In another world

2003-04-27 - 2:55 p.m.

I know you really want to hear about the rest of my trip, and actually I really want to write about it, but first I just need to complain about today. Today was basically doomed from the start, but it ended up being much worse than it had to be. And it's not over yet. This morning I woke up in the dark to the sound of my alarm clock. Actually, going to the east coast didn't mess up my sleep schedule at all. I'm used to getting up at 5 and going to bed around 9. While I was on the east coast we got up around 8 most days and went to bed around midnight. With the three-hour time difference, that was exactly my usual schedule. But the first bad thing for the day was the fact that I was waking up alone in the dark to the sound of an alarm clock in Sacramento. That's actually four bad things. But I went through my usual going-to-work routine and made it out the door ahead of schedule. Except I couldn't find my keys. I didn't take them with me on my trip. I think I drove with them to the airport on the way there and my mom took them back with her. But she didn't put them in the place where I usually put them (hanging on a nail on the door). I took the key to my car off my dad's keychain and off I went. That left me without a house key, but I wouldn't need it, my dad would be home when I got home. I arrived at work at about 6:30. I didn't have to be there until 7. I'm usually early for things. Then I realized I left my name badge and pager at home. OK, I can live without the pager, especially on an ops day. The name badge is more important because, well, it's required to wear it at all times in the hospital and also because it has a card key attached which opens doors. But I decided I could make it through the day without that too. I walked inside the hospital and then realized without my keys, I had no key to pharmacy administration, and therefore no access to my labcoat. Without my name badge or my labcoat I look like any random person and cannot do my job. At that point it was 6:40. I decided to make a mad dash for home. I live 20 miles from work. To make it there and back and still be on time I'd have to go 120mph the whole way. I settled for 90 on the freeway and 60 on the surface streets. I made it home at 7:03 and to work by 7:25, thanks to Sunday morning traffic. That's the first time I was late to work, but nobody gets to work on time around here anyway. Of course I called to let them know I would be late. So that set the tone for my day. It actually hasn't been too bad since then. Mostly just slow. Really, really slow. Time is crawling by. It's only 3:00 now. For lunch I brought leftovers from last night's dinner. Without access to administration I had no access to a microwave. Yum, cold leftovers. And it's really windy outside. I hate wind. Ok, ok, I'm done complaining. Besides, I had nine totally wonderful days prior to today.

So where was I on my commentary about my trip? I think I was on Tigger's recital. Actually, prior to her recital, while she was warming up, her two sisters and the Babe and I explored a bit of the campus. We tried to get into the football stadium. It's huge. We walked around until we eventually found an open gate. We walked in and played around a bit on the field. Of course we were all wearing dresses with heals, so we didn't play around too much. Then we walked over to the baseball field and watched a baseball game until it was time to head over to Tigger's recital. As I said before, her recital was awesome. Afterwards was a reception. She had a lot of friends and family there plus her students who range in age from about 5 to 12. Then we went back to the hotel where her family ordered take-out Chinese food and invited the Babe and I to join them for dinner in the hotel dining room. We had to rush though before Tigger whisked the Babe and I off to another recital. This was another violin recital being put on by a guy who went to the same undergrad as we did. He is friends with Tigger but only a casual acquaintance of the Babe and I. But his recital was awesome as well. At his reception the Babe and I knew basically nobody so we just sat in the corner and ate the food. It was good food, too. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

I woke up on Easter Sunday at 5am EST, 2am my time. No worries, I like getting up early. We got ready for Flik's recital and then grabbed a bagel from the hotel's continental breakfast on the way out at 6am. Tigger and her older sister drove us to the Amtrak station in Baltimore. We had directions but managed to get lost anyway. We arrived with very little time to spare and ended up running to catch the train. But we made it. My first real train ride. The ride was about three hours long. My east coast geography is very bad. I knew I was starting in Baltimore and ending in New York, but I had no idea what was in between. I had no idea that I would be in five different states that day. Every time an announcement came over the intercom saying we were in a new state it was a surprise for me. So we started out in Maryland and went through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and ended up in New York. We got off at Penn Station in New York. Flik wasn't able to meet us there because she was preparing for her recital, but she gave us very good directions. All of her directions were based on food. Such as, "Turn left at Krispy Kreme." I found that very amusing. Anyway, we hopped a subway uptown then walked the remaining four blocks to her school. We went inside her dorm and used the lobby phone to call up to her room. Unlike Tigger, Flik let us stay with her the whole time she was preparing and warming up. Flik is a lot less modest about her abilities than Tigger. Flik's recital was awesome, and if you ask her, she'll tell you so. Not in a conceited way, though. She'll just say it wasn't perfect, but it went very well. I can't remember off the top of my head which pieces she played. I believe there were four--Bach, Beethoven, Shostakovich, and one more. You know, as I was listening to her recital I felt really out of the loop. When she was still in undergrad we used to study together. I would go with her to the practice rooms and she would practice while I studied. And we usually behaved ourselves, too. But while we were there I would hear the pieces over and over again and we would discuss the music and I would know more about the background and which parts were the hard parts for her and which parts were her favorite parts and which parts were my favorite parts. But at this recital I knew virtually nothing about the music. It was a little sad. Afterwards was her reception where I met her new friends and some of her extended family. Later on her dad left for the airport and his trip home while the Babe and I went with Flik, Flik's mom, and a couple of Flik's family friends to have dinner at the Cafe Partutti. It's Chinese style to order many entrees for several people and then everybody eats from all the entrees. I have never seen anyone do that with Italian food before, but that's what they did here. It was cute. And honestly, I guess it makes more sense, too. After dinner Flik's mom went with the family friends to their home in Boston leaving the three of us alone to play in the city. We decided to run down to Times Square to get tickets for a Broadway show. And the funniest thing happened. While we were in Times Square which was packed with people for some reason unknown to us, we ran into someone else we knew from undergrad. What are the odds of that? Running into someone you met 3000 miles away in a city of 8 million people. Another funny thing happened while we were there, too. When we got off the subway, we weren't exactly sure which direction Times Square was. So we asked an NYPD cop. And you know what he said? He said, "I don't know, I haven't been here long." Yeah, that sure made us feel safe. A woman on the street directed us in the wrong direction and by the time we decided we were definitely not going the right way and then finally made it to the ticket booth, it was already closed. We did a little shopping in the shops there where the Babe and I bought New York souvenirs and then we went back to Flik's place for the night.

On Monday morning we ate breakfast at Flik's school's cafeteria and also got sandwhiches to go for lunch. Then we hopped a subway to Battery Park and rode the ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We ate our sandwhiches at the base of the statue and spent a while exploring the museum at Ellis Island. None of us have relatives that went through Ellis Island, but it was still very interesting. Actually, we spent so long because Flik and the Babe wanted to see the movie they show there just so they could sit in the comfy theater and nap. We decided afterwards to go to SoHo to do some shopping, but through a map-reading error, we got off the subway in Greenwhich Village instead. We decided to walk back to SoHo and along the way we stopped at some little booths where Flik and the Babe spent quite a long time looking at and buying jewelry. Jewelry is not my thing, but I tried to look interested anyway. I think I did a fairly decent job of not rushing them. And also I got called "Blondie" for the first of many times during my stay in the city. What's up with New Yorkers and that word? If they weren't calling me "Blondie" the men of New York were making some sort of comment on my blue eyes. Certainly having blonde hair and blue eyes is not so novel. By the time we made it to SoHo we were pretty tired and decided not to spend much time there. Instead we got on the subway and went to Times Square again. This time we got there in time to buy tickets. We bought tickets to that night's showing of "Rent." We didn't have too much time before the show so we ate dinner at the Times Square McDonald's and then spent some time shopping in the Sephora there. For a girl who doesn't wear make-up, there's not much to do in that store. But again, I was good and didn't rush anybody. The show itself was pretty good. Not my favorite musical of all time but the experience was worth it. The guy who played Angel was really, really good. "I'm more of a man than you'll ever be and more of a woman than you'll ever get!" Hee hee. But really, he was better at being feminine than I'll ever be. The guy who played Roger was often flat on the high notes and his pants were so ugly it really put me off. And also the relationships between Joanne and Maureen and between Collins and Angel were hard to believe just because Collins didn't seem at all gay and Joanne and Maureen were just so...different. But yeah, it was good and I'm glad I finally got the chance to go! Afterwards we got back on the subway and went to Tom's Restaurant. Yup, the one from Seinfeld. Flik and the Babe were hungry so they had dinner again while I just had something to drink. Then we walked back to Flik's school with a stop along the way at Columbia to see where Spiderman was filmed.

On Tuesday morning we went across the street from Flik's school to Sakura Park, Grant's Tomb, and the Riverside Church. Then we walked down to Columbia again to see it in the daylight and to a little bakery down the street called Nussbaum & Wu's for breakfast. On the way there we passed by a place where they were filming part of an episode of Law & Order. It was being filmed outside a restaurant called Le Monde and the people told us it is supposed to air in three weeks. We thought about trying to be extras, but it didn't look like anything was happening fast and we had other things to do so we didn't stick around. At any rate, at Nussbaum & Wu's I met The Bagel Guy. The Bagel Guy might've been a little on the short side, but he looked a lot like Matthew Broderick and he had a really sweet smile. I also caught him staring at me several times. And he never called me Blondie. After breakfast we rode the subway to 34th Street where we saw Madison Square Garden and then went to the Empire State Building. We took the elevator all the way to the top and spent a while looking out at the view. We didn't have the best visibility, we could just make out the Statue of Liberty through the fog, but it was still pretty spectacular. Then we took a taxi. My first taxi. The one I took in Atlanta was a white minivan and doesn't count. This one was an honest to goodness taxi. Complete with wild driving. But we survived the trip and got out at Rockefeller Center. The flowers there were beautiful. Then we walked through St. Patrick's Cathedral, shopped at the Disney store, and stopped by the Trump Building to get coffee at Starbuck's. We walked to Central Park and through the zoo before we bought hot sausages at a hotdog stand and sat on a park bench to eat lunch. Flik: "Look at that fat squirrel!" Me: "Where? All I see is that raccoon..." After polishing off lunch we wandered over to the Bethesda fountain where we saw people rowing little boats in the pond and decided we wanted to do that too. So the three of us piled in and the Babe decided she wanted to row. I expected her to not do so well, but she actually ended up doing very well. Taking turns rowing we explored most of the pond before we decided we'd better take it in before it got dark. We wandered through the park some more until we came to a street where we took another cab to Cafe Lalo. Cafe Lalo was seen in the movie "You've Got Mail." It's the place where Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks met when she was sitting there with the flower and she didn't know that he was the man she was there to meet. It's mostly a dessert place. So we ordered three desserts and shared them. Oh wow, those were heavenly. Then we got on the subway and went to Cafe Tacci. Full already, I just got a bowl of their soup of the day, but Flik and the Babe ate again. We sat there and gabbed for a very long time and finally started walking back to Flik's place. On the way we stopped in at a shoe store and a Duane Reade for a little more shopping.

Whew! I've been typing this for nearly four hours (ok, yes, I'm at work so I've been doing other things too) and I'm getting pretty tired. If you've read this whole thing, congratulations, you're a real trooper! I only have four more days of my trip to go, but those will be in a later entry.