This is where I’ve been, part one

So you may or may not have noticed that I have been on a little holiday – meant in the sense that I have been away from both New Zealand and this blog. I had great intentions before I left. I was going to post a photo or two every day and talk about what I’d done. But then, you know, turns out I was doing too much to have time to talk about what I was doing.

But now I’m back so it’s back to it.

Before you go and click the ‘read more’, I should warn you that I took a tonne of snaps and there is going to be a lot of scrolling involved, so if you give zero fucks about what I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks, please skip this post. (By the way, I call them ‘snaps’ because the photos are more documentation than works of art. Keep that in mind!) SPOILER ALERT: Most of the pictures are of Ben or food. Also, all the photos (aside from the above) are in chronological order:

So we left on a Friday night. We took a 12 and a bit hour Air New Zealand flight to SFO, where we had a two and a half hour layover before transferring to a six hour United Airlines flight across America to JFK. We landed at around midnight Friday, their time. We then rushed out of JFK into a cab and straight to Penn Station where we were due to catch the 2:40am Acela train to Boston – arrival time, approximately 8:00am. (For those wondering, we didn’t fly straight into Boston because we’d already booked to fly into New York and hadn’t made the decision to go to Boston until afterwards, and the cost to change the flight was too much.) I didn’t take any photos of this 24 hour journey because to be frank, we looked like shit and felt like shit for a lot of it.

We checked into our hotel in Boston and soon after, met up with our mate Ben Barter, who took us to a café for breakfast but it turned out to be closed for renovations, so we ended up eating at a place I forget the name of but it was something along the lines Berkley Perk or something. I had a bagel and a lemonade. It was 90% humidity and 33 degrees Celsius.

Benny Lawson and Benny Barter.

By the way, Ben (Lawson) quit smoking after like, 10 years, a year ago, but had granted himself smoking rights on this trip so he had his first cigarette at this time and declared soon after ‘I LOVE AMERICA’.

We had a nap and then went to meet our mates Ella and Amber, who bought us lunch in the form of the New England classic - lobster rolls.

The group of us went on an Uber tour around Boston, venturing outside into the Boston Gardens to get this Italian Ice which was full of a shit tonne of sugar:

Then we went on this little boat ride:

This is a hotel bathroom mirror selfie.

We actually made the decision to go to Boston because Ella was doing a show as part of this three day festival, ‘Boston Calling’. This is where I feel like it is appropriate to mention that Ella is Lorde because otherwise this post may not make sense, but also I feel like a dick saying that so just you know, I mean it in the least wanky way possible.

View from our hotel.

So, all day there’d been these warnings that bad weather and a storm might be coming to Boston and the second half of the festival day might get cancelled. The weather was hot but cloudy and it was starting to get windy but it looked okay. It got to like 6:00pm before Ben and I decided to venture to the venue, and literally as we got there we noticed that thousands of people were walking quickly in the opposite direction to us, and it had started to rain a little bit and then suddenly cops were everywhere telling everyone to evacuate because it wasn’t safe.

Long story short, for a couple of hours the festival was on ‘hold’ and everyone had to take shelter and then it got announced that because of the storm, Volcano Choir and Girl Talk were both going to be cancelled, and that Lorde and Childish Gambino were going to play shortish sets. Pretty sad about both Volcano Choir and Girl Talk, but at least we got to see Ella perform, even if it didn’t have the production she has in her normal shows.

Grainy iPhone photo from the Lorde concert.

Ben got this gross looking slice of pizza from the dairy around the corner of the hotel, for dinner.

The following morning we got up and caught a four hour bus ride back to New York, checked into our awesome apartment later that afternoon, and went for a walk to get food:

$2.50 pancake sandwiches from Vanessa’s dumplings.

More napping in the bedroom of our really great apartment.

Our kitchen.

Our lounge.

First night dinner with a bunch of Kiwis at Bread Nolita. 

James and his cheeseburger.

My brother got in at like, 1:00am so we had him come meet Isaac, Jenny, Ben and I at Black Market for something to eat.

(James took this.)

The next morning we got into a car that took us to the Karen Walker show as part of New York Fashion Week, which was pretty fucking cool.

Backstage at the Karen Walker show.

Jason Chong-Li from Stephen Marr, working with Bumble & Bumble on the Karen Walker show.

My mate Alex after the Karen Walker show.

Hotel mirror selfie.

We went to meet James and Ella and Jenny (remember Jenny? I stayed with her in New York a couple of years ago) and just hung out, you know, as people do.

James, socks and sandals. 

Corinna Studier – remember her? and Jenny on the street. 

Shout out to Fujifilm for letting me use their X-M1 on my trip. Coffee c/o Saturdays.

Ben and I got slices of pizza from Rosario’s after dinner because if you don’t have two dinners in New York you don’t get enough meals to eat at all the places you want to try.

Avocado toast and aioli toast at Café Gitane.

Second breakfast at The Butcher’s Daughter.

Ventured into Brooklyn to meet Ben’s friends, had lunch at Five Leaves. 

Our mate Evelina, and Ben, waiting for a table outside Momofuku.

DIS BRISKET BUN DOE.

Evelina’s first ramen.

Late night chocolate shake from Clinton Street Baking Co. 

New day, more shopping and eating and seeing sights and walking around and shit.

James, never not socks and sandals.

Subway Benny.

Our mate Noah.

Hard out yoga people right next to all the people eating their Shake Shack. 

Shake Shack kicks In n Out’s ass IMO. 

Crappy iPhone photos of this Coach event we went to, where Lolawolf and Banks performed.  

Really great salmon dip with chips at Russ & Daughters Café. Highly recommend. 

Outside the Calvin Klein NYFW show.

This is a bad photo because I cut off this chick’s head but look at her outfit. 

Snack at The Meatball Shop.

This is weird to take a photo of, but we did a bunch of laundry at the laundromat and had it washed and folded and it was like, $12 and they did it all and it came back packed so nicely. 

Ben and Alex at Pho Grand. Salt and pepper squid tho. 

Late night beverages.

Crab cake eggs benedict from Clinton Street Baking Co.

We got told by four people to go to the Clinton Street Baking Co but every day there was a huge line and wait for a table. We went at 8:00am (when it opens) one morning and there was already a line and we were the last table to get seated in the first ‘sitting’. Insane.

Creepy photo of a bunch of kids that I thought looked cute.

View from the highline.

Copped these Nike x Fragment sneakers. 

‘Art’.

Chelsea Market.

Dover Street Market.

Rose Bakery at Dover Street Market.

If there’s one thing I always miss about New Zealand when I’m in America, it’s the food. I don’t know if it’s because I am buying reasonably cheap meals so I am eating a lot of shit when I’m there, or if it’s just that they use way more sugar or something, but I always start feeling gross. Rose Bakery is from Paris so it’s much more New Zealand style food. Had a really great salmon, potato, green bean quiche (photo here). Highly recommend.

View from the Top of the Rock.

Saw a tonne of these ‘selfie stick’ contraptions and I will never, ever feel like they are okay. 

Outside the Cort Theatre.

We actually got to see this play, ‘This is our Youth‘, at the Cort Theatre. It starred Michael Cera, Kieran Culkin and Tavi Gevinson, pretty awesome to see them in that capacity. Look it up.

Never went to Times Square before that night. Don’t know why.

Late night ice-cream.

There’s no photo of it because I didn’t take a camera but later that night we went to Norwood, which is like this club or whatever, that looks like a house. It’s like a massive house with all these rooms which have bars in them. Isaac and Jenny were DJ’ing and they played Scribe’s ‘Not Many‘. Just saying.

TBC…