New York, New York

When we got to our hotel, the Hotel Chelsea which has an awesome history of fostering artistic expression, we we’re told our standard room had been upgraded to a suite…SCORE. Up to the tenth floor we went with the assistance of the doorman Pete(?) who was just awesome. But not as awesome as the views of New York City from our room…sorry Pete. We quick dumped our packs, changed, and headed out so we could make the full moon ceremony at COSM. It rained on our way there…and then to make amends Mr Universe treated us with a gorgeous rainbow.

The ceremony wavered from very intense and spiritually engaging to annoying, depending on the speaker. Alex was awesome, the folks from the Biosphere who talked were awesome, and the musicians superb. Mrs. Grey unfortunately fell into the annoying category, something about rattling on asking for charity for the chapel they plan to build during what’s supposed to be a spiritual ceremony that just didn’t sit well with James and I. After the ceremony was over there was a drum and dance event, but we didn’t stay very long for that. I was feeling outa sorts, unconnected, wishing our friends were there with us to make it special so we headed back to the hotel to relax and catch some z’s.

The next day, Thursday, we took our time getting up and then caught the subway down to Ground Zero. When we got there we were greeted with a high fence surrounding the hole, and armed soldiers just hanging out. Someone please clue me in to why we need armed guards protecting a hole that’s already been bombed. We walked around the perimeter and found a few good spots that I could get some photos off from. Visiting Ground Zero was a pretty heavy event, when your that close you can just feel the weight of what happened there settling over you…the lives lost...the lies told. And let me tell you, visiting it in person only increased the desire to grab a big microphone find the nearest government official and start yelling BULLSHIT, but then there are those armed guards standing around the corner…hmm 2+2= ‘ You’re government is in control America, go back to sleep’.

We found a cool art exhibit though while wandering around that lifted my sprits. All these garments were made using renewable resources from the Brazilian Amazon, or recycled materials from Brazil. After this we grabbed some good ole’ NY street grubbed and wandered a bit more around the WTC before heading back to the Hotel and onto JFK to fly out to Ireland.

Pics to come shortly..working out this need for massive storage space and no laptop.

written by  Slade's Elucidation on June 20, 2008 from New York, United States
from the travel blog: Slade's Elucidation
tagged NewYork, WorldTradeCenter and HotelChelsea
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