Dance, my heart!

The greatest journeys may travel not a mile.
I just got back from one that never left a room. I drove home racked with sobs, grinning and laughing too. That's what journeys do. That's what we want when we watch these great movies of stirring adventures, isn't it?. We want the tragedy lightened with a chuckle, the big-belly laughter dampened by a tinge of sadness. The moment of triumph, the shock of failure.
Fear. Relief. Love.
This is what journeys are about.
I keep looking elsewhere for them. I drive thousands of miles, fly thousands more. Anybody who reads this blog will know I only write when I'm traveling.

Well I'm traveling now. Traveling on a journey that started while snuggled on a sofa with friends, just watching dance videos. Traveling through love and anguish and insecurity and jealousy and just plain WOW how did they do that?! Through beauty, beauty made of suffering or of death or of the littlest seemingly mundane things. I will say of dance what I once said of literature, a number of blogs ago: it makes the ordinary a work of art. And not just the ordinary. Pain, addiction, love, loss, desire, business, humor - dance paints it all with the art of the human body. And after a few too many YouTube clips of SYTYCD, the floodgates of my heart were overrun. Open one emotion and you open the possibility of them all.
I shed a few quiet tears, and tried to maintain at least a little bit of composure as I hugged a friend goodbye. All I really wanted to do was bury my head in his shoulder and hold him tight and cry because life is so...
One word won't do it.
That rush of feeling when you see the person you love, that breathless awe at the first glimpse from a high vista, that crumbling when things fall apart, that warm comfort of familiar old friends...
We can communicate that in a dance, a look, a touch. A much needed embrace. A breath.
Poets can put it into words, I guess. I'm not much of a poet.
I'm restless because I sometimes forget that it is the emotional side of the journey I long for. The world is small compared to the heart. And when the world stops inspiring me, I don't always remember that that other, greater territory holds possibilities both endlessly gratifying and terrifying. But oh, how today reminded me. I am risen from the dull pain of apathy, freed from slow panic of boredom. And I'm kind of a mess. A laughing, crying mess who can't even write the term paper I left my dear friends for because this story was demanding release.
It's been a good journey. And this should make for a great dance someday.

Road Trip Diaries Conclusion: Only a Month Late

    Hey guys. As most of you know, my road trip did not actually end a month late. I got home well into the night of Sunday, August 26th after a pretty epic few days, some broken headlights, way too much time in or near a Wal Mart, etc...
     And then I went back to my regular life full of homework, horses, and other things that are not blogging.
     Finally, my insomnia and my failure to replace the diary I lost in Disneyland several months ago have compelled me to finish up this series and move on to more contemporary things. Like, I don't know, the exciting revelations of GRE math. Or perhaps pomegranates. I was definitely stirred to eloquent words about pomegranates yesterday.

     Anyway...

In a Nutshell: Overview of Days 19 and 20
     I actually did start writing my California blog on time - I just didn't finish it. So here's that snippet before I move ahead. Now, close your eyes just a second, travel back in time a little bit, and voila - open them and read on.

     Radio stations are few and far between in the lonely desert land that spans southwestern Arizona and southeastern California. I managed to find one station shortly after crossing the border into California, and of course it played the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I cruised along singing Californication, finally realizing how strange and dramatic a place California really is. Good to be here, even if it is crazy southern California.

Overview of Day 19

Route: Flagstaff, AZ to Santa Barbara, CA

Miles traveled: 566 today, 6,593 total. 

Hours in car: 9.5 today, 86.5 total. 

Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 1 cup today, 26 total. Cortney: 0 today, 5 total. Combined: 31 cups. 

Food highlight of the day: Pho at Pho Oxnard. It was a close tie between this place and our breakfast at Macys- they were equally highlight-worthy, but since Macys got the highlight yesterday the pho wins out. Caitlin and I had been craving pho for hours along the drive, and looked this place up on Yelp. The menu is huge, the clientele is largely Vietnamese, and we both devoured bowls of noodles with super spicy chile sauce and Sri Racha as we sweated and turned red and absolutely loved every minute of it. Best pho ever.

Quote of the Day: Cortney: "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" To understand this quote, it is first necessary to read this amazing comic/blog: Hyperbole and a Half. For context, "eeeeeee" is how I feel about SoCal drivers. Within minutes of one another, we saw one who ended up down a bank, and another who ended up straddling a curb. They're nuts here.

   

     We got to Santa Barbara by nightfall, (here begins my month-late writing), where we were inundated with bro-speak and hordes of drunk pedestrians making it very difficult to drive. I don't know what it is about UCSB and Isla Vista... you have to be a particular kind of person to exist here.
     We stayed with my longtime friend Kristin, and had a bonfire in her backyard with a number of other people. Kristin, relieved that nowadays I finally drink alcohol, was soon dismayed when she learned I do not drink Miller. Or Coors. Or anything of that sort. I have earned myself a permanent reputation as an alcohol snob among the people by that bonfire, because I drove off to get a bottle of wine.
     This is when the car trouble started. Utterly unmoved by cajoling and wheedling and other attempts to get me to drink cheap beer, I hopped in the car to drive to Safeway. I pulled away from the curb, and both headlights went out. Simultaneously.
     Sorry Nell Genzlinger- I just listened to your rant about this word on the Q broadcast tonight, but, really?
     So I got yelled at by some frat boys, turned on my brights, and, staring at the Google maps on my iPhone, somewhat treacherously made my way to Safeway and got there 2 minutes before they were to stop selling alcohol. As the PA system announced this, one bottle emerged before my eyes: An Argentinian Malbec.
     I was saved!!!
    And it was a great night, brospeak included. It's really funny to hear guys talk science in bro. "Dude, the otters are, like... a keystone species... yeah man." I've never heard trophic cascades and marine food chains explained in such a manner. It was an incongruity like the time I climbed a pasture fence in fishnet stockings...
     Speaking of cuddly marine life, let's move on to the final day of the road trip - a drive up the coast from Santa Barbara, up to Monterey, and finally inland to Sacramento.


Overview of Day 20
Route:  Santa Barbara, CA to Sacramento, CA via Highway 1
Miles Traveled: 415 today, 7,008 total.
Hours in Car: Lost count today due to car trouble... perhaps 9 today, making 95.5 total.
Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 1 today,  27 total. Plus my 5: 32 total.
Food Highlight of the day(s): Even MORE Vietnamese food at a restaurant in Monterey, which I have now forgotten.
Quote of the Day: Cortney: (while darting out into street by WalMart parking lot) "Duh nuh, duhnuh duh nuh (Mission Impossible theme) duhnuh duh nuh.... VICTORY!!!"

     We left Santa Barbara early, knowing we were headlightless and had to make Sacramento by nightfall. But then... there was the beach.

  Full of cool rocks...  

Most of which Caitlin wanted to climb...

There was no way we were getting to Sacramento by nightfall.



The tide pools and elephant seals only exacerbated the problem. Far too much sunny coastline, beckoning to us to come and frolic...

Yeah, there was no way we were getting home before dark. Uh oh. 

     Now, the headlights should have been a quick fix - just go to Pep Boys or something, get the bulbs switched out, and carry on. Right? But Caitlin is apparently the do-it-yourself type. So, with her fiance on videochat on her smartphone, she poked and prodded that car for a couple hours before we realized we didn't have the right tools. We went to Target to buy tools. Fail. We went to WalMart to buy tools. Success! But we had the wrong problem - we were playing with and testing the wires, because nobody believes that two headlights would go out simultaneously. It had to be the wires...
     Nope.
     We spent 4 or 5 futile hours testing that car's wiring before finally finding an AutoZone that was still open, buying some headlight bulbs, and realizing that 5 minute endeavor plus a few minutes to screw them in was all we needed to do.
     This is why I just take my car in to the shop. But I love you anyway, Caitlin, and your do-it-yourself spirit.
     When we finally hit the road out of WalMart, Caitlin realized that we had left the registration booklet, manual, etc on top of the car. Great. We drove a loop back to find it, and, lo and behold, I somehow saw that grey book on the blacktop (perhaps it was our new shiny headlights). By this time we were utterly delirious, singing the Mission Impossible theme, and darting out into the street like inebriated ninjas.
     Needless to say, we finally made it back to Sacramento. And I finally wrote my blog.

*Insert token photo of Highway 1 here*

Road Trip Diaries Days 17-18: The Grand Canyon

     BAM! Just thought I'd get your attention. 

     Caitlin and I are nearing the end of our journey- we're now just one border away from California, here in Flagstaff, AZ. It feels so far west! So big, so dramatic, so perfectly suited to hopping on horses and galloping into the sunset... but my horses are in California, so continue driving we must. 

In a Nutshell: Overview of Days 17 and 18

Route: Albuquerque, NM to Flagstaff, AZ --> then to Grand Canyon National Park

Miles Traveled: 404 today, 6,027 total. 

Hours in Car: 6 today, 77 total.

Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 4 these days, 25 total. Cortney: 0 these days, 5 total. Combined: 30 cups. 

Food Highlight of the Day: The best soup ever at Macy's European Coffeehouse in Flagstaff. Way back at the beginning of the trip, some hippies at a rest stop told me I needed to go to Macy's. When my friend Amber mentioned it, I remembered the hippies and the fact they tend to have excellent taste in vegan friendly food, and so I went. 

It may not look out of the ordinary, but that red lentil potato soup is the best soup I have ever had in my life. It is so savory, so perfectly spiced, and the potatoes are the perfect melt-in-your-mouth tenderness... regular lentil soup or regular potato soup will just not cut it for me any more.

Quote of the Day: Cortney: "Oh Joel and Caitlin are playing video games." Amber: "Ewww gross!!!!"


Rugged and Awesome Arizona
   There is nothing like a desert thunderstorm. We got stuck in many between New Mexico and Arizona- the clouds roll in, the thunder rattles the car, and all of a sudden the raindrops come with such volume and velocity that driving becomes an exercise in how hard one can squint and squeeze the steering wheel.
     We had to pass through such a storm on the way to the Grand Canyon, and only hope that it would clear up. Like desert thunderstorms do, it soon retreated just enough to provide a stark contrast with the blue sky and eventually moved well beyond the horizon.

The break in the weather as the storm crossed the canyon

    The canyon started out almost blue, filled with mist and rain and distant shadows of the other rim. At some parts it was so wide that we couldn't see across, at least not until several hours later when the storm had completely gone.

    When clear, the Grand Canyon is a brilliant spectacle of geology. Exposed layers of old earth tell a story in many colors and textures. The bottommost deposits we could see, the Vishnu Basement rocks (a name very pleasing to a religion scholar like myself), are over 1.8 billion years old. That means they were around in the Precambrian Period. The continents were jammed together into a big old supercontinent back then, as far as I can discern from a rather complex Wikipedia article. Layers upon layers were deposited, and the dinosaurs walked along the top of them here before water erosion started forming the canyon about 6 million years ago.  

     Sure puts things in a different perspective. 

Here you can see the top 3 or 4 layers. There are still several deeper ones. 

For some reason being on the edge of a cliff compelled me to try yoga.

     After a very informative lecture from a ranger about why squirrels are the most dangerous animals in Grand Canyon National Park (anybody who goes to Sac State can understand this), Caitlin and I went farther out to Desert View, a point with an old watchtower where a handful of people gathered to watch the sunset. Luckily we were attacked by no squirrels. Sounds like they might be even more vicious here than Sac State. Instead we simply had a peaceful sunset surrounded by a variety of people from Europe and Asia. Relatively few Americans at the Grand Canyon, but it is definitely a global destination judging by the number of languages we heard.

Um... you know that awkward moment when you realize you cannot possibly follow something so awesome? Yeah. Feeling that. 

Road Trip Diaries Day 16: New Mexico Wins the Pretty Sky Award

     Hello from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm lounging on a comfy bed in the aging but still cute Route 66 Hostel (Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel came here!) while Caitlin plays some excellent classic rock. Her taste in music and portable speakers have been a godsend these past two weeks. And this moment is pretty darn perfect. I've settled down from my let's-go-all-day-and-see-everything-possible mode, and sitting in a private hostel suite listening to Pink Floyd and Eric Clapton and The Animals is hard to beat when I'm this tired. mmmm acoustic guitar...

In A Nutshell: Overview of Day 16 
Route: Denver, CO to Albuquerque, NM
Miles traveled: 451 today, 5,623 total.
Hours in car: 7.5 hours today, 71 total.
Coffee consumed: Caitlin: 2 today, 21 total. Cortney: 0 today, 5 total. Combined: 26. Although I probably lost track of a few, these are just the ones I remember. I'm more of a tea drinker.
Food highlight of the day: Finally getting some real Spanish rice after fantasizing about it since last week.
Quote of the day: Caitlin: "I'm completing my slow but inevitable transformation into a gay man." This while admiring a striped scarf in a thrift store named Plato's Closet.

It's weird being this close to California again.

New Mexico: Way Prettier than I expected. And certainly way prettier than Nebraska. 

     As I mentally prepared myself for another day on the road, I imagined today would be full of flat ugly desert. Kind of like Nevada, where there are few things other than prisons and signs telling you not to pick up hitchhikers. (Note: Nevada is obviously not on this trip. I crossed it on my way to and from South Dakota when I worked there in 2008. And to those who live in Nebraska or Nevada, please don't take offense- I know your states may have decent and interesting areas too, but driving across them in their entirety.... oy).

What I expected from New Mexico
(photo taken in Montana)

What New Mexico actually looks like

But back to New Mexico: When I saw the sign announcing that we had crossed the border from Colorado to New Mexico, I was taken aback by the fact that we were surrounded by pleasant green hills and striking mountains. And even as the dirt became redder and the trees became shorter, New Mexico remained stunning and hilly and a nice pale shade of green all the way until we reached Santa Fe to take a short break. 

     We stopped in Santa Fe for about 40 minutes, because a number of people have told me I needed to stop there. And it's cute. Full of little square adobe buildings and slowly ambling tourists with big cameras around their necks. It seems like a good place for a retreat, like the ones I went on at my Catholic high school. It is very Catholic in its roots, too. Signs all around the cathedral proclaim "Celebrating 400 years of faith!" Caitlin has a more cynical way of putting that. Missions have a rather dark history, but today this place is a lot friendlier and very pretty. 

 

I got some mango sorbet, strolled through the little plaza, and it was time to go. Santa Fe is quaint and quiet and it has two Whole Foods and a Trader Joe's within minutes of each other. Road tripping college students clearly don't belong here. It is for people with money who like a pretty little town, as far as I can tell. And there are lots of flowers. It reminds me of my grandma's house. 

     Albuquerque is only about an hour south of Santa Fe, and quite a different place. The land dries out after Santa Fe and is full of creosote bushes. 

Still more exciting than a lot of our drives

     Albuquerque is a fairly big city, with bars and pizza places and all kinds of noisy hangouts that would not dare rear their heads in the adobe-clad historic district of Santa Fe. Perhaps in other parts of Santa Fe, but we did not visit them. 

Albuquerque- I keep calling it Albequirky. 

       Anyway, this seems like a pretty cool spot. I'm still recovering from going out blues dancing last night in Denver though, and alas, tales of New Mexico's nightlife will have to come to pass some other time or in the life of some other person. I'm chillin' in this janky old hostel listening to the Rolling Stones, my 6 day headache has subsided significantly, and I'm enjoying this thoroughly.
     Oh, and about the title of this post- I'm serious, the sky has been amazing this entire day. You can see the bright blue in some of these photos, with perfectly fluffy white clouds, but there were also various shades of grey and even golden clouds hovering over the hills and bluffs, some with streamers of rain visible from where we were on the dry plains. The sky here is remarkably multicolored, and often the horizon will show two or more kinds of weather as it is influenced by the terrain.
      And here's the sunset as viewed from the window of our janky old hostel. Prettiest sky of the whole trip- thank you New Mexico!

Road Trip Diaries Day 15: I Need to Live in Denver

Hey there. So, I don't actually have plans to move to Denver, but it needs to happen. The seed for this thought first planted itself in my brain when I was here for Lindy on the Rocks in 2010. It occurred to me that of the (then few) American cities I'd been to, this was the only one outside of California I felt I could live in. Vegan food abounds, the roads are drive-able (unlike Chicago), the trains are non-ghetto, there are skyscrapers but the nearby mountains are bigger, the baristas at Starbucks are friendlier than golden retriever puppies, there are parks, there are pedestrianized urban walkways dotted with painted pianos, there are enormous installations of happy, humorous street art, there are blues dancers.... oh, I knew before arriving that I liked Denver, but little did I know how hard I would fall for it.

In a Nutshell: Overview of Day 15. 

Route: Omaha, NE to Denver, CO
Miles Traveled: 532 today. 5,172 total.
Hours in Car: 9 today, 63.5 total. Yes I know this data is redundant.
Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 1 cup today, 17 total.  Cortney: 0 today, 5 total. Combined: 22 cups

"All desserts are vegan." The best words

 I've ever heard in my life.

 I've waited two years for this. 

Food Highlight of the Day: Finally going to Watercourse Foods after hearing about it in 2010, and getting a vegan milkshake. Mine was chocolate-peanut butter. It was thick- the kind that is a little tough to suck up through a straw, but totally worth it. It could easily be eaten with a spoon. This is how milkshakes should be. Watercourse makes their shakes with coconut milk ice cream, so they definitely have a coconut flavor. I happen to love coconut, so it works!

With my chocolate peanut butter shake, and
some Boston cream pie cake.

Quote of the Day: (in Starbucks)
Cortney: "Can I get a tall iced-"
Barista: "No."
Cortney: "Okay, well can I get a tall soy-"
Barista: "No."
Cortney: "Fine then, I'm just going to steal your WiFi and not get anything."
Other barista: "Ah, he's just being disagreeable."
Cortney: "But that's not disagreeable. That's apathetic. You need your disagreeable face."
First Barista: *tries several awkward grimaces until I approve*

Denver: I want you, I need you, oh baby, oh baby. 

     I really am this obsessed with Denver. Of course, driving across all of Nebraska before getting to it possibly intensified the feeling, but I really do love Denver. I mean, not only do they have tons of vegan food (kind of like Portland), but in the summer the weather is actually good enough to play piano on the streets (definitely unlike Portland). I mean, look at the photo below, and tell me: Does it get any artsier than this?

     Another thing I've noticed about Denver is that it is unusually happy. As I am an almost sickeningly happy person (I spent my afternoon in Denver jumping around and telling my friends, "Let's frolic!!!"), I think I would do very well here. I could be one of the weirdly perky Starbucks baristas- they have personalities and senses of humor and stuff. One guy was fully devoted to lightheartedly teasing me for the entire time I was there, and I probably should have gotten his number. You know, for when I move here and need a cute, happy Denver boyfriend. He got very excited over the fact I was having a FaceTime conference with a professor and group of student assistants back home in Sacramento. Perhaps I just have a thing for cute guys who work in coffee shops. It took a while for me to be cured of the temptation to go back to Iowa City to find the guy from Fair Grounds who had (according to my friends) been flirting with me.
     But it's not just the baristas who are really happy in Denver. Look at these dancing statues- they clearly agree with me that Denver is totally frolic-worthy:

     I think I pulled almost the exact same move last night when I went blues dancing at the Mercury Cafe- a (get this) vegan/vegetarian cafe with a full schedule of dances and dance classes in the evenings. Tuesday is Blues night, and I recommend Googling the calendar for all the other events they have going on. The dance is upstairs, in a large room with a beautiful romantic ambiance and an old, dark wood floor. In terms of atmosphere, this is one of my favorite places to dance. Not to mention that staff come around and pour ice water for you while you take a break at one of their cute little tables by the windows. 

    So, I've already got a built in social scene for when I move to Denver. Dancers are never without friends. What's more, I've even got a potential roommate, seeing as my friend Haydn who hosted us wants to move again already. His car has already been stolen, rummaged through, and parked at the apartment on the other side of the parking lot... a perfect excuse to move downtown by the University where it is way less sketchy and roving teenagers won't steal candy from his backseat. I'm glad they didn't see the Sour Patch Kids in Caitlin's car. 

Haydn: "Are either of you comfortable with scruffing?" 

 I must now go off on a bit of a tangent, purely for the sake of including this entertaining photo. Haydn has a cat named d'Artagnan, a black and white longhaired and very handsome feline fellow. d'Artagnan is not happy about the new apartment and especially about the fact that it is full of boxes. They are terrifying, offensive, and overall upsetting. So d'Artagnan tucks himself behind the TV and refuses to come out. I think he's protesting. We could not lure him out even after several hours, so Haydn and Caitlin teamed up to get him out of there. 

     It worked eventually. And of course, Caitlin's the cat whisperer and they were soon to be best buddies. She has convinced every pet we've encountered on this trip to adore her, it's quite a skill. Although overnight, d'Artagnan proceeded to disturb our sleep by clawing just about everything in the apartment. 

     Cats. 

     But I could live with cats. My life plan now goes about this far: Get into grad school in Denver, move in with my literature-nerd friend Haydn and his easily offended cat, eat lots of vegan food, go blues dancing every Tuesday, find a cute Denver boyfriend at a coffee shop, and be happy and awesome and go frolicking down the pretty pedestrianized city walks day in and day out. 

     I really don't think I need to do anything else with my life. That sounds pretty damn amazing. 

 

    

Road Trip Diaries Days 14-15: Nothing really happened.

Hey. So I've been sick as a dog but I've been in denial. Not in New York! I will power through on sheer Ibuprofen! But then we landed in Chicago and I did not leave the air mattress in Amanda's apartment until noon the next day.
And then we drove to Nebraska.......
.........................................................
And then we drove through Nebraska.....
................................................................
................................................................

And that's about all that's happened.

Overview of Day 14:
Route: Chicago, IL to Omaha, NE
Miles traveled: 472 today, 4,640 total.
Hours in car: 8 today, 64.5 total
Coffee Consumed: Caitlin: 0 cups today, 16 total. Cortney: 0 cups today, 5 total. Combined: 21.
Food highlight of the day: Spaghetti in Des Moines, Iowa. But I forget the name of the place. I blame headache.
Quote of the day: Cortney: "I can take Ibuprofen with Nyquil AND Mucinex, right?"

Overview of Day 15:
Route: Omaha, NE to Denver, CO
Miles traveled: 532 today, 5,172 total.
Hours in Car: 9 today, 63.5 total.
Food highlight of the Day: I think this will be covered in my Denver blog.
Quote of the Day: Cortney: "This country sure has a lot of... Nebraska..."
p.s. Due to my tremendous headache I've basically forgotten all of these two days, otherwise the quotes would be far more interesting.

Hey look, a covered wagon!

Road Trip Diaries Days 11-13: New York City

We made it! New York City, the great metropolis perched on the Atlantic Ocean. I am now closer to Ireland than I am to California (I surprised a lot of people with that fact when I studied abroad in Dublin last year). In fact, going to Europe and encountering so many people who had seen more of my country than I had is part of what inspired this trip. So, next time I'm abroad and somebody asks me if I've been to New York, I can beam proudly and tell them I have.

In a Nutshell: Overview of Days 11-12
Route: Chicago, IL to NY, NY- via planes, trains, and buses for a change.
Miles traveled: 974 today, 4,168 total.
Hours in car: None today, but 2 hours in a plane. If I count it, that makes 56.5 total.
Coffee consumed: Caitlin: 5 cups these days, 16 total. Cortney: 0 these days, 5 total. Combined: 21 cups.
Food highlight of the day(s): Stogo Ice Cream. Traci, Caitlin and I were strolling along after a tasty brunch at Cornerstone Cafe (also a very worthy place), when I saw a sandwich board sign on the sidewalk for dairy free ice cream. I walked in and... could it be? Every flavor was vegan! EVERY FLAVOR. This has never happened to me before. Never in my 3.5 years of veganism and constant quest for tasty desserts. ALL THE ICE CREAM. I CAN HAVE ALL THE ICE CREAM.
I ended up settling for two scoops- Caramel Praline Pecan, and Bananas Foster. I don't remember which kind of ice cream these ones were- Stogo makes soymilk, almondmilk, ricemilk, and hempmilk ice creams. Okay, I have to say it one more time- I CAN HAVE ALL THE ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would have taken a photo of it, but I my enthusiasm was so great it overwhelmed even my intense compulsion to take photos of nearly everything I eat.
Quote of the Day: Sometimes, actions speak louder than words. Like when the bus to Hoboken got stuck in a traffic jam so bad that half of us got out and walked.

Look! We made it all the way across the country! 

Being a non-tourist in New York City
     Those of you hoping to see photos of the Statue of Liberty or views from the top of the Empire State Building will be disappointed, because we didn't visit them. (I did see the statue once from the airplane I took to Newark from Ireland though, so I'm not a total loser).
    There is a lot more to New York than its big landmarks- it is home to smart little coffee shops, leafy districts of classy brick apartment buildings, a bookstore which claims to have 18 miles of books, amusing graffiti, and most importantly my friend Traci Lee, who's been working in NYC for about half a year now. We got to use her employee discount card at the Rockefeller Center gift shops, which was probably the highlight of the trip. I saved two cents on my little $1 Christmas ornament of Kenneth from the TV show 30 Rock. Now here's my shout-out: if you don't read Traci's blogs already, go read them! They're good stuff:  Notes from a Coffee Shop and The Didion Diaries.
    Now that I've shamelessly plugged yet another friend who's cooler than me, time to carry on. I think I shall have to classify sections of this blog, because otherwise there is just too much to write.

General Observations:
    A warning to Californians: Almost everybody in New York City will dress better than you do. People are so ridiculously well put-together. Even if they wear shorts and a tank top, they are top-quality shorts you can tell cost more than $50, and the thank top will be some gorgeous, fluttery, loose-fitting thing as seems to be the fashion here. But most women wear cute dresses, and men have the best jeans I've ever seen.
   Also, New York is almost impossible to navigate. Flying in, I rationally calmed my nerves about navigating the city by telling myself, "Hey, I got around Paris and London just fine. I'm sure New York is just like any other metropolis with an extensive subway system." Lies, all lies. I was nervous for a reason, and that is because New York City is full of mystery trains with no signs telling you what route they're on or what stops are on that route. The only signs in the subway stations are advertisements. Getting around in countries where I didn't speak a word of their language was far easier- I couldn't pronounce what was on the signs, but at least the signs were there.

   Speaking of signs- apart from the subway, there are plenty! Street signs and graffiti are very amusing. The drivers are so notoriously hurried that there are signs telling them not to honk at each other. And apparently somebody was very concerned about the possibility of passers-by shitting at a construction site. As for my fairy drag mother, I didn't know I had one.

I especially like the addition of "please" at the end.
New Yorkers have manners. 

New York Adventures
   One touristy thing we did was visit Times Square. Caitlin and I hunted for affordable tickets to a Broadway Show, but alas, it never came to pass and we simply got lots of photos of the flashy advertisements for amazing shows we have insufficient money to see. Perhaps the people who stood for several hours waiting in line in the sun at the half price booth in Times Square had better luck, but the shows we were willing to do that for naturally did not have half price tickets.

    We also went to Rockefeller Center (also known as 30 Rock) to be thoroughly intimidated by the place where Traci works. The inside has black floors and black walls with gold pillars and highlights- it is terrifyingly important looking. I am amazed that such amusing things as 30 Rock can come from 30 Rock.
    None of the photos turned out. Too black and dark and scary inside of there.
    But I did get a photo of the super creepy and shady looking NewsCorp building! Doesn't it look like they're plotting evil things in there?

From this building, Murdoch's media army
rule the world. 

     Strand Books is a much friendlier place to hang out, and comfortingly full of nerds. We actually had better luck at Strand than we did at Powell's in Portland, largely because Portland is just too hip and their books are super expensive. This coming from a girl who spent $15 on a Strand Tote.

OMG! He's holding Hamlet AND Macbeth!!! 

     We decided to get away from Manhattan for a while, and went up to Traci's neck of the woods in Harlem- a safe haven for drinking chai and playing ukulele. I realized then that we just drove and flew across an entire country to sit in a coffee shop with a friend and learn to play the uke. It may seem strange, but what else would I rather do in New York than just hang out?
     This is the farthest point in our road trip- the climax, the point at which we stop heading toward New York and start heading toward California. And really, it is all about doing this:




Pretty shiny sparkly things
     I'm not energetic enough to further harp on the profundity of finally getting to New York, so I'll just finish off this blog with lots of pretty pictures. Yay!

Manhattan as viewed from Hoboken, New Jersey

A bridge I'm assuming is important and famous

World Trade Center