Staten Island Ferry...

Took a little ride to Staten Island last night. Karishma and I had never been on the Staten Island ferry and, as it's free, we wanted to put that experience under our respective belts. She had never even been out on the bay nor seen the Statue of Liberty up close. On the way back we joked about how if we were on the other side of the boat we could see some random green statue that sits in the middle of the bay that stands for something, or something.

Here are the few pics that came out well.

Staten Island best

Remember my camera is screwed beyond repair so taking photos at night where there is any need for setting up prior to taking a shot, it's all a crap shoot. I want my next camera to be a good one but I'm not able to afford one at present so I'm going to just have to make do with what I have.

At any rate, riding the ferry was a fun, er, interesting experience. There's a huge crowd of people waiting in a giant room facing one wall, which, it becomes obvious, is lined with sliding glass doors through which you board the ferry when it arrives. Everybody sort of funnels in and, thankfully, it doesn't turn into a stampede like it appears it will.

Upon boarding, we tried to get as high up as possible and then realized we should get on the side where we'd see the Statue of Liberty. The sights are gorgeous at night. I found myself looking back at Manhattan mostly but the Statue is pretty as well. Jersey's all right.

When we got to the ferry terminal in Staten, we were told we had to exit the boat and wait for the next ferry, instead of waiting on board to go right back to Manhattan. I assume a lot of people try to do this. I hear that there's not much to see or do in Staten Island, and no one has tried to tell me otherwise. I've even heard that there's especially not much within walking distance of the terminal. There's the baseball stadium which is walkable and then the subway leaves from the bottom floor of the terminal, so I assume if you weren't coming for a game you'd have to get on a train to get anywhere of interest. The Staten Island Museum, I did see but, as we were there at 9:00 at night, I don't think it was open.

At any rate, we exited the boat and snapped a few photos, went back in and looked at the schedule and, when we saw that the next boat came at 10:00pm, we decided to get food. The only things in sight were a Popeye's, a pizza joint, a chinese restaurant and a few little cafes. Nothing interested us, but for good measure we hiked up a hill and a round a corner and found another pizza joint. By then, strangely, neither of us were hungry so we decided to head back to the ferry and then, once back in Manhattan, up to Greenwich Village for some Kati Rolls. This place is awesome. We've been here a couple of times and I'll keep coming back because it's cheap.

(Not nearly as cheap as another place we hit a few nights ago though called Mamoun's. Really cheap and excellent falafel!)

The ride back on the ferry was nice as we sat on the other side of the boat to take in what we hadn't seen on the outbound trip. Mainly just the edge of Brooklyn and some barges floating by but it was still nice.

Anyhow, today I'm sitting trying to get acquainted with my new software but it's quite a task. There are so many programs bundled with it to learn what they can do but I also have to actually figure out how I'm going to use them alongside my other programs for recording what I'm actually doing with these sound modules and everything. Hopefully, it won't slow the task of writing this next score too much.

I've got dinner to finish making anyway so I'd better run. More updates on the software learning curve as it unfolds. Maybe I'll post a jam later in the week once I get the hang of a few things.