Fairytale of New York: NYC Trip; Day 1

I arrived at JFK airport around 11 P.M. New York central time. My plane from PDX left around 10 A.M. I had slept at my friend Mar Mar's house the night before since she lived right next to the Gateway Max Transit Center. We stayed up watching the Sex and the City Movie in giddy, albeit slightly gay, anticipation for my first every tip to the big apple. The plane out of PDX stopped in Phoenix and I had to transfer planes. It was 106 degrees in Phoenix. I spent most of both plane rides reading. "The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer," to quench my most recent David Lynch/*Peaker thirst. Anyway, once in New York I stepped out of the airport and into the humid June air NYC was currently playing host to. I looked to my right and noticed a line of taxis driving by what looked to be essentially a Taxi lane for recent arriving airline passengers. Looking back it would have been so easy for me to just turn to the right and hail one of those cabs, no matter how much assertiveness I may have lacked. But no. I got caught like a fly in a spider's web, an enemy Starfighter in Vader's tractor beam. An old Indian guy who looked harmless stood at the threshold of the parking garage, looked me dead in the eye and asked, "Taxi?" Well how could I not say yes? I mean this was an opportunity that fell into my lap and a Portland tourist completely on his own in this gigantic city couldn't have hoped for a better chance. Well, the Indian guy led me down into the parking garage when suddenly he got caught into this situation with another Indian guy who was much younger than the first taxi cab terrorist who hails young tourists, and an Indian family who I had recognized were on my flight. I cant remember, nor at the time do I think I even understood what they were talking about, but in any case the older Indian taxi cab man turned to the younger one and asked him to drive me. Well, the minute I saw the car we were getting into, no matter how nice and shiny the car may have looked, there was nothing on it that made it look like an actual taxi cab. Car service vehicle maybe, but even those cars have some form of transportation logo on the car doors. You see, it has never been in my nature to turn and run the other way, even on many occasions when I should have. I understand that such a trait could put me at risk. And yet at the same time, opens the door for many possible adventure stories.
Well, what happened was neither adventurous nor particularly risky. I get into the car and am instantly fearing for my life. Same basic thoughts begin to align in my head. What am I doing? This guy's going to kill me. I should tell him I changed my mind and just let me out here, which I think was an idea that popped into my head after he told me the flat rate would be $67 to Manhattan. And I think essentially what stopped me from getting out of the car at that moment was the idea that he might try to charge me $67 anyway just for driving me out of the airport. So based on that I did what any starving college student with a warped sense of cash stability would do, I stayed in the car. I also texted Serge to let him know I was on my way, and that I was in what I'm didn't think was a taxi. I figured texting Serge was important that way incase anything did go down he could tell the police where I was at the time of departure from JFK. Or something, ANYTHING, I figured would help in a case of extreme conslusion. Serge texted me back asking if I was given a flat rate. Sure, remember the $67 dollars? Of course I left out the part where he didn't give me the flat rate until I was in the car.
The drive, apart from me being unable to turn my head too far to look out the window in fear of the driver potentially putting a knife to my throat, was actually rather nice. The driver tried to make conversation like any polite, professional car service driver would. But while he had a hold on the former, the latter was not nor I do think ever will blossom into fruition. He pointed out some landmarks to me, where they shot the big climax scene for Men in Black, pointed out where all the college hipster kids hang out, and upon our descent into Manhattan we drove across(what I believe was)the Brooklyn Bridge where I got an amazing view of the city all lit up. You know on my whole trip it took me a day or so before it hit me that I was actually in New York for the first time in my entire life. But in that moment, looking at all the blazing red and gold skyscrapers, it was like everything else around me had melted away and there was only this. No Portland OR home, no financial stress about the money I was spending on this trip, not even the knife wielding taxi cab driver(*shakes head, no he wasn't actually wielding a knife, come on now)
Finally, we arrived in the area of Manhattan I was to reside in for the next six days. I was so relieved to finally be there and I texted Serge to come out right away in case my driver liked to cut his murders close to the breaking point. Well, not only did my polite tour guide of a taxicab cash rapist charge me the, "flat rate," of $67 dollars, but he added the toll and tip which he stated a total of, very calmly I might add, $97 dollars. I must have still been high from the bright and beautiful lights of the city to even make a face at the guy when I handed him the money. Plus I wanted to get out of there so once the money was in his hand the door slammed behind me almost instantaneously. Before I got out though the driver asked me if I wanted a receipt. I thought this was interesting seeing as how at this point I knew he was clearly NOT a licensed taxi/car service driver. And since there was no flat rate for the receipt, I said sure. Because I wanted to see this mockery for myself. The receipt was but a mere piece of paper that looked like it had been made at a local Kinko's.

I waited for Serge at the stop light. Finally he appeared, swathed in Navy Blue and jet black hair like he had stepped off the set of an Elvis Presley film. When the light turned green he came across the street where I was and we shook hands. Euphoria was beginning to set in, as well as the happiness of just being alive, once I stepped into the apartment building. Serge and Jason lived in a studio apartment with two cats, Leo and Dante. Serge made margaritas for he said that he always liked to have everyone's favorite drink made when they come to visit. Margaritas are indeed my favorite drink. However concerned over the fact that I hadn't eaten anything since Phoenix, I warned Serge and Jason that I would probably get plastered after one drink. So Serge gave me a slice of Pizza from an NYC pizza joint named, Iggy's, which he adorned with basil leaves from that plant that sat in their apartment window next to the A/C. Now this slice of pizza was to be my first and only slice of NY pizza on my trip, for I never ventured for any more pizza while I was there. Some may scoff at this, others even more so when they learn that I ate the pizza cold. But I like cold pizza, and Serge assured me that it was good cold or hot, and I trust my friend's opinions. Well the cold pizza went perfectly with the cold margarita(I now know Serge makes fantastic margaritas)on the otherwise hot NYC night.

In the city that never slept I eventually found sleep at around 3:30 am, New York Central time. After the three of us watched, "Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead," and started what turned into a Golden Girls marathon on OnDemand. Or maybe it was some kind of Comcast thing. Anyway my bed for the next several nights was to be a leather couch with a pillow and a sheet for it was too damn hot for an actual blanket. Serge warned me that the cat Dante liked to pee on people's stuff. My suitcase was safe but my backpack wasn't. So I wrapped my backpack up in the blanket in hopes that the blanket would be familiar territory and my back pack would stay safe. I did this for my whole stay, and luckily my backpack survived. The blanket however, took three massive hits.

For my return trip to Portland, after sharing my horrible $97 dollar cab ride experience, I was advised by a few people to take a car service to the airport. They said it would be cheaper than taking a cab, so naturally I phoned the car service number that was suggested to me the night before I left and scheduled a car to be outside at Noon the next day. Including toll the car service ride was $57 dollars. If a legitimate taxi cab would have been more I'm guessing at least somewhere between $10-20 dollars more, in retrospect I actually didn't get screwed that much on my $97 dollar ride. Screwed, definitely. But not horribly.