Oxford 2

So, this is a little outdated for my geographic location, state of mind, etc., etc., but here goes (also - no scone pictures yet! But I will get on it).

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Just as a note, I am writing this on April 26, 2011 (and not whenever it is posted) because I am currently sitting in the Newark Airport and I don’t want to pay for WiFi. Beyond that, I actually decided that I want to write something for the blog during my 1.5 hour remaining wait. I thought I would take advantage of the spirit of the moment and write this to post later, especially because I’ve been up to quite a lot this past week.

Some of those things I will not write about extensively. One of the main reasons that I wanted to stop by New York was to visit family that I haven’t seen in five years – 15 yrs. old to 20 yrs. old is a significant change. There is much to say about family visits, but perhaps not much to say on a public blog. I was also tempted to make a stop here because it is so close to New York, and because I had the overwhelming urge to explore a part of my own country before searching for things foreign, abroad. You can find many things that are foreign in one’s own country; consider that the flight to the east coast was about the same length a journey as the ocean-crossing I am presently anticipating. The goal originally was to stay with my cousin Becky on my dad’s side in NYC, but conflicting plans made it so I got even more of a tourist’s – no, wanderer’s – perspective. I say wanderer in part to be pretentious/romantic about my plans, though I really did avoid most of the stereotypically tourist areas. And of course, I was travelling alone.

Itinerary (times estimated):

9 am – left New Providence, NJ on 1 hr train ride into the city

10 am – met up with cousin (other cousin, Hilary, on my mom’s side; 2 yrs. older than me) for breakfast; ate somewhat expensive waffles in Howard Square

11 am – subway initiation! Accidentally get on express train uptown in my efforts to reach central Central Park; decide to head to The Cloisters instead; see the infamous unicorn tapestries – please may Morielle be reading this post

12 pm – 2 pm – After exiting subway and walking about 15 blocks through Washington Parks and the park at Fort Tryon, I visit The Cloisters; discover that admission also applies to main branch of the Metropolitan Museum à more options!

2 – 3 pm – Once again board an express train accidentally to arrive at the lower western corner of Central Park; decide to walk to the Met (which I wanted to do anyways) though it is pouring rain, and it’s windy; see the lake and Belvedere Castle along the way – at this point, I’m feeling that my sojourn has been remarkably medieval

3 – 4:30 pm – Eat delicious cinnamon raisin pretzel in front of the Met then enter; coolest exhibit: “A Room with A View” on 19^th century painters’ experiments of including windows in paintings, sometimes making them the primary subject **reminder – look up quote from exhibition**

4:30 – 5 pm – Journey to hostel, including brief and successful subway ride and a soaking, solitary walk across Central Park in order to get to a convenient station; at this time my boots are soaked and I look like a wet poodle, as my hair has curled and frizzed to the extreme in the humidity and wind

5 pm – put stuff under my bed in female dormitory with 12 other occupants; those who are there at the time speak French and ignore the wet poodle

6 pm – escape from the hostel to dinner; when in Harlem… eat African food!! Delicious Ethiopian cuisine on the corner of 113^th and Frederick Douglas; eating alone at a somewhat classy restaurant I exhibited the habits of a middle aged man but the appearance of a conspicuously white, grungily attired student (when in New York, eh?...)

7 pm – return to social isolation in hostel and wet boots; decide to go to read a little then go to bed early so as to wake up early and do exciting things when I feel comfortable walking around Harlem – in the daylight

9 pm – awakened by German hostel-mate who bemoans that the concierge (if you call them that, in a hostel) didn’t them my bed on the bottom of the bunk; I am half asleep and don’t care anyways, so I offer to take the top bunk though the mattress, I discover, is significantly less comfortable and makes me feel liable to fall through it; at least everything is very clean

That evening I vaguely, VAGUELY remember the sounds of the other women coming in from late nights of clubbing – things I suppose I might be interested in if I was there with somebody else. MAYBE. More likely swing dancing – the historical sight of the famous Savoy Ballroom is not too far away! – though I thought I should probably get a good deal of sleep anyways for the subsequent day of travelling. In regards to any disruption from the other inhabitants tumbling in at odd hours, I got my ‘revenge’ when…

7 am – alarm goes off! I leave somewhat stealthily to get breakfast at Amy Ruth’s, a local Harlem place know for its Southern; my waffles with apples were served with a complementary biscuit and were infinitely more delicious than my waffle in Harold Square

8 – 9 am – walk around Northern Central Park and discover Central Park in sunlight; dogs and dog walkers are everywhere; the water was perhaps dirtier than in the lower lake, but to me Harlem Meer was the most beautiful part of Central Park

9 am – 10:30 am – walk to Columbia University and Grant’s Tomb; get a cappuccino

10:45 am – 12:45 pm – Palm Sunday service at the Riverside Church, a bastion for liberal Christianity in the east (not far from Union Theogical Seminary); the sermon wasn’t particularly strong, considering it was an interim minister as well, though I really appreciated the Prayers of the People; waved palms to the sound of African drums; decidedly the best racially integrated service I have ever been to

12:45 – realize that I am probably going to miss my 1:11 train, so I stop by Times Square for a tourist moment and two tantalizing slices of NY pizza; those flavors lingering on my tongue, I am convince that NY beats Chicago

2:11 – board train back to NJ

Four hours later, I’m waiting in the airport for a red eye to London. LONDON!!

Now, for some philosophical and psychological ramblings that are necessary after rambling in a city. Whenever I visit a place, I am always stressed to ask if I did enough; if I should have done more or just, differently. I’m fortunate in that I’ve been the tourist in NYC before, when I was just a kid, to hit all the main attractions. I never made it to the World Trade Center before 2001, which I still regret. I didn’t visit the Ground Zero this time, which I possibly regret. It is only the slightest of regrets though. The kind that you feel when you accidentally order a different kind of pizza than the one you expected, for example. Still, it’s a tasty slice of pizza and you know you couldn’t have ordered every slice. Some people would call my uptown-bound itinerary dull. At one point along the way I was also beginning to things so – somewhere along the path between Columbus Circle and Belvedere Castle when I was trying to cross the span of 25-some blocks with an insufficient umbrella and boots. Nevertheless, I have to say that my favorite things about visiting New York were the mundane things. Not even visiting the Met, which is mundane by clubbing standards. I enjoy the really mundane things, like walking down Frederick Douglas Boulevard at 7:30 am past piles of damp homeless crud and dozens of blown-out umbrellas (I am now convinced that Harlem is an umbrella cemetery). I enjoy hiding my camera deep in my backpack and feeling that I could pass as a local, walking confidently through primarily black neighborhoods with boarded up shop fronts and trying to ignore my exhausted feet. Later, passing crowds in Times Square like a NY taxi passes minivans with out-of-state licenses. I am probably romanticizing it, but if using imagination makes my travel experiences even better then why not?

The whole time I couldn’t help but think of San Francisco (as you probably know, I’m a big fan). I found myself watching sports attendees wearing blue and red jerseys on the subway and wishing that they were orange and grey. I found myself wishing that Central Park was just a little less charted. Manhattan is huge – far larger than I even remembered. I could imagine myself living there someday, for a short while. But for now, New York mostly gives me nostalgia for a place that feels like home. And then I worry that maybe I’m romanticizing that too, and I’m leaving on an airplane in 50 minutes, and I’m a little thirsty, and I’m going to a foreign country, and maybe I don’t know what home is, my home.

So I’ll probably give myself a cliché and listen to my ipod when I’m finished with this post and turn on ‘Home’ by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. And, yes, it’s a cliché. But maybe it’s also truth. I love you, friends and family. Happy belated birthday, Liesl!