Adventures in NYC...Part 1

Our trip to New York could be one of the best adventures I've had so far, and this is because everything about it was completely random. The only reason I decided to go to New York is because in our English lessons every afternoon, Mr. Pardon and I would plan his trip and I was getting jealous. Then he suggested I come with him, so I searched for tickets and found they were only $120 from Detroit (amazing.) I wanted to go but I had some reservations about going with him, so I decided to recruit a friend to come with me. That's where my best friend from Texas enters. Elaina is the only person I know who, when asked: "do you want to meet me in NYC in a few weeks?" She answers, "why haven't we already thought of this?"

The adventures began immediately after landing. I got there a day before Elaina so I could show Mr. Pardon around a little. After months of planning his trip on the NYC map online, I felt I could figure it out well enough. My destination was W 58th and 9th Avenue. I was on the bus from the airport and I was paranoid at passing it on the way because the windows were foggy and there were no announcements at all! Once I saw skyscrapers, and we stopped at a place where lots of people got off, I decided that was my exit. I was at E 125th street, in Harlem, and I thought "oh, it will probably take me about 20 minutes to walk there, maybe even faster than the bus!!"

 

I guess I should mention that I canceled my American cell phone contract, so I did not have access to this information at the time until it was too late. (I stopped in at a Starbucks to steal wi-fi and realized I was not 20 minutes away....) Two hours later of walking superfast down the streets of NYC alone, (I know my map says an hour and half but I had some unfortunate detours...) I arrived at Pardon's hotel with bleeding blisters on my heels and throbbing legs. (It's been a while since my last day at the gym.) I walked with a slight limp the entire rest of the week because of this, which I guess wasn't so bad, because when Elaina and I got to our room in the Bronx, I felt that my limp gave me legitimacy and told scary Bronx people to "back away because I'm a fighter." (Also, if you're wondering why I didn't just hop on a metro somewhere, it's because I tried that, and I got really confused. I needed a little time to figure out the metro system and I just figured that by the time I got the hang of it, I could have walked there faster. In hindsight, I am an idiot.) Anyway, I spent the day helping Pardon cross things off his list, and everything was okay.

 

I repeated this process again the next afternoon when Elaina flew in and went to the East side instead of the West side. It took us about three hours to be reunited at our apartment. 

 

I recently got involved on an awesome website called Couchsurfing. If you've never heard of it, it's a website for travelers. You open your couch (or floorspace, or second bedroom, or whatever you have) to other travelers for free, and you host people in your house as well. We lucked out a little because usually, the situation is literally a couch, and you basically just come home whenever your host gets home to crash and get some sleep. In our situation, a nice young Italian man had his old apartment available for couchsurfing. It had a bunkbed and a lock with a key, so we could come and go as we wanted. The bedroom was part of a four bedroom apartment in what must be the "Little Mexico" of the Bronx. A family of Mexicans rented out each of the bedrooms, so we had lots of neighbors. They loved to wake up at 6am to loud salsa music. It really puts you in a NYC mood, let me tell ya. Every night for dinner, someone cooked something that smelled a little like old fish infused with dirty socks and sewer water. But we still loved it, if only for the stories later. On one of the last nights, Elaina sighed wistfully and said "home sweet fish!" when we opened the door.

 

Paolo, our host, drew us a little map of the area.

There was a pink Jesus nightlight that protected us, even though Elaina is Jewish and I am a question mark.

 

Next door is Giovanni's Pizza (308 East 141st Street Bronx, NY 10454), which is no doubt the best pizza I've had in my entire life. NYC style.

PS. you're also supposed to always buy cheesecake in NYC.

 



That night we went to Times Square. Over the years, I have developed an irrational fear of street performers, and unfortunately, Times Square is their Mecca. Street performers can smell my fear, so they always come to harass and embarrass me, sometimes they even trick kiss me/lick my face (asshole in Austria). I find that avoiding eye contact doesn't even work, so usually I will go far far out of my way to avoid them. I apologize for this in advance if you ever travel with me in a street-performing friendly city.

 

So we're doing our touristy things...

 

 

 

 



...when suddenly, a man in a giant, fabulous fur coat who is casually leaning up against a pole, all alone, says to me "hey, I like your beret, where did you get it?" We stop to talk and learn he is from Australia, and that he has friends who do guided tours, would we like to come? We talk to him about nothing for a long period of time, and at one point, we are three-way pinky-swearing about something--I don't even remember what--when some photographer guy starts snapping photos of us. The photographer is just killing time because he is waiting for his sister, who has his jacket, and he is cold. Everyone exchanges info, and we leave our life-affirming NYC moment laughing about how crazy it is that a random exchange like that between strangers can make you so happy to be alive.

 

 

 

On the way home, in the Subway there is music playing and a man dancing by himself. Every few minutes he tries to get someone to dance with him, but most people embarrassingly shoo him away. Elaina, a skilled salsa dancer, whispers "should I go dance with him?" I grab her purse and tell her the answer is always yes to a question like that.

 

 



The next day, we tried to go to the 9-11 Memorial. Except now they make you reserve a visitor's pass ahead of time and show up only during your allotted time. We did not know this. If you're going to NYC soon and you want to see the 911 Memorial, make sure you reserve and print your ticket before you go.

 

So we found a place with wi-fi and reserved ours for the next day. If you do that, you have to go pick up your tickets at the 911 Preview site at 20 Vesey Street (the cross street is Church).

 

The Memorials are spectacular. They are also building a museum, but it's not finished yet.

 

This is called the "Survivor Tree" because it is somehow still alive after living through all the soot and aftermath of the attack.

Stuff left at the site before the memorial building began.



The museum is under construction but they started with this:pieces of the old Towers.



And since we were in the south of Manhattan, we crossed off some other touristy things on our list, such as:

 

Wall Street

 

 

 

Walking Across Brooklyn Bridge (which we accidentally/amazingly timed for sunset...only the best time ever!!)

 

In Brooklyn, we raced over to the metro to catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park before the sun finished setting.

 

 







After a long day of tourism, we were exhausted. But who goes to NYC to sleep? And also, we didn't want to subject our noses to any more Home Sweet Fish than was absolutely necessary.

 

So we went on a mission. J.C., the dad of the California girls back in Reunion, had asked me to get him a t-shirt from this place called Spin. It is a fancy ping-pong club owned by some people, including Susan Sarandon and a guy from Reunion.(!)

 

 

 

So here we are at Spin, minding our own business and eating a small dinner, when who comes over to our table? A drunk Asian guy and the friend who was left to babysit him. He sits down, slurs something about being rich and Asian, and orders us all $35 shots of Johnny Walker Blue Label. I'm not a whisky drinker but damn that stuff is smooth. He orders a second round immediately, and despite our loud protesting, the waitress brings it. The Asian guy is telling us what life is like in New York as a Rich Asian, and it all seems pretty nice until he is unable to finish his sentences and his babysitter tells him it's time to go. They awkwardly leave the table, spilling a few $35 shots on the way out. A few seconds later I see them disputing over the tab "(I already paid this!" he slur-screams) and the ex-waitress in me cringes.

 

However, now with two free shots of fancy whisky in us, we are feeling awesome and ready to go see what other kinds of trouble we can get into. We call up Ben, our Paris study-abroad friend who lives his fabulous life in the city, and ask him for bar recommendations. We call up Mr. Pardon and the Times Square Fur Coat and see if they'll meet us. No one is up for it, so we head for the bar Ben recommended.

 

We get off the subway and at the corner, Elaina stops to tie her shoe. That's when a giant mass of guys shout "Botanica!" And we look at each other and say "Okay!" Then we join their quickly moving pack. They never let on if they thought it was weird their one-word pick-up line worked. They treated us immediately like part of their group. Which was an after-work happy hour for people who schedule online appointments with doctors (?) or something like that. Anyway, it didn't matter. They handed us a couple of the "Must-Have" drinks from Botanica: The Ginger Yum-yum. I loved it and thought it definitely was deserving of two "Yums," and maybe even a third. Some people were less enthused. Either way, you should try it.

 

Ginger Yum Yum: rosemary, lime and ginger beer



I somehow got singled out as a target for a guy whose name I don't remember, but who was very nice and funny. Elaina got to hang out with the rest of the cool kids, who were probably taking bets on their friend's chance with me, despite the fact that I told him I was not single. We settled on dancing in the middle of the bar to no music. After a few more drinks, it was time to break some hearts and leave.

 

I think it goes without saying that I passed out on the metro ride back to the Bronx.

 

*** To be continued....