It all started with my friend Jesse. He had never been to New York. Since Jesse grew up in the Washington, DC area, I thought that this was ridiculous. It was, after all, only about 250 miles away.

Over Spring Break, 1998, I went to ISPCon, an event for Internet Service Providers, in Baltimore. Ordinarily, it's not something I would do, but I had enough frequent flier miles with Northwest Airlines that I could go. If I didn't use them by the end of the year, they'd have expired anyway. Luckily, I was able to talk the organizers of the event into letting me in for free, in exchange for my covering it in Evergreen's Cooper Point Journal.

ISPCon was an amazing enough event. ISP's are one of the fastest growing segments of the technology industry, and manufacturers were out in force showcasing the newest products. There were all manner of hospitality events, including an incredible party at the National Aquarium sponsored by NeoPlanet (the party was incredible, though the product wasn't). There were free wetbars everywhere, and it has to be the coolest place I've ever been drunk. Of course, there were also educational events on technical themes, covering exciting new areas such as Competitive Local Exchange Carriers, Voice Over TCP/IP, and others. The entire weekend was a mixture of cool and bizarre--the bizarre overkill end of it being dual T3's to MAE EAST from the conference site.

You may be wondering what all of this has to do with New York. It just so happens that Jesse returned to the Washington, DC area for spring break. We'd planned that perhaps we'd hook up after the convention, and take a trip. So I called him shortly after ISPCon ended, and arranged to take the MARC train to meet him. We still didn't know where we were going at this point, so when I arrived I suggested that we visit New York.

I thought that it would be a pretty cool place to go, but Jesse wasn't so sure. He was fairly intimidated at the concept of visiting one of the biggest, brashest, and most dangerous cities on the planet. But I eventually convinced him, and the next day I rented a car. After much negotiation with the rental car company, and a required purchase of a collision damage waiver, we were on our way in a 1992 Geo Metro.

The four hours I expected it to take turned out to be laughable at best. Seattle traffic, I thought, was bad. And it is--in a recent study, Seattle tied with Los Angeles for the worst traffic in the country. There is a difference, though--when you get out of the metropolitan area here, the traffic gets better and it's possible to maintain a sustained 70 miles an hour or so. On the east coast, it's practically solid development--you don't ever leave the metropolitan areas, so the traffic never gets better. This is despite the fact that every 20 miles or so, there is a toll.

After about 6 hours of driving, we arrived in New Jersey, which qualifies as one of the most grim states I've ever visited. It's a relatively constant succession of pawn shops, liquor stores, adult video establishments, oil refineries, and mini marts. Upon entering the state, we stopped at a rest area and picked up a travel guide, which listed motel discounts. Being cheap, we decided to find the cheapest motel in southern New Jersey. We were initially going to go to a motel in Absecon, but that turned out to be near Atlantic City, about a 3 hour drive. Eventually we settled on a motel in a dingy little town off the Garden State Parkway not far from Toms River. On the way there, I stopped off at a liquor store to get some Captain Morgan. The proprietor of the liquor store charged me tax on top of the purchase price; I wasn't used to this since it's included in the price in Washington. When I asked, the owner said, in a wonderful New Jersey mafia accent, "Our illustrious governor doesn't like us doin' that. But that's okay, 'cuz we don't like her neither!" The motel where we ended up was across the street from a military base, so I expected the worst. But it actually was pretty nice, especially for 30 dollars, and it proved a good place to get drunk.

The next day, we drove to New York. Initially we were planning to park in Millburn, New Jersey, and ride the train into the city. However, when we arrived in Millburn we discovered that all of the parking near the train station required resident permits (which we, of course, didn't have). Finally, we decided that we'd try to drive into Manhattan, and try to find a parking space near the youth hostel. On the way, we decided to stop for lunch at what had to be the most grim place in the most grim state in the country: the Vince Lombardi Service Area. After paying $4 for the George Washington Bridge toll, we arrived on Manhattan. With a surprising minimum of difficulty, I found a parking space only one block away from the hostel.

There was then only one problem: the hostel was full. Apparently, this is a relatively common event on the weekends in New York, given that it is one of the few places where low-cost accomodation is available on Manhattan. The hostel staff provided us with a list of alternate accomodations, but most of the places sounded pretty sketchy. Upon another inquiry to a very brusque individual working the front desk, we were informed that if we came back at 9pm, there may be a bunk available as reservations which were then unclaimed would be made available on a first-come, first-served basis.

We decided to go out and do stuff in New York, and then come back a bit before 9 to see if it was possible to get in on standby. We headed to the vicinity of the United Nations on the subway, since there is a cheap cafeteria inside. We got there just after closing, so walked around the neighborhood a bit until we found an authentic New York deli. We got some excellent food, then took the subway to midtown Manhattan. As we were descending the steps into the subway station, some drunk middle-aged Russian guy screamed "Babushka, Babushka!" at us, which is "Grandmother, Grandmother!" in Russian. I was wearing a pull-over jacket with a hood, so I guess that he thought I looked like a Russian granny in it.

We were going to try to go to the Empire State Building's observation deck, but the clouds were so low that there was zero visibility. We ended up settling for coffee in a French bakery across the street. By then, it was getting close to 9, so we hopped on the subway and returned to the hostel. We arrived about 8:45, and were the first in line for standby--and we were successful in securing a place to crash for the evening.

The following day, we went to Central Park, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and Battery Park to look at the Statue of Liberty. This took the better part of the day. Since we had to have the car back by Monday, we decided to head back toward Maryland via Atlantic City.

Atlantic City is another grim city in the grim state of New Jersey. There are two coastal strips covered with glittering casinos, with welfare, burned-out buildings, and dingy storefronts offering "CASH FOR GOLD" in between. We arrived pretty late, and used one of the coupons from the travel guide we'd picked up at a motel in Absecon. There, we met sleep. No, I didn't say that we went to sleep, we met sleep. The nice immigrant lady from India, whom we thought was rather unassuming as she checked us in, told us as we left with the key "I am sleep! No bother!"

In the morning on Monday, we went to the miserable excuse for a beach in Atlantic City, went to the brunch at the Trump Taj Mahal, and I lost $10 in the casino. I was surprised and pleased to find a Starbucks inside the Taj Mahal, since I'd been unable to find decent coffee throughout most of the trip. We then bid Atlantic City goodbye, and raced back to Maryland with all the speed the Geo could muster.