Weeks in the World – NYC – explained
I post my blogs after my travel, but still in reverse order, so this post is to summarize what you will read below. If you want to read from the beginning, scroll to the bottom.
This blog records and celebrates spending a month in New York City, one of my favourite destinations in the world. Before AirBnB existed, I found an apartment on Craigslist on the upper West side to rent for a small fee plus catsitting. I decided to see everything I possibly could as a tourist there in my month, so this details my adventures.
I’ve since been back several times to New York, and I always reread this blog before I go to remind me of what I’d like to revisit. I guess one positive update following this visit was that I did eventually get tickets to Saturday Night Live on another trip. But the rest you can read below:
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Last day..
My last day in NYC, wah! I finished packing up and tidying the apartment, walked through Central Park for the last time to the Met and had a last look around and some souvenir buying. Then hurried home only to find out that the shuttle I booked last night cancelled on me due to limited access because of the Republican Convention, they said to take a cab and they would reimburse me. I had a final lunch of a slice of pizza at this NYC chain down the street that I’d been curious about (proving that you truly can’t try everything even if you have a whole month, this was my first slice of za in NYC) then kissed the cat goodbye. Now I’m hopping into a cab and booting over to La Guardia. Bye bye New York! See you soon!
Monday, August 30, 2004
Jeannie in the city
Today I got to show my friend Jeannie around NYC, she is here for the first time with her bf Jason. We walked around Times Square (where Jeannie is staying, lucky girl!) and then up 5th Avenue and through Central Park to the Met which was closed unfortunately this being a Monday. I showed Jeannie the reservoir pond where everyone runs in Central Park and she being a runner thought it was great. We had our picture taken there. Then we went to my apartment and then down to Greenwich village where we had sushi. Then we walked up sixth avenue back to Times Square where we parted company. I went home and packed my stuff to go, then tonight being my last in the city I went to this little cafe near me called Ayurveda where they serve a daily fixed meal of vegetarian Indian food, honestly it was one of the best meals I’ve had here and the restaurant atmosphere was very relaxing. I bought a copy of the NYtimes and went to read it back at the apartment. I can’t believe that this is my last night!
Sunday, August 29, 2004
Last haunts..
With only a couple more days in NYC, I tried today to get to the places I’ve been meaning to get to, the Jewish museum and the Lower East side Tenement museum. The Jewish museum I’ve been wanting to get to because I keep seeing this big lineup outside every day and I’ve been wondering why. So I finally went, the regular collection was an exhibit documenting the history of the Jewish people and there was also a special exhibit of Modigliani. The second museum was the Tenement museum which was a tour inside a tenement, we learned the story of the people who lived there, some apartments had between six and eighteen people living in them. Today was also probably the hottest day I’ve experienced since I’ve been here and made me glad that the weather has not been the classic NYC august heatwave, even just being outside for a while I started to feel heat exhaustion, so I went home a bit early.
Saturday, August 28, 2004
Musical day
Today was a very musical day. In the morning I went to see a fringe play called Lulu, which was a very ambitious two hour musical. Halfway through I realized that the guy who was playing the piano so well for the show had actually written all the music himself, very talented. After that I was going to go to another off-broadway play but I showed up at the theatre and it was cancelled. But you know sometimes a disappointment turns into something good, because I was forced to hang out in Times Square I went to the visitors centre and found out about this lottery program that they have for some of the broadway shows, you go to the theatre a few hours before the performance (it varies by the place, usually three hours) and put your name in a hat then they draw twenty or thirty names and those get to buy tickets for $25. Anyway everyone in the lottery ended up getting a ticket since there were few people there (actually I didn’t feel *that* lucky as I was drawn absolutley last) but anyhow it is the result that counted..I got a ticket to Hairspray! It was a really fun show. I wish I’d found out about this lottery system earlier!
Friday, August 27, 2004
MoMA
Tonight was pay what you want at the Museum of Modern Art so I went there for a while, currently the museum in Manhattan is closed down while they build it a new home so all the stuff is at the one in Queens. The major exhibit there was called tall buildings and looked at the skyscrapers that have been built in different cities over the years, with architectural models for each. For some of them like the World Trade Centre and the new building they’re creating to house the New York Times, they had not only the winning designs but a lot of the bids for the job, which is most interesting to see who didn’t make it. There was this one really neat design for the NYT building by Gehry that had a roof with swirled edges off it, evoking the NYT font off which was kind of neat, the design they went for in the end was much more plain, unfortunately.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
East Village
Tonight I went for dinner in the East Village after another marathon day at work on that writing project that I’m working on while I’m here (no, not my novel unfortunately the project that I’m getting paid for). I had dumplings at a place you could see was very trendy called Mr. Dumpling. Dumplings were the only thing they sold there, and you could either order pork, chicken, veggie or shrimp by the six or ten or mix them up. I had six shrimp dumplings and they were good. Afterwards I went wandering down St. Mark’s which is this great street in the village, and went into the East Village bookshop where I bought Atwood’s The Robber Bride (finally I find a used copy that is not ten bucks..it was $2) and a biography of Edna St. Vincent Milay.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Unicorn tapestries
Today I went to the Cloisters, the medieval collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is the kind of exhibit that’s much nicer on a good weather day, so I was glad that today was beautiful out. To get to the Cloisters you have to take a bus up to 190th street and then there’s this nice little walk through a garden established by Rockefeller and then you get to the Cloisters which looks like a little castle and houses various worship rooms from medieval europe, from about 1000 to 1200. The most famous is the Unicorn tapestries which are Dutch, and show the story of a unicorn who is hunted and caught (there are four or five of them, very detailed tapestry work). Anyhow I took lots of pictures today and even one of the tapestry (no flash so I hope that turns out).
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Election fever
This afternoon I went to the New York Historical Society’s museum, it is the city’s oldest museum established in the early nineteenth century. It has a lot of really interesting and timely exhibits though, the best of which is one on the election that displays memorabilia from the 19th century right up to this year’s election. In the early elections apparently the fashion was to show your candidate preference by using their official handkerchief, overt campaigning was frowned on as being too ‘ambitious’, even women wore them although they didn’t get the vote until 1920 (I know this fact and yet every time I come across it again I am amazed, to think that it is not even a hundred years since my gender was recognized as persons). They also had the election posters from back when and some stories behind the elections, the people who were defeated, what the race was like, nicknames that the candidates had (for example Martin Van Buren was regularly called ‘Mat’ – it is funny to think of the people we have filed away as important people in history actually having nicknames and being real people). The exhibit was chronological so for the midcentury exhibits it had radio and tv broadcasts that you could listen to. The other neat exhibit in this museum was at the top floor where they just display ordinary objects from people’s lives, for instance they had a display of ‘spectacles’, just all the eyeglasses from over the years (the most recent being those 2000 glasses that were being sold at the millenium). They also had a display of objects collected at ground zero: bits of the buildings, bits of the planes, some burned papers, a survivor’s shoes, and some of the souvenirs being sold by street vendors immediately after.
Monday, August 23, 2004
Photography
Today I tried to photograph a lot of the things that I want to remember about this place, first the apartment from all angles and Shoshin (the cat, who has turned out to be really affectionate and sweet, except of course when he wants his breakfast or dinner, then he turns into an alarm clock). I took some pictures in Central Park and just walking along this neighbourhood too. This aft I went back to Little Italy/Chinatown where I had gotten to yesterday evening and looked around a bit, before going to a talk that I had signed up for at mediabistro about pitching. A lot of the info was old news for me since I’ve been freelancing for a while now but it was a good refresher to remind me to keep aiming high (this guy writes regularly for the Times and is a contributing ed. to Vanity Fair) and gave me a few new tips. I can’t believe there is only a week left before I go home! It’s one of those odd times that has passed slow and fast at once.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
Circle line to Chinatown
Today I went to church at Trinity on Wall Street, the service was good and then there was a little tour given for anyone who wanted to get a bit of the history. Then I walked down through Battery Park city to the ferry docks were, by that time it was a georgeous day so I took a Circle Line boat tour which is a narrated hourlong tour around the Harbour, talking about the buildings of Manhattan, then Brooklyn, then swinging by the Statue of Liberty and back. I think I got some good photos. Then I went up to Chinatown and Little Italy, just looking around. Okay more than looking around, I went shopping. I got lots of earrings, a handbag, a watch, an I love NY shirt, everything. Then, exhausted from my shopping (poor me!) I went for dinner at this little place called the Dumpling House which had all its clippings from reviews in the Times, NY magazine, etc., posted outside yet was still inexpensive, and as it turned out, tasty.
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Phantom of the Opera
Well the subject tells you what today’s highlight was. This morning I got up super-early to see if I could get Saturday Night Live tix which are supposed to be available rush at the NBC studios starting at 8:15am..in October, as it turns out. I’ve also tried unsuccessfully to get cancellation tix to the Daily Show with Jon Stewart which are apparently taking reservations for Feb/March at this point. After that disappointment I went down to the South Street Seaport to look around and happened upon the TKTS booth down there, and lined up for a surprisingly short time and got a ticket to Phantom of the Opera. After spending the morning at the Seaport, I got stuck in the rain and so ducked into the Museum of the American Indian which had an exhibit about basketmaking in addition to their regular collection, then went to the natural history museum this afternoon (I don’t as a rule like natural history museums, dioramas generally freak me out, etc. – ask me sometime to expand on this) since it started to pour again. Then tonight I went to see the Phantom, the show was at the Magestic on 44th street and Broadway and it was great, really good effects and singing, I’d never seen it before so it was a treat.
Friday, August 20, 2004
KGB and my screenplay
I forgot to mention that last night I also went to hear a reading at a bar called KGB that’s supposed to be a place where all the literary types hang out (according to my guidebook which immediately arouses suspicion, as in if the guidebook says it’s cool it’s probably not cool). Due to my recurrent “getting lost problem” I did get there a little late but in time to hear the last couple of readers. Anyhow when I woke up this morning I found that it was the first day I was really glad to have air conditioning. I read that this summer is one of the coldest on record, the last coldest one happened in 1992 or so and that was caused by a volcano whose eruption caused dust to rise up and deflect the sun. But there has not been a similar event this year so they are puzzled as to why the cold weather now. Tonight I am working on my screenplay, I had vowed that I would try and get moving on it again this trip, I’m now on Act 2. At this point I am just trying for plot and to fix up the details later. The plot is hard enough to get down, when you’re in the midst of writing you realize all the mundane things you don’t exactly know – for instance I’m trying to write a scene with a eulogy and I’m thinking, how do people react at the end of a eulogy? Do they clap? What order is the eulogy in the service? These are the kind of questions that would make me feel alone if I lived in NYC without friends, they’re not the kind of thing about which you can call someone who is not local: Hi, friend, I’m calling long-distance from NYC, yes I have a question for you..
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Mr. Frick
My big activity of the day was to go to the Frick collection which is a mansion housing paintings collected by Henry Clay Frick, a steel magnate of the early twentieth century. I think that this is my favourite museum in NYC, for its manageable size and on a practical level for this great audio tour that comes free with admission and narrates many of the individual paintings. Often at art museums I find there is not enough historical explanation, so while you get to recognize “oh that’s another by Thomas Gainsborough and he’s famous” if asked who exactly he was well it would be hard to come up with a precise answer. In this case the narrator also mentioned occasionally how Frick acquired the paintings or why they were important to him. One of the most remarkable Frick favourites that I liked best too is of St. Francis of Asisi. the picture has this wonderful light in it. I bought a print of it but it nowhere near captures the original, more of a reminder of it. Another Frick favourite is the self portrait of Rembrandt, who although he was supposed to have been a diminutive man painted himself larger than life (especially the hands, the narrator notes, since he was a painter) but the fact is most interesting as the eyes are very human and the expression weathered. It makes you wonder if Frick liked this one because he saw himself in it, an older man nearer the end of his life, painted large. The film at the end of the tour says Frick used to come downstairs at night when everyone had gone to sleep and look at the paintings for an hour or two. I think that’s the other reason I like this gallery so much and why it’s so popular – there is such a sense of individuality and personal taste about the collection.
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
NYPL& BLVD
This morning I went down to the New York Public Library, where I tried to look up copies of Saturday Night magazine (I just finished my masters thesis on the magazine’s founding) but didn’t find a whole lot of records. Then I decided to look up this magazine that was supposed to have been started by a Canadian who moved to New York, the mag was called ‘Truth’ started by Peter MacArthur in the late 1880s. It’s an interesting process to look something up, you first look it up in the computer then fill out a form, then you have to get an access card (which as the librarian pointed out is a pretty neat souvenir) then you hand in your slip, they give you a number and you go into this room where they have a board that lights up your number when your item is ready to be picked up. “Kind of like the bingo” said a young woman who was waiting in line with me. Anyhow as it turned out Truth was a lot like Saturday Night in those days, a society paper that detailed the goings on of all the NY socialites. But the editor listed was Davison Dalziel (to 1891) then Blakely Hall, and not Peter MacArthur, so that’s another mystery. Maybe those were his pseudonyms? Anyway the journals were interesting to see. To switch gears, tonight I went to another Mediabistro event, this time it was for all media types not just freelancers and was at a larger venue, a place called Blvd. I always find these things so difficult to attend especially by myself because I’m not a natural socialite but luckily I did meet several people who were quite friendly, particularly these two lawyers who worked for VH1 and were really nice to me, trying to argue that NYC was a great place to live. I keep wavering, I really like the city but the expense is pretty significant. Also the fact of making friends is a bit daunting, but they assured me that if they can do it so can I. One interesting thing I also learned is that it is true a lot of firms are having their people work remotely if possible during the week of the Republican convention mostly for the traffic headache but I also wonder if it’s to be on the safe side. As for myself I think I’ll try and plan some uptown activities those days. I’m sure a real New Yorker would think I’m a real lightweight.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Coney Island
This morning I went to Central Park’s conservatory gardens, a place at the northmost point of the park with pretty flower gardens and this great fountain with a statue of girls dancing..it was a very relaxing spot to visit. I came back to the apartment for lunch and then left in the afternoon for Coney Island, which takes about an hour to get to by subway but fortunately is pretty direct on the subway line I just took ‘D’ (or was it B) all the way there. I had always been curious about what Coney Island was like and it was pretty much as I’d heard, a big midway with rides and then the beach. I went on the big ferris wheel which was a great view, and then walked along the beach with my shoes off, in the surf. It wasn’t as crowded as I’d expected but then again it hasn’t been as hot. One of the reasons I’d made sure to go out here today is that they said it would be the last nice day of the week, hope that’s not true. Anyhow it still made it seem like a good day for the outside stuff.
Monday, August 16, 2004
By the way..
Alongside with doing all this touristing I’ve also been working on a corporate writing project (that is helping me to afford my trip!) and so today was one of those days to seriously spend mostly inside finishing up. Here I get to taste the fact that as wonderful as NYC is, everyday life here will be like it is everywhere, fun sometimes but mostly about working and having fun just on the evening and weekends. Luckily Central Park is right down the street from me for having lunch and taking breaks.
Sunday, August 15, 2004
Harlem
I always like to check out different churches when I’m travelling, so this morning I went to the Episcopal cathedral in New York, St. John the Divine. In my guidebook it says that their local joke is to call it ‘St. John the Unfininshed’ because it is always under construction. Afterwards I continued to walk northwards through Columnbia University campus and then to Harlem where I was really lucky to happen on this street festival they were having to celebrate the Harlem community. There was great food and lots of music and booths, it was a neat event. I bought some macaroni and cheese for lunch and then a roti to take home for later. Like most of the days this week the weather was intermittently raining (okay some days it’s been full out thunderstorms) so I hopped on a bus to come back.
Saturday, August 14, 2004
A good play
Today I started out in the Financial district, and while I’ve started being skeptical about the terror alert and police presence, here it is out in full force even on a Saturday. Cops with machine guns and sniffer dogs, just a little intimidating. I went to the Museum of American Financial History first which turned out to be just a little room in the basement of the old Standard Oil building (I should have known that a $2 admission signalled something small) so pretty light but still kind of interesting with ticker tape from the morning of the big crash that brought on the 1930s depression and other money memorabilia. Talking to the host at the museum I learned that terror has been really bad for business. Small wonder, seeing those machine guns doesn’t exactly make me feel safe either, I’ll probably be sticking to my initial plan to tour the financial district only on weekends. Anyhow for the afternoon I had planned to catch this Greenwich Village Literary Pub Crawl advertised in my Time Out New York guidebook so at 2pm I showed up at the White Horse Tavern where apparently Dylan Thomas used to hang out and went with my fellow tourists around to four bars, the most interesting of which is Chumley’s, a former speakeasy which still doesn’t have a sign and yet is always full based on word of mouth alone. We saw where Edna St. Vincent Millay used to live and since the tour is put on by a small theatre company they would stop and read some poetry as we went along. It was a well paced tour because you just walked a bit and then sat and drank a bit and then walked a bit. After it was over, I took a walk to Katz’s Deli which is famous for its meat but also for the fact that it is the deli featured in the movie ‘When Harry Met Sally’. I had a big pastrami sandwich on rye, yum. Then I went to my second theatre performance which was Brecht’s Threepenny Opera, which was, thankfully, great. I’d never seen it before but of course am familiar with the main song in it which is “Mack the Knife”. It was a great production with full costumes and singing, felt like Broadway.
Friday, August 13, 2004
Free Fridays..
Ooh I just found out that some of the museums are pay what you can on Friday nights so tonight I went to the Guggenheim and the Whitney. After even a few days of being here it was a relief! One that I see a lot of people found out about too as the museums were crowded but I’m glad I did as the exhibits were not so much to my taste. Of course I always have liked the Guggenheim building so just being there was a treat but the two exhibits on display were not so much to my liking, one was a display of sculpture by an artist named Brancusi and the other was a photography exhibit based on the theme of ‘hands’. I’m usually really appreciative of art and especially modern art but the minimalism of the Brancusi (many of the sculpture pieces were just like eggs or rather “evidence of escape to the minimal”) and the ordinariness of many of the photos in the hands exhibits just made them not very special to me. Similarly at the Whitney they had a retrospective on Ed Ruscha, one floor with photographs and another of word paintings some of which were clever but still he’s not one of my favourites. That is why they call it art though isn’t it? That it can speak quite loudly to some and not at all to others. I’ve had the experience of loving art that does nothing for other people so I know that it is just my turn this time. Speaking of not being spoken to by an art form, I also wasn’t grabbed by the play that I went to see tonight, called ‘Line’ and touted as “the longest running play in off off broadway” – well that does sound promising. Then I found out that you’re either the longest running play in o.o.b. history if you’re fabulous, or you’re the longest running if your director lives in the building and she’s the steam keeps the play going. Seriously the woman who runs the theatre was on hand to greet all of us, she lives in the building and has been running it for that many years, I think she may even have written the play. She was a neat lady but the play itself is not. The plot is about people standing in a line and since I like others along that genre (Waiting for Godot I guess being the most obvious) I thought I would like this one, but it was just a bit long at ninety minutes and more seriously a bit dated with one of the plot points being that the only female character helping the men in the line to pass the time by allowing each of them to have sex with her (offstage thank goodness). It wasn’t “walk out of the theatre” terrible but it was “look at my watch several times” disappointing. To top it off one of the actors was a newbie who hadn’t quite learned his lines yet and still had his script book with him the entire time, something that is forgivable under certain circumstances but this is New York. Just realized its Friday the 13th, maybe that explains something..
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Theatre tickets
One of the things I want to do in NYC of course is to see some plays so I went down to Times Square where you could go up to a little office and buy a voucher from the Theater Development Fund (feels funny to spell theatre “wrong” I have to keep reminding myself) – they’re the same people who do TKTS which is that lineup for half price broadway tix – four off off Broadway shows for $28. I then went looking around Times Square more, wandered down avenue of the Americas, went into Macy’s and did a little shopping. I bought a top and some shorts and perhaps most excitingly this nice fall jacket at Filene’s basement. My feet are getting sore already after doing so much walking so I also bought a pair of shoes with thicker rubber soles in hopes that they will give me a bit more of a cushion.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Human contact and the Museum of the City of NY
It is one of the puzzles of the big city that you can live surrounded by many people and yet talk to nobody. Luckily I like being by myself and have a lot of practice at it freelancing so I’m fine but the only people I’ve really talked to since the weekend are my parents (we’re on a talk every second day program; it is good to have them keeping tabs on the fact that I’m still alive every couple of days). So this evening when I went to my first mediabistro (mediabistro.com is a web site for people looking for media jobs throughout n. america but mainly the states) networking event in the city it was actually a relief just to be able to talk to people, and fellow freelancers at that. So what was it like? Well I had gone to a similar event in Toronto to see what the format would be like before I came and..it was pretty much the same. Which is good thing, it is kind of reasurring that no matter where you are you can be just a bunch of writers talking about how hard it is to get published. Of course the scale was different, rather than people talking about their internships at Macleans it’s Newsweek or Forbes, rather than trying to pitch the Globe and Mail they’re trying to pitch the Times. But still the same thing. This event was at a bar on a street called the Bowery which seems to be where a lot of literary types hang out. Earlier today I went to the Museum of the City of New York, which was all about, you guessed it. It included an exhibit on the history of New York, which was founded by mostly Dutch settlers initially, and included interesting tidbits like the fact that Wall street was so named because early on they had actually erected a physical wall to keep invaders away from their centre of commerce. On the top floor there was a preserved Rockefeller apartment. But maybe the most interesting was this great exhibit of black and white photos by Magnum photographers, rarely do I go and read every single caption in an exhibit but this was just fascinating.
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
More walking
As if I had not walked enough yesterday, I began today by walking. However I did mix it up enough to walk inside as well as out..I went to the Met. The Metropolitan Museum of Art is right at Central Park, I’m planning to go back several times during my stay here. This time I just ran around by myself looking at art however next time I think I’m going to take the audio tour, and also go to the Cloisters. It is exciting that I get to say ‘next time’ and know that I will be able to come back again in a week (or every day really if I wanted). I did a pretty good coverage of it today though, from the paintings to the modern art to sculpture gallery hall to the mummies and the huge dome with the Egyptian temple inside it. This is the most time I think I’ve ever spent at the Met, usually it is just one of several things to be done. Tonight I did something you’re not supposed to do when you’re supposed to be taking advantage of a major cultural centre, I went to see M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village” at the nearby theatre, it had been recommended as a film I’d particularly like and I’d been wanting to see it for a while. It was good, although the strangest thing about it was that the theatre had all of five people in it. It was really weird, here I am in a theatre in the midst of one of the world’s biggest cities and there are only a handful of others there. I guess the other people in the city were out doing the much more culturally productive stuff. Oh well.
Monday, August 09, 2004
My first full day
My first full day in NYC and after sleeping in just a bit I decided the best way to get reacquainted was to walk the city. So I started here at the upper west side, walked through Central Park to the end, through Columbus Circle, Times Square, down Fifth Avenue, through the Lower East side, Greenwich Village, SoHo, and ended up in Chinatown. Then I had a great buffet dinner in Chinatown for a ridiculously cheap $4 and then took the bus home. I am really physically tired from walking so far, but glad to have seen the city again. Oh I also bought a guidebook and I’m making a list of things to see. Now that I’m here I realize that I’m not going to be cool enough to just be, I’m going to have to do the serious tourist thing and get some places out of my system before I can relax.
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Sue in the City!
I made it. Here I am in NYC for my first afternoon feeling suddenly a little overwhelmed but excited. The woman whose apartment I’m subletting just left and I’m getting acquainted with the cat, Shoshin who is very cute. The apartment is about 400-500 square feet maybe? It is in a brownstone (!) on the second floor, hardwood floors and the ceilings are at least 12 feet tall. In the bay window there is seriously the largest hanging plant I’ve ever seen, I’m a bit daunted by my job to keep it (as well as the windowboxes and other plants which I would have called big if it were not for comparison with this one) alive. The place is quite artistically decorated and divided up into little areas, kitchen, living area under the bed and there is a fireplace too. The bed is a loft bed which means that it is like the top bunk of a bunk bed (about queen sized) and you climb up to it via a ladder. I’m going to have to practice my ascent and descent as my first attempt was a bit clumsy and I think I’m going to have bruises. It is looking good though as I didn’t get to sleep very early last night (last minute packing and also excitement) and then got up very early this morning (5am). The flight was on the smallest aircraft I’ve ever flown, one middle aisle with rows of two seats on each side. But it was fine. After unpacking a bit I went out to explore the neighbourhood and take a walk in Central Park. I also bought some groceries. Then reading through my New Yorker I realized that that play in Central Park with Sam Waterson ended tonight so I walked down to the Delacorte theatre where it was happening and got myself into a two hour lineup for tickets. It didn’t look very promising as there were over 100 people in line and this was just for the chance at cancellation tix and tickets at the theatre manager’s discretion although in the end I finally did get in (apparently other nights they just turned people away but I guess since this was the last night they tried to let everyone in) and it was worth it as the performance was great. Besides Sam W. and his daughter I also recognized this girl who played the NY party girl on Sex and the City (the one who fell out the window) so that was fun to see, even if I did have to buy myself a coke at intermission to keep from falling asleep.
Saturday, August 07, 2004
Two
This weekend is a busy one in my neighbourhood, it is the “Taste of the Danforth”, a street festival of food. I’m trying to both enjoy it and get ready for tomorrow. Doing laundry, cleaning up the house, doing the last of the packing, etc. Last night after David came to pick up Halli we went out to the Dan for dinner, had Brazillian food at the Red Violin, barbecued steak with pineapple, it was really tasty. Today I had Cuban food, plus a Greek dessert. It’s a good reminder of why I like Toronto, it is a good city with its variety of restaurants and food. Like a little NYC. Just in time for departure I am finally feeling a little less nervous about these terror alerts, they’re saying now on the news that they are based on information that’s three years old, and there are rumours that the announcement this week might have been a bit politically motivated too as they are coming out just after the Democratic convention. Wouldn’t want Mr. Kerry to get too much attention. Although security will still be tight for the Republican convention at the end of August in New York and I am thinking if I had it to do over again I might have come back before that whole mess but again I’m not going to worry about it..anyhow back to packing. I figure I should leave the house at 5:30 tomorrow in order to get to the airport in plenty of time..yikes!
Friday, August 06, 2004
Three
The last weekday before my trip.. I’m pretty much at the point where I’ve not got a lot to do. I bought a new piece of luggage last week (my first roll-y bag!) which I’ve been slowly filling up throughout the week, I started packing really early because I was excited to go. Tomorrow I’m going to do that last load of laundry, I’ve cancelled my papers (and agreed to a trial subscription of the NYTimes for when I get back in case I am sad). I realized this week that the flight I booked on Sunday morning means that I can’t use the subway which doesn’t open until nine. So there’s another 50 bucks for a cab which by this point is kind of just an observation rather than a complaint, I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that this will probably be an expensive adventure and thanks to taxes my credit card’s not exactly paid off anyway. Oh well, what am I worried about I’ll be in NYC..
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Four
Okay as any girl knows one of the ways to prepare for going away is to get a haircut. That’s one of the things that I did yesterday, just the same style as before cleaned up so nothing dramatic. I’m always disappointed when I see my hair after I order the same cut, but unfortunately I like my hair colour so there’s no dying it and I’m still interested in having it long so there’s not a lot of trimming to do. Oh well. I’m going tonight with my friend Halli to a reading at the Victory Cafe which should be fun, she is going to stay over. Halli’s going to be looking after my place while I’m gone which is great, another thing I don’t have to worry about.
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
Five days to go
Now that I’m getting into the last week before I leave I’m getting seriously busy trying to tie things up here. I am planning on taking my laptop and keeping up with work but I also want to make sure I don’t forget about any deadlines before I go. One of the things I wanted to do before I left was get going on a site for my friend Laura Morris who is a fellow freelancer in need of a site, she’s coming over to do that today. Plus I have some other deadlines, and I’m trying to think about some story ideas about New York..not that I have a whole lot to whine about..speaking of going away though, my friend Gillian should have arrived in Vancouver yesterday, she just moved out of my neighbourhood on the Danforth (wah!) all the way to the west coast and is taking the train there as a sort of an appreciation of the size of the transition (she sold her house here so it was not a small decision). .now that is a neat idea..
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Next Monday
In a week it will be my first full day in NYC! Keeping terror firmly in the back of my mind, I’ve got to seriously think about what I’ll do. Definitely going to do the tourist thing, but also to live there will be fun. It’s been so long since I’ve planned this that I’ve had lots of time to imagine what it will be like. The woman whose apartment I’m subletting sent me pictures, they were one of the things that made me decide to go with that place, a studio in the upper nineties at Central Park. Central Park of course was the other reason I decided to go with that place, I mean I’ve been to NYC before but due to my limited it has been a bit difficult to visualize the neighbourhoods (both in terms of location and security) so Central Park is somewhere that I feel I actually know where I’m going. The apartment also comes with a cat that I’m going to be taking care of, so that will be an experiment as well. I’m afraid I’m going to really like that part and end up getting a cat of my own when I get back (I already know I love cats they are just such a long-term commitment..not that I’m commitment phobic, I just..well I don’t quite know what my problem is..)
Monday, August 02, 2004
Great..terror..
Well they just raised the security level in the US and mentioned they might have ‘new information’ about terror attacks coming up. Great. Of course I went and watched all the coverage on CNN, the NYtimes.com to make myself nervous. Then Mom and Dad called saying they were nervous and did I read the coverage..yes I did. Geez and I thought all I had to worry about was getting mugged or stabbed. I’ve already invested a lot in this trip (moneywise for my sublet and flight and not to mention I’ve been so looking forward to it!) so it’s not like I’m going to cancel but now I’m really nervous. Dumb terrorists ruining my holiday. I’m going to try not to think about it, instead to think about exciting things about the trip, like last night I went to see Dream in High Park with Linda, Caroline and Sylwia, it was really good, and I just read that in the NYC production in Central Park Sam Waterson (D.A. Jack McCoy of Law and Order) and his daughter (in real life as well as in the play) are starring. How neat is that. There, I’ll just try to think about that instead of terror..
Sunday, August 01, 2004
The week before
In a week’s time, I’ll be leaving to live in New York City for a month. I found a sublet through craigslist.org and I’m going to enjoy the city, hopefully keep up with my freelancing, and contemplate what it would be like to move to NYC more permanently. I thought I would start this blog to keep a record of my time there and to keep me writing. This is not my first trip to NYC thanks to my parents who are also big fans of the big apple and took my brother and I to visit the city lots of times before when we were kids, NYC being the closest major American city to Montreal, where we grew up (it seems almost uncool to have been introduced to NYC by my parents as the city seems like the kind that one would discover rebelliously on one’s own) and used to come down by car for long weekends over Thanksgiving or Easter. I’ve since been back to NYC with my friend Renuka where we stayed over with her cool friends in the Village, with my friend Linda as part of our “civic long weekends in America” tour which lasted three years covering NYC, Boston, and Chicago. Both of those times I took the bus. The last time I went was a couple of years ago again with my parents for Thanksgiving weekend.