She always knows everything that's going on in any city she's in. I don't know if she has some kind of psychic link with the events pages of the local papers, or if she has a cabal of informants that feed her exclusive information, or if she is a secret cyborg that has access to every piece of information that ever existed within 20 square km of her person, but my god, she finds us the best stuff to do.
When we were living in Vancouver at the same time, I swear she invited me along to some of the craziest shit I've ever seen. For example:
In 2011, Randy Quaid was in Canada seeking asylum because he and his wife were convinced they were being chased by Hollywood assassins called "Star Whackers". While in exile here, they decided to hold a screening of their movie of the same name at the Rio Theatre and you better believe that Jenna and I went.
It was a truly terrible film; not only did I see full frontal Quaid wearing a terrible red merkin, there was one sequence where he recited a soliloquy from Hamlet THREE TIMES IN A ROW.
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| Please forgive the quality of this photo, I, for some reason thought that a Blackberry was a superior machine when I got my first smartphone. |
The theatre was screaming by the end of the third time, which maybe was the intended effect because, to round out the screening Randy and his band got up on stage to sing "Starfukers Incorporated", and I think it might have been a ruse to muster up some enthusiasm for the performance.
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This was one of the strangest things I have ever witnessed, and I have Jenna to thank for keeping me looped in to all of the weird events we've gone to over the years.
It's also why, when I floated the idea of coming to visit her in Montreal, Jenna suggested we drive down to New York for most of my visit instead, I immediately said yes. I knew that there wasn't a better person that I could go with to ensure that we had the singularly best time anyone has ever had.
We had a list of criteria that our activities had to abide by.
1. No cliche tourist attractions.
2. Eat like gluttons.
3. Avoid repeats.
4. See as much as possible.
It was a beautiful day when we left Montreal, we had several excellently curated playlists to keep us company on the 6 hour drive, and since we hadn't seen each other in person for about a year, lots to catch up on.
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| I don't know that anything could sum up our personalities more than this photo. |
When we turned off the main highway onto the Palisades Interstate Parkway, I don't know how else to explain it other than things felt more "New Yorky". This is ridiculous considering that we were currently in New Jersey, but something in the trees, or the composition of the roads, compounded with my impressions of New York from all of the copious films and tv shows I've seen in my life, I think something in me just recognized the essence of the place when we started getting closer.
The other thing that REALLY welcomed us to New York was the traffic jam we encountered as we approached the George Washington Bridge.
The start/stop of inching through traffic is the one thing that can still make me carsick, and I was close to hurling by the time we finally arrived at the parking lot we were leaving the car in for the five days we were here.
The parking lot was in the Upper East Side and our hotel was down in Chinatown. We had a look at the map for the nearest Subway station and thought "that's not too far", completely forgetting that city blocks hit different in New York. After schlepping our suitcases for fifteen minutes and only moving a teeny weeny bit on the map, we realized we needed reinforcements. The first coffee shop we found, we grabbed a beverage and a snack and took a couple of deep breaths on the patio before moving on. The front of the building was under construction, and this patio was almost fully encased in green tarp-covered scaffolding, but at this point we didn't really care about the ambiance, we just needed a moment to refuel.
After a minute or so, when the caffeine started to flow through our systems we finally took in our surroundings. I was able to register the sounds of the city, the yellow cabs driving past, the faint smell of something industrial, like oil or metal but also maybe garbage?
Then I started listening to the voices. Behind us were two older ladies and their tiny dogs, and when their voices finally took form in my brain, it was the most absurd delight. They had the thickest "I'm walkin' here" New York accent you ever heard. It was so heavy it felt like a joke. They weren't even really talking about anything in particular, but the audible confirmation that we were in New York was so gratifying I heaved a big contented sigh before we pressed on towards the Subway station.
At this point Jenna's navigational skills were running the show so I just followed her lead and before too long we were walking out of the Subway somewhere in Chinatown, looking for the Hotel Richland, a little boutique hotel that was the most reasonable price we could find when we were looking for places to stay.
It took us a bit to find it because it's so skinny you wouldn't think it was a hotel and ended up stopping at this Bodega to grab snacks because a hungry Jenna, is a HANGRY Jenna.
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| I promise, not unlike the Tardis, it was bigger on the inside. |
After checking in and spending 30 minutes or so recalibrating, eating our snacks and readying ourselves to get our first taste of New York sans luggage, we set out again to do the only thing on our list of activities that expressly broke rule numero uno of the trip.
We went to Times Square.
Jenna, who had been here once before, recognized that it's the one thing that you kind of need to do when you come here, but if you can get in and get out as fast as possible then it's time not completely wasted.
It doesn't mean we were happy about it.
We came, we took about five pictures, the crush of oblivious bodies quickly overpowered all sense of reason, and we scurried away down a side street as fast as humanly possible.
I don't think I realized that Times Square was also right near the theatre district and when we just so happened to come across the Richard Rogers theatre, we stared through the windows with so much envy because there was no way in hell we could afford Hamilton tickets.
This was about all we could handle at this point in our day so we headed back to Chinatown to get a good night's sleep and set out again the next day.
Because our time here was so limited, we had to cram as much activities into each day as possible. This meant we had to get up at a reasonable hour and quickly get a coffee and something to eat on the go. It wasn't hard finding someplace suitable on our way to the subway, but if I'd had any hesitation coming to America so soon after Donald Trump was elected, the sign outside of the Little Canal coffee shop set my mind at ease.
The speed at which this business adjusted it's actual sign to roast He Who Will Not Be Named (US version) is mere days. That idiot tweeted about Covfefe May 31st - we were lured here by this sign on June 2nd. It was delicious and fresh, the ambiance was bright and welcoming - it was everything you would want in a coffee shop.
We're only really here for three days and the first and last day of our 5 day journey are going to be spent in the car. We've dedicated Day 1 to the New York City wander, Day 2 is Brooklyn, and Day 3 is anything we missed.
We caught the train up to the West Village to do some vintage shopping. I didn't buy anything, but it was so wonderful to see so many shops that weren't chains. This is something that is so prevalent here, that I've been seeing less and less of back home. Downtown centres, which is where you might find that specialized family business, are becoming ghost towns and everything is moving to the box store on the outskirts of town.
But you can't dig through a bin and find a treasure in those box stores. You can't find a piece of history, or culture stamped on a vintage pin, or know that your patronage is affecting specifically that person behind the counter. There is no soul in a box store, and seeing so many unique businesses on every single street here has been so wonderful.
After a few hours of this, where I took no photos of course, we needed lunch. Jenna suggested we go to the Flatiron district and grab a bunch of things from Eatily, then go to Central Park and eat on the grass picnic-style in Sheep Meadow to consume the spoils of our efforts.
Having no idea what Eatily was, I did what I always do in Jenna's presence - I nodded and trusted that she wouldn't lead me astray.
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| Do I like mushrooms? No. Do I enjoy seeing all the different kinds on display in decorative baskets? YES. |
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| Never heard of a single cheese here. |
Eatily was so laden with customers that it was a real struggle for me not to freak out from overstimulation. But I pushed through because we had rule number 2 (eat like gluttons) to adhere to and there was just so many tasty things to see and smell and cram in my face!
We got some fresh focaccia (that we WATCHED being made), some of these Italian cheeses that i'd never heard of, a couple of pre-packaged salad-like things near the front of the store and some iced coffees on the way out.
Before we jumped right back on the subway with our bag of food, we took a few minutes to finish our coffee's and chill in Madison Square Park across from Eatily and the Flatiron building.
This may seem like an unnecessary stop - we'd only been out and about a few hours right? Well, here's the thing...my feet are my enemy. I have terrible plantar faciitis from working retail on concrete floors in bad shoes all throughout University, and slowly perusing shops all morning is actually one of the worst things for making my feet feel like they are solidifying into concrete blocks. Mama needs breaks.
Once we got to Sheep Meadow, Jenna quickly engaged in one of her favourite activities - sleeping in scenic places. She loves a beach snooze or a park nap - I have a sun allergy and an anxiety problem where I fear that I'll fall asleep and wake up 4 hours later missing all my belongings and clothes. I did not nap.
We had a late reservation at a restaurant downtown so we still had some time to kill before we made our way back to hotel to change for our late dinner reservation at a place called Lil Frankies.
We decided to pop into MoMA and see some big deal artworks. We'd budgeted to spend the 30 dollar admission but the gods of fortune smiled upon us and we just so happened to be there on a free night.
This also meant that it was OVERRUN with people. It became a game of ours where we'd take pictures of pretentious people taking pictures of the art.
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| The outfits guys.... |
I did also participate in this photo-taking of the art, but I think that's just the millennial way. Pics or it didn't happen.
In my defence, there were a few pieces that have some significance in my life. I have a print of this painting hanging on my bedroom wall:
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| The Sleeping Gypsy by Rousseau on the wall of the room where you sleep? Groundbreaking... |
And when I was in high school, my art teacher wanted to paint a mural on this big curved cement block wall in our cafeteria. It was previously just painted this sort of toothpaste mint green and he had this great idea to paint A Starry Night by Van Gogh on the wall, but change the landscape to the Mountains of Rossland.
So, when I finally got to see the real thing, after hours and hours of pouring over the composition of it just to try and mimic it in some small way in our humble small-town school, it was necessary to document it for posterity.
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| I had no idea this was even at MoMA when we walked in the doors so I was floored to see it in person. |
Then, finally, one of my favourite Art History factoids to spit at people is to ask them to guess how big Monet's Waterlilies is.
If they guessed anything less than 42 feet long, they'd be wrong.
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| We are tourist trash. |
With the sun down, we made an earnest effort to head back to the hotel and get ready for phase two of our day/night.
Rule number 3 (no repeats) might need a little explaining. Jenna has been to New York before with some different friends - there were a lot of things that they did that were time consuming endeavours, and would take up a lot of time for something that Jenna had already experienced even if I haven't.
But, I'm less concerned with forcing our days into a rigid schedule so that I can tick another box off of my list of notable things to see, and more concerned with getting a genuine New York experience and for both of us to see things neither of us have seen before. There's so much to do here, it's hard to feel like you're missing anything.
That being said, we're still trying to fit as much into these three days as possible and there are a few places that just make sense to stop at along the way. Radio City/30 Rock is one, Times Square, busy though it was, was another. Sheep Meadow was a third, but that was just an efficient way for us to recharge, go into the park, and have lunch.
Lil' Frankie's is another repeat, but it's not the big event of our evening. We plan to go to Pianos for our night on the town - a light night since we also have a ton of things planned for Day 2, but we would be remiss if we didn't experience the nightlife in the City That Never Sleeps.
This is where things, unfortunately get a bit hazy. We went to Lil' Frankie's, had some delicious cocktails and I want to say Gnocchi? I remember it being tasty whatever it was, and then my memory has us waiting in line for the bouncer to let us into Pianos. I have a vague memory of drinking a cheap can of beer and then some highballs, and then suddenly we were on a stage, and there was dancing and more drinking? I see flashes and I have one piece of evidence of the evening...
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| Light night be damned. We got accidentally wasted. |
We stumbled out of the bar at something like 2am needing some kind of deep fried carb just to make it back to the hotel.
Fortunately, we were just down the block from Katz's Delicatessen, where Jenna has most definitely been before, but where they also serve potato latke's. If there's one thing about my friend that a person should know, it's that the call of the potato has never been heard so loudly than by her. Potatoes are her weakness, her raison d'être, her mantra...her god?
Plus, Katz's Deli is famously where Meg Ryan faked that orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, and I had wanted to go in my heart of hearts even though it was a repeat, and a touristy spot. Rules be damned, we needed latkes and we needed them now.
Even at 2am, the place was busy, but we ordered our latkes from the shouty man at the counter and grabbed a table along the wall covered in pictures of the owner with various famous people - To Wong Foo-style.
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| Staring adoringly at our mutual crush, David Krumholtz. |
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| Tell me whyyyy I make this face in all my photos. OOF. |
We trundled off home to the hotel shortly afterwards and hoped like hell we wouldn't suffer too badly tomorrow.
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