New York, I love you but you’re bringing me down
For most of my existence, I’ve done a good job of avoiding The Big Apple. When I was younger, New York was far away, “dirty” according to my dad, and not exactly the kind of vacation that my parents and I normally took (unless you think maybe New York is something like Myrtle Beach, and yes Times Square is a bit reminiscent of a certain glitzy ocean getaway, but friendos, that is another story entirely). I’ve visited the Little Apple as well as La Ville-Lumière, but have somehow never gone to New York City. I was supposed to go once with Allyson back in 2005ish, but I opted instead to study for the GRE that weekend. A regrettable or not regrettable decision based on you see it, but flash forward to 2009. I passed that GRE with less than flying colors, finished grad school, and moved to DC. DC is closer to NYC than North Carolina ever was, and since I’ve been here I’ve had an itch to travel to this “NYC.” Recently, I was lucky enough to have a SuperAwesomeLady offer me free accommodations in Brooklyn Heights if I wanted to explore the city. She sent me the keys, and away I went with James Drane for a weekend of swashbuckling and crying in restaurants.
My first taste of New York was in SuperAwesomeLady’s apartment building while waiting on the elevator. Oh, and I should say that SuperAwesomeLady has been out of town now for over a month and was letting us stay in her apartment while she’s away. Anyway, as we waited a mailman was doing what a mailman does in an apartment building when he suddenly started yelling at me, repeating the number of SuperAwesomeLady’s apartment. “Too much mail! Too much mail!” It was true; there was a lot of mail in her mailbox, and I was going to check it for her later anyway, so I went over and emptied weeks worth of mail from the box. As I did so, I realized the mailman had no clue that I was not the permanent resident of this apartment which was getting Too Much Mail. He was just so happy to finally be able to tell someone that there was Too Much Mail that I finally stopped trying to explain that I was only a visitor. Anyway, mail checked, onto our first adventure: walk across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan and get as tired as possible as early in the trip as possible.
I think walking across the Brooklyn Bridge was my favorite activity of the trip. This photo is not actually from our jaunt across the bridge, but from the following day when we walked down to DUMBO and the Brooklyn Bridge park for brunch and photographing. Don’t you like how I’m playing with time and space here?! So yeah, Friday we walked to Manhattan, wandered around the Village ISO of beer (there is never any beer to be found in the Village when you want beer), saw the famous line that is apparently always present at Magnolia Bakery, saw some dudes filming some sort of breakdancing thing in Washington Square Park, gave up our search for beer, found beer in a BBQ restaurant, and finally headed to the MoMA for Free Friday. MoMA was neat, overwhelming, and I lost my Metrocard which later sent me into a crying spell in the subway station after I purchased a second one for $25.
Saturday, like I said there was brunch at a place called Bubby’s in DUMBO where couples eat brunch in silence and they serve cold coffee and waffles you can cry into. Then we went into Manhattan where we met up with H&M, the New York Public Library, and my until now internet-only friend Dan Stern. James bought some shirts, but no green hipster pants at H&M because it’s more fun to buy things at H&M in cities you don’t live in. I spent some time just waiting in H&M. Waiting on James to try on hipster pants and waiting on Dan to arrive from New Jersey. Dan arrived, and let me say that Dan Stern was the best possible Dan Stern I could have imagined after a year of talking to him online, but never having met him in person. Witty, intelligent, handsome, and warm-hearted. We all went to the library together, Bryant Park, and then walked around looking for beer. I think everyone should know by now that when you go looking for beer, there is NO BEER TO BE FOUND. We even selected a specific drinking destination called FUBAR. Well, you can guess what happened when we went looking for a place called FUBAR…
…FUBAR was totally FUBAR in that it DID NOT EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO EXIST, so we sort of sat on the street for a few minutes feeling our fail deeply before moving on to the next leg of Walking Around In Search of Unspecified Beer. The good thing that came out of looking for FUBAR was finding out that James once met Rick Steve’s in Europe! Rick Steve’s, y’all! We eventually found beer in an Irish place that was having an 80s day. Yep. We then sat in Times Square at sunset. We dropped off that Dan Stern guy, or rather, he dropped us at the slimslam station, and the night ended with dinner in Little Italy and a really difficult time traveling back to Brooklyn. And, every night in New York ended with us back at the apartment, watching Gossip Girl and then waking up late the next day. What. Also, I took what was probably my favorite photo.
Sunday, I began approaching the realization that it’s impossible to do everything you want to do in New York in three days. We went to Central Park and just sat in the grass at sunset drinking wine from a broken mug. Then to Veniero’s for two kinds of cheesecake. Then back to Brooklyn for getting lost in a Jewish neighborhood and walking about two miles back to the apartment.
Monday, I don’t even want to talk about it. We ate tasty, tasty pizza near Penn Station at Not-Sbarro and drank really big Heiniken’s before getting on the bus. I just talked about that a little it seems.
I loved New York. I want to go back to there soon. Hopefully, I can go up and visit SuperAwesomeLady when she is actually there and not in another state. If I sound at all like I did not have fun on this trip, I want to set that record straight right here and now. Fun was had. A while ago I realized that all I usually want out of a vacation is to simply be there in the place I’m visiting. To experience it via food, beer, people-watching, taking photos, walking around, and enjoying the company of the people I’m traveling with. Museums and landmarks get pretty boring after a while, and I just want to experience what it’s like to live and be in this place that is not my home. Oh, and to relax and put reality out of mind. I think I did a good job of all of this with New York. The past month has been unbelievably difficult and sad. It was impossible to completely leave reality behind since the reality of my current life/pain was sort of all bundled up in my travel partner, but I’m glad I went with him. For all of the moments of crying in restaurants, not wanting to get out of bed for fear that the trip would be over soon, etc. etc. there were also moments of happiness. And, yes these moments of happiness were wrapped up in an overall sadness, but I’m glad we had them. I’m glad we sat in Central Park drinking wine from that crappy, leaky mug. I’m glad we watched Gossip Girl and laughed about how utterly ridiculous it was that that creepy guy was taking fake photos of teenage girls in bras (AND WITH FLASH). I loved New York and I loved you.
more blog entries, plz.