I do feel ashamed and a bit guilty but I must share with you, my loyal readers, that I am no longer reliant on the public transportation system of my beloved city. Yes, it is true, I now have a car in NYC. Please put away your judgment while I tell the story of why I have a car and how it is making my life more enjoyable.

My very cool city grandparents had a car which they kept in a garage under their building. They used the car on weekends and on trips to see their friends. Well my grandpa just got sick and my grandma can not drive anymore so they decided last week that rather than pay to have the car sitting in the garage at the insane price of $420 a month that they would rather their granddaughter have it. Last Monday, I picked the car up and due to the late hour I parked the car in a garage in my building. For the privilege, I had to shell out $29 plus a dollar tip for 12 hours. Not cool.

The next morning I headed out to New Jersey and found that the entire trip of one highway a bridge and a side street took me 20 mins! Astonishing that I could be at work so fast when my morning commute using public transportation took me an hour to an hour and a half.

The trip home takes a bit longer but its basically much more enjoyable and relaxing.

Parking in NYC deserves its own entry but I will just say that I suck at parallel parking and it takes 20-40 mins of driving in circles trying to find a parking spot.

If you see me driving around in my green Camry wave! :)

Adventures in Crocheting

My commute is so very long everyday that it allows me plenty of time to work on the three baby blankets that I am crocheting. I don’t have much time before the babies are born so even with all the transfers I make I still take out my hook and huge ball of yarn to crochet on the subway.

I have found out that people become mesmerized by the repetitive action of my hook grasping the yarn. Whenever I crochet on the subway, I have an audience. Most of the time the onlookers look away quickly when I look up, ashamed to have been catch watching me. I play a little game of counting how many people I can catch staring at my hands.

Sometimes some of the onlookers ask questions. I had a couple who were sitting across from me ask what I was making and if my mom taught me how to crochet. (A baby blanket, and no a friend in college.) They were intrigued and the woman said she always wanted to learn how. They complimented me and then continued to watch until they departed from the train.

Another morning, a man on the bus asked me in broken English about what I was making and if I was pregnant and it was for my baby. I laughed and told him no and then he shared a story with me about an old lady in the community (Harlem) who makes sweaters and sells them.

A few nights back, I was busily crocheting on the train when a couple walked on. They sat down and the man pulled out a digital camera. I thought at first he was just showing the images to the woman he was with but then I saw him discreetly press the button. He was photographing me crocheting! Then he showed the woman and she smiled and then looked up at me. It felt really cool to be doing something that a random person felt the need to record forever (or at least for a little while.)

So I continue to stitch 1000’s of little knots….

The urge to SING!

On my way home from work today I got into a completely empty subway car. This is a rare unless it is 3 in the morning and then you purposely should move to a full subway car so you don't have any bad interactions.

Well anyway, I wanted to take full advantage of this empty train so I cranked up my Ipod to Billy Joel's Uptown Girl and began to sing at full volume. "Uptown girl she's been living in an uptown world..... " That is my karaoke song of choice. The acoustics on a train are pretty fabulous and for two local stops on the C train I sang my song. I felt so free and almost like I was starring in some movie where the heroine just had a life changing event happen and was so happy about it she had to sing! Although I keep looking at the doors to make sure no one interrupted my private show, I felt like the train was moving just for me.

Ironically ,it was a very appropriate song choice as I went from 125th street down to 96th street. Not only am I an NYCbean but also an uptown girl.

Unfortunately, one man choose to enter my haven of a subway car at 103rd street. I went silent as the doors opened and stayed that way until I got home when I cranked up my radio and sang at the top of my lungs again.

I love NYC :)

Sushi, Music and Sun!

Oh how I love summer in NYC! Although I now spend more time in NJ than I do in the city I still can be found frolicking the streets over the weekend. Last weekend, I attended Summer Stage. Summer Stage is a series of free concerts in Central Park all summer long with a wide array of different music and comedy acts. The day I went was all music and very enjoyable. The company made it even better! There's nothing like enjoying a concert with friends.

Sushi is fab and even better when eaten on a blanket in the middle of the park in the shade from a huge tree. We ate tons of delicious raw fish and then got up to go to the concert.

After waiting on line at 1:30 pm(which was not necessary) for a concert that started at 3 pm, we went "inside" the metal dividers and saw a stage area and some bleachers with fake turf in front of it. We put our blanket down and relaxed in the hot sun. Snapple was the sponsor and was giving out free samples of their new teas. I don't usually like tea but their red peach pomegranate doesn't taste like tea just like watered down juice. I was also pretty thirsty so it may have just tasted good then. Anyway, sitting in the park in front of the stage transported me out of the city and I felt as though I could have been anywhere. I was away from the big city for the day.

The music was nice and although it wasn't particularly memorable I felt myself swaying as I sat. It was just enjoyable.

As the temperature rose, I didn't leave as many people would have. Instead I walked over to the misting station and sat in a chair while a fan blew on me and I was sprayed with icy water. I was then rewarded with a free POM juice t-shirt! Score! Free stuff is always nice. I also got a free subscription to New York Moves magazine.

The day was really nice and I really hope to take advantage of more free summer events.

Bus Hell

This morning the bus driver had a temper tantrum. He yelled and screamed at the passengers. I don't need coffee in the morning just give me an irate bus driver to wake me right up! The M98 has been a source of annoyance the past couple weeks. It stopped showing up and forcing me to arrive at work at 10 am.
Back to this morning's exciting adventure. The bus driver stopped at a traffic light and when it turned green he didn't go. There were no cars in front of him and yet he just sat there. A man at the back of the bus asked "Why are you just sitting here?" The bus driver raised his voice and yelled "I cannot go near the bus stop if there is another bus there. I got a ticket once and now I won't do it again. We have to sit here until the other bus leaves!" And there we sat for 3 cycles of the traffic light at 125th Street. The bus driver then told us that he has to follow the rules and if we don't like it we can walk. He is only going to drive 25 MPH because that is the rule of buses. Huh? We take the highway. A bus going 25 miles an hour on the highway equals dangerous. So we finally pull up to the stop and the people waiting had some words for the bus driver. Most of them included "Why were you waiting there?" The bus driver started his rant again and then picked up his internal bus phone and called to complain to the MTA. It was hard to hear but he was giving them suggestions about announcements for all the buses that say it is the law to not have more than one bus at a bus stop at a time. Umm can we say crazy? He got on the highway and drove around 25mph as promised.

What I do love about these situations is that it is a chance to make what I shall call "bus buddies". These are people you start talking to because there is now a common bond of banding together against the crazy bus driver. The people that are on this bus are mostly the same each day so we all smile at each other and roll our eyes.

Just another joy of my commute!

P.S. I am in Newsday again today. Check out my review of a new club, Boucarou. newsday.typepad.com

I review, just for you!

I failed to tell you, my trusty blog-readers, that I not only write this fabulous blog but I am also published bi-weekly in a newspaper. I am part of Newsday's Impulse section and I am on the Review Crew. I write reviews of bars, clubs, movies and CDs. The reviews are published in a blog online and also that day in the paper. The review is accompanied by a picture of me (you will get to see what I look like!). If you click on my name under my writing you can see the previous reviews that I have written. This is a 6 month gig and I am loving it. This is actually the second time I am reviewing for Newsday. They picked me to write again as an All-Star!

So everyone visit:

newsday.typepad.com and read the reviews written by the blond girl from Manhattan! That's me!!! (Scroll down a bit for today's review about the Timbaland's new CD! )

The Bus Station

In NYC, there is one main bus station located centrally at 42nd street called Port Authority Bus Station. The bus station is pretty gross as many bus stations are throughout the country. The clientele are also of a specific strand of sketchy people who still take buses to get places rather than other modes of transportation. Then there are the people that live in the bus station or just choose to hang out there. One perk of Port Authority is that the station is huge and also has a bowling alley in it. Yes, I do realize it is strange but it is the cheapest bowling alley in the city even if it is a little on the ghetto side (but what bowling alley isn't just a little bit nasty?)

There are buses that leave from the Port Authority and go to New Jersey and most people think that is the only place to get buses to NJ. I learned that there is another exciting bus station in Manhattan. This one is in Washington Heights. The word "Heights" makes the area sound delightful like the top of a mountain looking down on a valley. Yet it is just another seedy section of Upper Manhattan.

This bus station doesn't have an arrival/ departure board. Good luck trying to find the piece of paper on a pillar that has the schedule on it.

Buying tickets is an experience. There is a row of ticket windows yet I have never seen them open except for the one where you can purchase day tickets to Atlantic City. There are also two "high tech" ticket machines that are the slowest pieces of technology ever. The options for buying a ticket to your destination in New Jersey are:

a) purchase the ticket with cash on the bus. Make sure you bring exact change ($2.30 each way) or the bus driver will growl in your direction and not have the correct change for you.

b) find a time to buy the tickets are the aforementioned indefinitely
closed ticket window.

c) figure out what bus number and what route number you are and punch the numbers into the automated ticket machine. Then you can chose the daily, ten trip or monthly pass.

I used to purchase the 10 trip from the machine before I figured out that the monthly was actually going to save me a whopping $4.00. Thanks New Jersey! Well, the ten trip is printed painfully slowly on 10 different tickets that fall out the machine one at a time. Very efficient.

Wouldn't it be smarter to have a Metrocard system installed in the buses like NYC? It could replace the old-fashioned change dispenser that the bus drivers use. Just an idea, Jerse my new pal!

So, back to the bus station aesthetics. The actual station is ugly but then again it is a bus station so I can overlook that. When you walk in to the station you have either a big flight of stairs to climb or an escalator, that works sporadically, at best. The station smells like an old sock soaked in oil and sprayed with exhaust. So yummy before 9:30 in the morning.

The bus actually arrive upstairs to the station so the NJT decided it would be a good idea to have security camera images displayed on TV’s that show when the buses arrive so you can stay inside and wait. This seems like a good idea in theory but the cameras break often and are always hazy so you have to squint to try and see if the bus is there. Then there is another escalator (which is usually broken) to get to the bus.

Humans are not the only species (that are visible) in the station. There are about 5-10 pigeons that fly around. Remember this is an INDOOR bus station. The pigeons are not afraid of people and come thisclose to you and try to steal anything you are eating. They also fly at low altitudes and I have had to duck on many an occasion to not get hit in the head by the nasty flying rats.

There are three places to get food in the bus station. But I will not describe them because I would not dare eat unpackaged food from them. I am not a snob I just don’t want the pigeon germs. Ewww.

There is an OTB in the bus station. Spelled out is Off-Track Betting. Let me rephrase that so you can absorb it. You can bet on an obscure horse race while waiting for your bus. OTB’s attract some interesting people and by interesting I mean sketchy. Luckily the OTB is not open at 9am. However, this doesn’t deter the homeless and drunks from staggering around the door waiting for the time when they can bet away their money they panhandled in the subway station. (There is a guy who does this daily.)

I try to spend as little time as possible in the bus station. I usually don’t have to wait long for a bus in the morning. At night, I am in the station for all of two minutes.

Thank you to New Jersey for not maintaining the bus station. It provided me with a topic for my readers.

The Commute

In order for me to get to and from NJ every day I take a total of 4 buses, and 2 subways. I ride on the public transportation systems of both New York City and the State of New Jersey. They are respectively, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and New Jersey Transit (NJT). As I said, on the day of my interview, I took a bus to 2 different subway lines and then a bus over the bridge. Now imagine doing that two times a day. I was upset and worried until a friend found me a faster and better route using hopstop.com. Hopstop.com is an amazing website that I use at least 5 fives a week. As a New Yorker who jumps all over the city visiting many different and random places I want to know the easiest and fastest way to get there on time. So I put my location into Hopstop and then where I am going. I can get the faster route by bus or subway or both! (end advertisement ☺)

My friend found a fabulous new route that includes a MTA bus that leaves from right outside my apartment building and takes me directly to the bus station! This bus is a lifesaver and cuts a half hour and sometimes 45 minutes off my commute in the morning. I leave my apartment at 8:30 each morning, am on the first bus at 8:40 or 8:45 and arrive at the bus station in time to make my 9:10 bus over the bridge to NJ! If there is no traffic or other problems, I am at work by 9:20, ten minutes early!

This bus does excite me but there is a catch. (always!) It is a very, very, very limited bus. This means that by 6:09 at night the last one takes off down the road and there are no more till the morning. I get out of work at 6:00 pm in NJ and have to take that NJT bus over the bridge back into Manhattan. I am unable to meet the last bus, which goes back to my home.

So I am forced to deal with the NYC subways as well as a cross town bus once I am back in NYC. This does not make me happy in fact, I spoils my night almost every night. I must wait for the express subway, take it 3 stops, switch to the local train, take that 4 stops, climb out of the subway and wait for the cross town bus to bring me across Central Park. If there are no bus delays, accidents on the bridge, traffic on the bridge, rain storms, snow storms, subway delays, construction or anything else then I am home within an hour and a half. I get home around 7:30-8:00. It’s then time for a relaxing dinner, shower and a couple hours of sleep. I am lucky enough to get to do it again the next day!

Although I complain a little about the commute (ok a lot!), I LOVE MY JOB!!! (even if I spend almost more time commuting than I do there ☺).

Stay tuned for the next entry all about the sketchiest bus station, EVER!!!

The Bean has left the City

New Jersey. Not a state with a great reputation. Yet, every day since February 20th, I have been commuting to New Jersey. You may be thinking why would I take a job outside my city and that I am crazy but the truth is that I didn’t realize the location when I applied for it.

There comes a time in the unemployment process when you just apply for anything and I did that with many jobs. I thought something has to happen eventually. And one day I got lucky. I got an interview for the exact job I wanted. I wasn’t even sure of what job it was when they called I accepted the interview and asked them to send me the directions. Once I opened the email, I learned I was making a trek across the Hudson River to New Jersey. Before the interview I told myself it was good practice and that I would not take a job out there. It was just too crazy.

Well after commuting to get there for an interview by bus and the subway and then another subway and then another bus I was sure there was no way I was going to take this job.

But of course, the interview went amazing. Two different people and the Editor-in Chief interviewed me. As I was leaving the EIC asked where I would be in a half hour. I laughingly told her on a bus or subway back home. Well sure enough when I got off the subway my cell phone beeped and there was a message from the EIC offering me the job. I called her back right away while I was standing on a packed bus. I had to make a decision but knew that it would be strange to accept a job offer on a bus without thoroughly thinking about it. So I came home and pondered the pros and cons. Hundreds of pros went through my head all screaming “THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT!” and that one huge con: ”NEW JERSEY”.

I decided I could deal with the commute I mean how bad could it be? Stay tuned for the next edition of Bean in the City (and New Jersey!)

It's been a long time

Sorry to all my loyal readers (hi dad!) that I stopped writing in my blog about my NYC experiences.

I was down in the dumps for a while and the city I love so much had kicked me lower and lower. The good part about having no apartment and no job is that you can't really fall down any further.

I became a waitress in order to keep some money flowing and had some great experiences with the diners of the city. I will document some of the more classic stories later.

After searching for a while and a stint at my grandparents apartment (not paying rent =good not being able to cook = bad). I found a place back in my old building with friends and moved in December 1. I was still "real" jobless and pretty sad.

Well I know you all don't need to hear the saga of my life so I'll jump to the good parts... I finally got a job! Not only a job, but my dream job! I am now an editorial assistant at a woman's magazine. So now there will be stories about my new job, which unfortunately is not located in NYC. This adds a new spin on my blog. I work in a whole other state yet still live in the city I love so dearly (yes, we did have a huge fight but that’s over now).


It's time for the new and improved... Bean in the City (and New Jersey)!

I never really thought about NYC as a rough, tough city that kicks your ass to the curb. I grew up in NYC on the weekends so I never was afraid of the big, bad city until now.

NYC is kicking my butt! I lost my apartment and job and have not found replacements. Finding an apartment is crazy hard.

Baby, it's boiling outside

Yes I know that I haven't posted in ages and don't know if anyone still reads this but here goes.

There is a heat wave in effect right now and it is really hot. I mean the temperature is in the high nineties but it feels like 104. In many other parts of the country, there are ways to avoid being outside for long periods of time. There are air conditioners in cars and buildings and on buses. But the one thing that New York has that not all other cities have is most of the population walking to get to their destinations or worse, taking the subway.

For the past two days, I have tried to avoid the heat by either staying indoors at all times with the a/c blasting, or trying to get to where I needed to go using the buses. The buses are almost always air conditioned and unless it is an obscure hour a bus will be at the stop in less than 10 minutes.

This morning I had to take the subway all the way downtown. To get to the subway, I had to walk three avenues and four blocks. At 9:30 am the sun was already blasting through the building and cooking my poor skin. I descended into the subway and started to wait. It was really hot below ground but I was lucky the subway came and even luckier that the air conditioning was working. There was just an article in the AMNY about the percentages of trains that actually have working air conditioners. This was a small number and I really felt lucky. After my half hour ride, I came up to the ground level of the city and began to sweat. Walking around for more than 5 minutes has reduced most NYers to puddles of sweat.

Right now I am sitting in a nice office with the a/c on and I am actually quite chilly. Too bad in 10 minutes when I leave I will be super hot all over again. Yuck!

My advice: Wear a skirt and tank top, gulp down some water and sit in front of your a/c all day!

Hit

Yesterday, as I was exiting the subway at Prince Street, I noticed a crowd at the intersection right in front of me. There was someone screaming and horns beeping. Usually I don't have time to stop and look at everything going on in the street but I had some time to kill. I wandered over to the crowd and took a peak.

I saw a black Mercedes in the middle of the street with an older man in the drivers seat. Another man was standing at the window screaming at the driver. I couldn't understand what they were saying. Right on the ground in front of the car was a bicycle splayed out. The man had obviously been knocked off his bike by the car but not hurt enough to be still on the ground. He was yelling and not letting the man drive away by having his bike right in front of the front wheels.

The crowd had their opinions of whose fault it was ranging from the driver to the cyclist to the street for being narrow. I surveyed the scene and wondered how this would end. The man was clearly blocking traffic and the cyclist wanted the man to do something because he had been hit by his car. I turned around for one second and when I looked back the car was gone as well as the bike. In the distance, I could hear the sound of sirens. The police showed up as well as a fire truck. I was not sure why it was needed but liked that the city felt the need to send all emergency vehicles to the scene. There was nothing for them to do but talk to the witnesses. They did this quickly and left to go to the next NYC issue.

It's always an adventure. Thats what I love about my city! :)

Coupons

I love saving money and finding deals. Living in the city can get expensive but there are little things that can make you feel like you are living the life, yet saving a bit of money.

I have inherited the coupon cutting trait from my mom. Everyone Sunday when I was little, my mom would sit on the phone with my grandparents and clip coupons. They came in the Sunday Newsday and she would have a nice pile by the end of the phone call.

I do not receive a paper everyday from a subscription and instead choose to read the free AM NY that the nice man at the train station hands to me. Because the paper is only published on weekdays, there is no Sunday section with coupons. During the week, some coupons find their way into the newspaper and I always find them hidden between the recipes and neighborhood spotlight.

Cosi, the crazy expensive sandwich and salad shop has a coupon when the seasons change. This coincides with their new products but they publish a coupon for about 2 weeks that runs in the paper. The coupon is for $2.00 off any salad, soup or sandwich. Now Cosi is seriously overpriced. It is almost $9.00 for a sandwich. Two dollars off is a treat. I do not go out to lunch at work but a co worker has a Cosi salad every day for lunch. (I really wonder how she can afford it.) I am the Cosi fairy and appear in her office with the clipped coupon in hand. She loves that I think of her. Sometimes I pick up two copies of the paper and treat myself to a Cosi salad because I just cant resist using a coupon!

Another lucky find in the AM NY is a coupon for a sushi place that my friend and I love. We stumbled upon this place on night while in the West Village and enjoyed a platter of sushi. A month later I found that they had a coupon every week in the paper for 50% off any sushi! It also had a deal for $1.00 sake! I figured there would be some special menu to use and some day old fish but alas it included the whole menu! Cheap, non- supermarket sushi, is a hard find and yet I have found a great place and a way to make it affordable!

I look for other coupons in random publications that I find by my mailbox. You never know when a chance to save money will appear so have a pocket pair of scissors ready to clip.

Moral: Don't ever laugh at the power of a coupon.

$40 a day? Try $12.50 in NYC!

I suck and am sorry I have not posted in a long time....

Something I love about NYC is that you can find alternatives to crazy expensive food. I think that I could eat for under $15 dollars a day. None of this Rachael Ray $40 a day crap! Let's face it who really has the money for that?

Breakfast

I am not an expert on cities but I do know that NYers love their coffee in the morning. I don't partake in this ritual but if I did I don't think I could afford to have a steaming $4.00 cup of joe everyday from Starsucks! An excellent alternative is coffee or tea or even flavored coffee from the guys in the silver carts! I am in love with one of these carts. On 23rd street, there is a man in his cart who LOVES his job. He is cheery everyday, asks about you, smiles (are you going to get that at Starfucks, I think not) and remembers your order even if you aren't a regular. Everyone in my office loves him and when he went on vacation we all cried about missing him. I actually feel bad about not knowing his name. So anyway back to the cart. Not only does he have a dollar cup of coffee and tea, he has a large collection of pastries and bagels and juices and sodas!

Now I do not go to the cart for breakfast everyday because I usually bring my breakfast (and lunch) but on those rare days that I forget I just stop at the cart and get a croissant and apple juice. For $2. What a deal! The croissant is huge and he remembers what I get! This makes me feel that I am in a small town when in fact I am on the street in NYC! He also sometimes gets Ruby Red juice which I love as a treat. He then remembers that tidbit about me and offers it to me! Talk about excellent service, that is hard to find!

So there was my $2 breakfast. On to lunch.

Lunch

Since I usually bring lunch, which costs close nothing but when I forget I head down the block to a deli that has everything. It has a hot table and cold table and sandwiches, soups and sushi. All of these items can add up to a normal $10 NYC lunch. I found a daily special that is $4.50, yes you read that right, less than $5.00! There are 5 pre made sandwiches on hero bread that you choose from. They are not just plain sandwiches. They have nice ingredients such as alfalfa sprouts or Brie cheese. Not only do you get a nice sized sandwich but you also get a plastic clamshell filled with salad. In the salad are lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and red peppers tossed in an Italian dressing! Yummy and filling for less than $5.00.

Now dinner is a bit harder to find something cheap unless it is a slice of pizza. But what I am talking about is lots of good food for cheap :)

Dinner

So dinner is from Teriyaki Boy. It is fast food like Japanese cuisine. You can get chicken teriyaki over rice with a salad with yummy ginger dressing, and a California roll. It is a TON of food and the price is just $5.99! What a deal. I never am able to finish all of the food. It is freshly made and put into a bento box to go home.

So there you have it! NYCbean's guide to eating cheap, yet real yummy food! Comment with your ideas and places you know where you can score a deal.

Just Singing in the Subway!!

This morning, I had the honor of being in a subway car with a singer. By singer I mean a crazy man who was singing along to his CD player with the volume all the way up. This man was dressed in a trenchcoat, nice dress shoes and a black wool hat. He did not look homeless at all. As soon as I entered the already packed train car, he began his karaoke. At the top of his lungs he sang songs that I couldn't identify because he was not singing real words. He was mumbling the words and making up his own lyrics! The man was not only singing but also dancing and pretending to play the drums!

Every time the train stopped he would lean out the doors and sing and tell the commuters "Don't squeeze in her, ain't no room. I want to have a happy day. You will not get into this car, you'll have to get through me first." Then he proceeded to stand in the doorway, once he thought the train was too full. Unsuspecting people came into the car and as soon as they heard the singing they looked away from the crazy man in true NY style. Then there was some hushed giggling.

The man stayed on the train until my stop and then as he left the train he was still singing!

Surprisingly, this intrusion into my morning paper reading was not too bothersome. I left the train in a better mood than when I got on. So thank you crazy man!

I do my laundry about every 2 weeks. This works out well for me because I have almost run out of underwear by then but not completely. I am very lucky to have laundry machines in my building and very many of them.

The one problem with the machines was the price $1.80. I can barely afford to live there and now I have to pay that much to wash my clothes. I sucked it up for 6 months until last week...

They raised the price to $2.00! I am not a happy Bean about this. I was told that sending my laundry out might be cheaper than doing it at my place.

Now I have a dilemma. Should I:
a) suck it up and wash my damn laundry already!

b) carry it on a bus and then walk an Ave. with it to go to my grandparents where it cost .25 a load.

c) bring it all the way out to Long Island for free laundry.

d) send it out and save time having to do it myself.

Please vote for your favorite choice.

Moral of the Story: Doing laundry sucks enough without having to pay an arm and a leg for water and a spin cycle!

Hobbling Around the Town

I had knee surgery two weeks ago. I am ok but living in the city has proven to be difficult when you can't walk too well.

For the first couple of days, my parents took care of me... I didn't have to worry until I got back to NYC.

I am a lover of public transportation. I love subways and buses and cabs. The doctors orders included no subways for 2 weeks because of the stairs. I thought I would just lay low and take some cabs and buses for a bit and then get back to my life.

I started by taking cabs everywhere. I live uptown and work downtown. There is a lot of city inbetween and traffic that likes to be slow at rush hour. Then there was the other problem, my wallet. If I were a rich girl.... lalalalalalalalalalaaaaa. I took cabs for 3 days and it ended up costing me $100!

I decided to brave the buses. I didn't think that it would be too bad. The stop is right outside my apartment. I was wrong and in the process was able to do a little social experiment.

First, I decided to just sit in the front of the bus. I simply couldn't walk far back without the bus lurching and me losing my balance and going flying. I sat down and opened my book. As the bus stopped at the next stop more people got on. One woman grunted loudly in my direction. I told her that I could not get up. She moved to the seat behind me and kept muttering. "That bitch is taking up my seat"

I didn't realize that there were assigned seats on the bus. As she got off the bus she stepped on my foot (the one with the bad knee attached) . I shot her a dirty look but didn't want to fight with her. I sucked it up and tried to move my leg closer to under the seat.

I had a few more issues with elderly ladies. I decided to invest in a cane. I got a really crappy drug store metal cane and took the bus the next day. All of a sudden people were giving up their seats for me! I was nice to not have to fight with strangers and having a cane really helped me to walk around better without falling over.

Moral of the story: Unless you have a visual disability people in NY are not too kind.

A Bean in Central Park

I slept in Central Park!

No I did not lose my apartment, I decided to do something that true New Yorkers would do. Wait on a line for 7 and a half hours to get tickets to a free show.

The Public Theatre puts on productions of some Shakespeare plays over the summer. In order to see the shows and get tickets you have to get to the box office really early in the morning. I mean really early. I was in Central Park when the sun came up, 530am.

On the way to the theatre, I got lost. It was still dark out and I was a little but scared but mostly in awe of the beauty of the park when there was close to no one around. I ended up lost in a woody area and was just enjoying the silence of the park, away from the noise of the city.

I finally came to the theatre and there were my friends equipped with an aerobed, two chairs and remote controlled cars. For the next 7 hours, I slept in the park (!) ate some food, finished a book and talked. The boys played with the remote controlled cars.

The line began to form and grow longer and longer until it snaked around the corner and was not in view anymore. The was one man and his dog on line in front of us. The man behind us was slightly strange but kept to himself.

The time crept on and the delivery men from a local deli came with food. There were strict rules about leaving the line which were repeated at different times. People were very serious about the rules and waiting for their tickets. This was a very interesting experience and I learned about the hardcore NYers and what they will do for free tickets.

At ticket handing out time (12 noon) , I was told to get into my spot in the line (I had gotten there 20 minutes later than my friends and the two people in between wanted me to go back in the line). I received my two tickets and was free to go home and go to sleep.

The show was that night and really interesting. A 70's version of Two gentlemen of Verona. I'm not sure if it was worth waiting on line for 7 hours but it still was fun.

Another NYC experience for the books(or the blog!)

Jesus on the Train

I played with a Pit Bull on the subway. Ok that sounds scary and everything is probably thinking that my love for dogs should end at pitbulls and that I certainly should not play with them on the subway. If you are still thinking, you are asking "Why is there a pitbull on the subway?"

Well so you can stop thinking, the answer to all your questions is that it was a baby pitbull in a gym bag going to the vet for shots. It was sooo cute and I was lucky to be able to sit next to it. I understand that pit bulls grow up and can be very bad and dangerous but as a baby they are adorable.

The woman who owned the pitbull informed me that it's name was .. Jesus. Yep a pitbull named Jesus. I didn't want to laugh at the irony of the situation but I did manage a chuckle as the puppy was licking my hand. The puppy kept trying to escape the red bag and jump onto the unsuspecting passengers. The women kept saying, "No, Jesus. Bad Jesus!! No Scratching, Jesus!"

The screech of the train car kept making Jesus scared and caused him to whimper into his mom's chest. Poor Jesus. Jesus finally reached his destination, 86th street. I waved goodbye to Jesus the puppy and his mommy.

I love when people on the subway break the no speaking or looking at each other rules. Especially when it involves playing with adorable 8 month old pitbulls named Jesus!