness.

On Wednesday afternoon, we tried the Wicked lottery to see if we could get some cheap seats. It works like this: you each put your name on a piece of paper and if it's drawn, you get up to two tickets to see Wicked for $25 each. We teamed up with an Australian couple so that if both mine and Kristy's name were drawn, we would give them two of the tickets if they would do the same for us. Well, both our names were drawn, so we made the Australian couple's day by hooking them up with sweet tickets. Oh yeah, did I mention that these were center front row tickets? Front and center is totally the way to go on Broadway.


We also dropped by the 30 Rock building because we worship that show.


Nicki and Nathan were so nice to let us stay with them in their apartment. We enjoyed spending time with them, and since Kristy hadn't seen them since before her mission, it was all the more fun.


It was great to visit New York and see the sights, but it is sure good to be back home.