I had requested today off so I mostly hung around Manhattan killing time with various friends and co-workers until the Foreigners arrived. At 4:50 I recieved a call from Arn & Andy stating that they had landed at JFK & would be arriving at Grand Central Station within 40 minutes and that Mitch & Natascha would be there as well.
Not having anything better to do I walked to Grand Central from where I was hanging out and got there a little past 5 and waited. And waited, and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited for Arn, Andy, Mitch & Natascha to arrive. I had waited a good 30 minutes walking around. Then my phone began to ring and it was Mitch calling me asking me where I was. I looked across the street and saw a rather tall guy standing by the main doors of Grand Central with a woman who was waving very excitedly. Mitch & Natascha had made contact. I crossed and made my introduction with my Mitch & Natascha.
Both Mitch & Natascha were/are extremely nice and fun people. As we waited for Arn & Andy to arrive, Mitch & Natascha told me about their trip so far; visiting DC, shopping, sight seeing, comic hunting, their life back home, friends they were visiting with and plans for the following day. While we waited and chatted I took a few quick pics with my iphonw & then a few proper pics with my camera. We asked one of the street vendors who was selling newspapers. I gave him my camera and asked him if he could take a pic of all 3 of us. The vendor had no clue what a digital camera was and began turning around, and back & forth before he finally realized how to work it.
After we finally got the vendor to take the picture (for which we thanked him for) it was a little bit past 6. Arn & Andy were over a half an hour late. As we were taking some more pictures we got ambushed by a Frenchman and his wily sidekick: an Englishman. After getting our his and hellos out of the way, it was decided that everyone would head back to the B&B that the guys had booked. Cameron hadn't arrived yet because his flight wasn't due to arrive till around 7ish. So as we were walking to the train station Arn explained that the reason he was so late in getting to Grand Central to meet us was because he was running on Jim Lee time so technically he wasn't late at all.
When you get to the train station you have to buy a train ticket or "metro card" as we call it which you swipe through a turnstile to get onto the train platform. Now this is rather dickish of me but I watched in glee as Andy swiped his card and as he was passing through the turnstile, in true touristy fashion, he got stuck in the turnstile. If I had had my phone in my hand at that moment I would've taken a picture, alas, I did not. And then later on as we were exiting the train, Arn and his suitcase got stuck in the turnstile and Andy dickishly laughed at him. I believe Andy's words as he was watching Arn dislocate himself from the turnstile were: "Look at him struggle, look at him struggle" Andy = Sadist
On the train we all chatted some more and Natascha increased her cool factor by dropping some serious Star Wars references during our ride down to the guys B&B spots. The B&B spot that Arn, Andy, Mitch & Natascha are staying at is very nice & has a very cozy feel to it. The guys are on the 2nd two floors of the apartment building and each person has their own space.
After we dumped off the stuff at the apartment we waited for Cam. Now apparently it seems as though whenever I am inside the B&B building the guys are staying at, I have 0 reception. Seriously, in the middle of Manhattan, every time I go into this one building the bars on my phone drop down to nothing...which is why I didn't get the several text messages and voice mails that Cameron sent me asking me where I was and if I met up with anyone. Eventually Cameron made his way to the B&B spot and we all met up.
At this point please bear in mind that from the moment Mitch, Natascha & I met up with Arn & Andy, we had been holding Mitch back from getting something to eat because we all wanted to get something together. The entire time we were waiting for Cameron to arrive, Mitch was ready to leap out the window, DareDevil style and devour the first bit of food in sight. So when Cam finally arrived we went to a local restaurant called 5 Guys where we all ordered burgers, sandwiches and fries and all caught up to speed on what everyone was up to. All in all it was a great meal.
After dinner we walked around for a bit at which point I fell from grace in Andy's eyes. We were all walking down the street and Andy asked me if we were going north or south and I responded (quite confidently) that we were headed south, then I stopped myself because I realized we were walking towards the Empire State building which is north and leads uptown. Andy of course, being Andy took a few potshots at my lack of instantaneous geographic knowledge of Manhattan which I had to take because he had a point. I have a tendency to get turned around very quickly when I exit a building.
I think my siggy is haunted. 
