Look Out, Aussies in New York!

Last week we had our first Australian visitors. Two in a row, both friends from Sydney.

First we had Cory of Cory's Comment, who was in town to see some of the US Open live. Dana and I met him at Grand Central, had a bite at Waterfront Ale House and hit the town until well after the last train to South Orange. I crashed in Flushing, and we both went back into the city the following morning. I introduced Cory to a real bagel and nearly caused a bomb scare in midtown. After sitting on some steps to eat our breakfast, we set off for Tom's office to leave Cory's bag there. When we were a few avenues away, I realized that I had forgotten my backpack.

"They've probably called the cops," I joked.

Well, they had. When we returned to the deli, the bag was gone.

"With the police!" the deli-worker shouted at me.

A block away was a little cop-stand, and the officer inside had it.

He laughed, "They freaked out! Must have been as soon as you left it, I got a bunch a calls about an abandoned bag, they thought it was a bomb!"

It wasn't. Ah, paranoia. Next we hiked across midtown for a few hours and took a water taxi to Brooklyn for the best pizza in the world: Grimaldi's. After that full day, Cory set off for JFK, looking forward to sleeping on his flight to London. Photos from the 24 activity-filled hours.

After Cory was JFK-bound, Dana and I waited at the Gingerman for our our next visitor: Sai. Unfortunately I do not have nearly as many photos of our time with Sai. We enjoyed a few beers and some food at the Gingerman before heading back to South Orange for some rest. The real adventure was the next day, and not very photogenic... getting Sai to his hotel! Again, we introduced our visitor to a real bagel, this one a Jersey bagel, but still real. Perfect fuel to get our friend to his sister and nephews, who were waiting for him.

When will I learn not to trust Mapquest directions? Soon enough we were in downtown Newark, and the address I had led us to an empty lot. No problem, we thought, it's an airport hotel, so let's head to the airport. This worked... kind of. We could see the hotel just fine, but we could not get to it. After about three rounds of "Big Ben... Parliament" we finally went off-roading just to get close enough for Sai to get out, hop over some barriers and walk the rest of the way. Sorry about that Sai! We have't heard from Sai since, but I'm sure he made it back OK. Sai? Let us know how you're doing.