“I think black people are strange and unusual.”
“how would I describe your blind date… strange and unusual comes to mind.”
You’re right… those things could be taken so many different ways.
Not sure why you feel the need to be on the attack here… I never said you were wrong or even strange and unusual for liking cities. I also don’t give a rat’s ass if you change your mind.
Spud’s countdown to NYC!!! 17:30 and counting!!!
You’re not supposed to be excited. Either you are or you aren’t. There is certainly no shame in not liking cities.
Surely you can wait until some big name act or other rolls through your hometown. Or you can try to take in something here that you might never see otherwise. Please forgive me for thinking that you might be a little incurious if absolutely nothing interests you outside your immediate comfort zone. But that’s a different thing entirely than not liking cities.
If you come to NYC and get pizza from Sbarro of course you are going to get shitty pizza. Sbarro is shitty pizza no matter where in the country they sell it. If you want good pizza there are lots of places to get it, most notably Lombardi’s, Grimaldi’s, and Totonno’s. Yes, pizza is available all across the country but this is the best of the best. The same can be said about bagels. I’m sure they sell frozen bags of Lender’s bagels in the freezer section of your grocery store at home but you might as well be eating rocks in comparison to a bagel from Zabar’s. And if you are really dead set in only trying something if you can’t get it at home I highly recommend going to Aquavit for some Scandinavian food, Brassiere Pushkin for Russian, or Tsampa for Tibetan. Or if you want the opportunity to say you’ve eaten the best freaking seafood available in the world you can go to Le Bernardin. Or if you want to go to a restaurant voted the 6th best in the world you can go to Per Se.
If you don’t want to do city things that is just fine. Here is a list of some hiking trails in NYC. Or if you’d rather you can go to the beach. Or rent a rowboat in Central Park. Or go to the Botanical Gardens. Or go to the American Museum of Natural History and see all of their animal exhibits. Or head to the Bronx Zoo. There is a lot of stuff to do here that doesn’t involve wearing a styrofoam crown from the Statue of Liberty to stand in line for burgers at Shake Shack (which are phenomenal burgers, btw.)
There is truly something here for everyone. If you don’t like cities that is just fine, they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea (ooh, tea! Alice’s Tea Cup has the best scones I’ve ever had in my life, you should check them out!) but if you are traveling with people who want to experience the city try to understand that there is no more wrong with them for enjoying these things than there is with you for preferring different entertainment.
You can do all that stuff in various places in NJ. Bear Mt. Park is excellent for outdoor activities. No need to add to an obvious overcrowding problem in the city.
Yeah, I know… it was a joke, just like when they showed Michael Scott talking about how whenever he goes to NYC he has to stop into his favorite pizza place… they then pan out to show him entering a Sbarro’s.
Fortunately that isn’t the case… the local deli has a baker from H&H Bagles in NYC. They are properly boiled then baked. I do actually look forward though to trying the real deal to see if I can tell the difference.
My grandpa was born in Sweden… are you trying to scare people off? Due to some of the things he ate I don’t think I’ll line up for this one 
I’d love to try the others, but I’m only going to be there for a few hours and don’t want to spend the majority sitting in a restaurant so it will most likely be deli fare or street food. I may try too get to Shake Shack since I’ve heard very good things about them.
If I had a few days, I’d have a blast in NYC and would do many of the things everyone has suggested. That isn’t what inspired this whole thread. We’ve got part of a day to kill, and fighting traffic etc wasn’t my first choice.
Again, this is your baggage. And you carried this baggage right into this thread. Take things however you want, but remember that you alone are responsible for that.
I actually agree with this. Though I like visiting NYC, if I only had five or six hours to kill, I don’t think I would opt for a mad rush through Manhattan. Save that for another time when you can work through the city at leisure.
I’m not sure it’s any more practical to find a hiking trail in New Jersey given that time window. Unless there’s a helicopter that can take you from Queens.
I think if you’d gone with “I dislike the big-city experience, and also I don’t want to go if I can only spend a few hours there after dealing with traffic in and traffic out,” that would have made more sense to people than:
Sadly, H&H is gone.
I went to that location about a year ago. Frankly, I didn’t think the bagels were all that good. It seems the company has been suffering financially for some time now. Perhaps that affected the quality of the bagels.
What you are forgetting is that I’ll be in NJ at the end of the day and staying there for a few days. It is about an hour from the airport. A quick Google search for Hiking Trails Basking Ridge, NJ I got hits for three different trail systems in the immediate area. At the end of the day we would be a few minutes from the hotel rather than about 2 or so hours out of the city.
Quiet during day; dark during night. 
And I assume you told your friends about this. But … they prefer to spend a couple of hours in Manhattan, right? We have offered a lot of suggestions regarding why your friends mike like to spend a few hours in the city. And I’m assuming if you asked them, you’d hear a lot of similar things. So, what exactly is the big mystery here?
I think someone just doesn’t like other people deciding what he has to do. If his friends had forced him to go hiking in NJ he’d be here bitching about how he’d rather visit the Statue of Liberty and eat at Gray’s Papaya.
By the way, I can’t say I’m a big fan of the papaya dog. There’s got to be a better hot dog in Manhattan than that.
I must be the worst communicator ever to grace these boards. Let me try again… this is exactly as I remember it with nothing added at all make my side look any more reasonable.
One of the travel companions came up and said “Spud… you realize we’ll have the better part of the day to kill on Friday.” I responded… “great… I think there may be a wilderness area in the area of our hotel.” Apparently they misunderstood what I said and thought I said “great… lets kill some orphan babies while we wait.” They stared at me blankly and then said “but we’re in NYC!” At this point one did a cartwheel and the other a back flip and gave me that “tada” look like sure I can now see the light. I said… “um ok, aren’t you guys staying two extra days to have some time in the city?” Again, my communication skills aren’t great and they thought I said “your dog has lived long enough, why do you want 6 more hours with it.” Again, the blank stare and this time one lit off a fireworks display while the other struck the Miss Liberty pose… “tada… see it is obvious now.”
I finally said “ok, sure, whatever” the skies cleared and all was good in the world again.
I was leaning about 75% to finding a wilderness area and 25% to seeing the city. I got out voted. No big deal. They were all at 1,000,000% city and negative infinity for anything else.
Then I decided it was kind of funny how they reacted and thought it would make an ok light hearted MPSIMS thread.
Apparently for some I was wrong… so very, very wrong.
My favorite dogs are the Hebrew National, except for the fact that they don’t come in natural casings.
You must be a hell of a lot of fun at parties…
You sound like a pretty poor communicator in real life, too.