What are all of you looking for?

The George Washington Bridge spans the Hudson River, connecting Jersey to the furthest uptown reaches of Manhattan. It's a majestic bridge, and my NYC cycling map indicates that it is bicycle traversable, which means its also scooter traversable, which means I must traverse it.

I had a free afternoon, so I took a long train ride uptown and set out on my quest of scootering across my first state border.

Well, I did it.

The bridge was actually pretty easy to cross. It was very long, but pretty flat. Nothing compared to the mountainous Queensboro bridge in my neck of the woods. Once I got to Jersey I cheered and smiled and asked myself, "what the hell do I do now?" I saw an entrance to a trail leading into a patch of forest nearby, so that answered my question.

I hiked a little bit through the woods and ended up on the edge of a respectably massive cliff overlooking the river. It occurred to me at that point that this place was pretty special. I continued my hike along this cliff, down some cool rocky steps to a paved road, then down the road (which may have been the best downhill ride I have ever experienced)to the riverbank. I made a pit stop at a man-made peninsula park then followed a new path along the river.

I took in the scenery for a while until I noticed some women descending from the hillside next to me. They left the marked trail: forbidden, but nobody reads the sign. They were carrying dirty bags. I wondered what was in them. Further down the path I saw more women digging in the dirt. Then I saw more women up in the brush rummaging around. Keep in mind, this is tsking place over a mile and a half of trail. When I saw yet another pair of ladies on their hands and knees digging, I pulled out my phone to take a picture. When I got close, the younger lady gave me an embarrassed "hey." I didn't feel comfortable taking a picture. I apologize.

I'm happy to see all these women outside playing, but they left me questioning. What in the world were they looking for? Maybe Jersey has shallow, undiscovered gold mines. Another thing I noticed was that every single one of these ladies was Asian. I don't know what to make of that. All I know is I want in.

My Good Deed

             My mornings usually consist of me going back to my house in the morning looking a hot mess because I usually do not sleep in my own bed, because I sleep at my friends or boyfriends house and don’t bring an extra set of clothes to sleep in or even pajamas to sleep in. So on this particular day I was coming from my boyfriend’s house all the way in the Bronx. Since he lives in the Bronx I have to get there via MTA. Do you understand how miserable, embarrassing, and unattractive it is to ride the train looking like a dirty raccoon if not someone who clearly had the night before? Yeah, it is not a nice image.
             So I am standing and being hideous at 9:00AM when the 125^th Street stop pulled up and for some reason that is the most popular stop on the downtown train at the hour. All of a sudden- there are seats! I’m not sure if you know the feeling but after standing in the same spot, same position for 20 minutes straight having an open seat is the next best thing to an orgasm. Thus, I take my seat.
             So as I’m sitting after all these people clear out ,more people come in but there was this one lady in particular who “needed” a seat. I heard this lady screaming and moaning about her feet. So she gets on and she did not look like a “clean” woman; she her clothes were dirty and she had holes in her clothes. And her hair looked dirty as well. Despite of what she was wearing she had a cane that looked a little broken and bad posture so it was understandable why she did not have good posture. Also, she was not the smallest sized woman if you catch my drift.
             Anyways, this woman steps on the train yelling how she needs a seat because her feet hurt so bad. Even though she was screaming of how much pain she is in, I did not give up my seat. No it was not because I’m rude and insensitive but because if I gave up my seat there would have been no room for someone of her size if I did give up my seat. Thus, I am not a bad person. Luckily for this person who had “bad feet” someone gave up there seat. This nice and older lady gave up her seat for this woman so there was enough space for someone of her size to sit down comfortably. After seeing that I felt bad because it was clear that someone needed a seat and it seemed as if I was too selfish to give up my seat.
             So after I saw that I felt inclined to give the older lady my seat cause she was old and her body size was appropriate for the space that would have been available once I have gotten up. 

Broker from Hell!

As many of you can probably imagine, I hate living in the dorms. Not only do I hate living in the dorms but all of my friends do too. At the beginning of last year we decided that we wanted to live in an apartment. The time was now so we began our search. My mom thought it would be a good idea to bring in a broker because she has more experience than any of us in apartment hunting. Boy, was she wrong.

This woman, named Kristine, brought us to the most run down apartments I've ever seen. There were some instances where there were bugs crawling out of the drain, rooms that were smaller than Harry Potter's cupboard and other situations of the like. The worst part of it was she'd bring us to places that she couldn't get into and would beg the people currently living in it to let us in or rapping on the door for 10 minutes consecutively until one of us would suggest leaving. Some of the places we saw looked like literal fun houses. It was awful and we couldn't get rid of her. We decided to ditch her but she wouldn't let us go. She would call us and text us constantly with a new "apartment find" that was nothing but worse than the last. This woman was a nut. We found it much more productive for us to just go out on our own.

As a classic NYC moment, this is one I'll never forget. Take it from me ladies and gents, stay away from the broker. They'll do anything to get a buck. On the bright side, we recently found our apartment and signed the lease for it just now! Look at all of our happy faces.

Court is Adjourned

"You will be put in contempt if you don't settle down!" Has anyone else been to court before? Well this past week I went to court hearing and it was awesome! Maybe it wasn't as intense as I would have liked it to be but that's just because I watch way to much SVU. Anyway I went to a hearing/ protest for taxi cabs that are accessible for  handicap people. Not just a couple of taxis but all the taxis in the city.

The hearing was in City Hall which is very scary just getting in. The security there is insane, I'm sure they need all that security but it was very intimidating walking in and being checked by yourself. I went to the court room and sat in the back and felt so out of place. Everyone there was dressed up wearing suit and ties and there I was wearing jeans and a tank top. Needless to say I didn't want to stand out even more than I already did. 

The hearing was very intense. The people were arguing how it is not fair how a handicap person ( in a wheelchair) have to either call cabs and wait for hours for them to arrive or take the subway because there literally is no other option them for them to get around. And there are only a few subways that are wheelchair accessible. This one man said for someone to whom can walk can get to Williamsburg Brooklyn to Manhattan in about 20-30 minutes using the subway. For someone whom is handicap it take them about 3 hours to get to Manhattan using the subway. For handicap people to get into the city not they usually just call a car but special wheelchair accessible car takes about an hour just to get to their house to pick them up. 

The peoples' proposal is to make all taxis both wheelchair accessible and also accessible for non handicap people. This city is already in the process of making new cars for taxis, which is why the people are fighting this now so that when they start making the new taxis it will accommodate everyone. They had a diagram of what a taxi could potentially look like and estimated that it would cost roughly around 14 millions dollars to do. 

Before going to the hearing I knew that there was not wheelchair accessible taxis but I didn't know just how bad it really is and how this city still to this day hasn't done anything about it. I feel really bad and hope that their proposal passes.

A Hella Grand Bandshell

The Mall in Central Park belongs in tourist brochures. It's so picturesque and adorable with its ancient trees, immaculate pavement, and golden fountain, that it fulfills the desire for everybody's expectations of Central Park. In the middle of the main plaza here is the bandshell, a huge half-dome that projects sound outward into the scenery. When I rode there yesterday, the sun was nearly setting and the crowds had scattered. In their place were the quirky denizens of the area who seemed to be hanging out with more intent of relaxation than the normal wandering tourist. There were roller bladers weaving through cones, an exercise group jumping rope, long boarders riding in arcing curves, and a guy playing music with a saw blade.

Big bandshell, little musician.

Within the giant bandshell sat one small man with a noise-making device of some sort, and a saw blade. The device played a chimed-tune of "Sweet Child of Mine" by Guns and Roses. The man was bending his saw blade and rubbing something along it to produce a noise that was reminiscent of a sci-fi radio drama. It was a warbling uncomfortable sound that sounded uncomfortably warbly. I was positioning my camera nonchalantly to take a picture of this guy when the longboarders started circling around me.

I realized that I was being confronted somehow as I was in the middle of a longboard death ring. Riding a scooter myself, I understood the ill intentions. I looked up, one of the boarders was mouthing something and either looking at me or over my shoulder. I looked over my shoulder. Behind me was another longboarder. I recognized him.

"Ricky?" I greeted.

It was Ricky.

The other longboarder made some sort of disappointed noise then Ricky and I greased my wheels and chatted about bubbles and heart surgery.

You Kids Today!

                So in order to get out of my own house on a Saturday night, my boyfriend and I decided that we were going go over to Canarsie in Brooklyn (last stop on the L train) to visit our friend Shakiya. Now Canarsie is a quaint neighborhood in the middle of nowhere in Brooklyn with the exception of having a few ratchet and ghetto people occupy it. When we usually visit Shakiya nothing serious ever really happens; we go to either Popeyes or to the Chinese restaurant to get something to eat.
                On this specific Saturday night, Popeyes’ was the food of choice (this one specific sauce they have is to die for).
                Luckily for us, the Popeyes is placed nicely a crossed the street from Shakiya’s house so it makes our travels very easy. Just like the three little pigs, Starbucks, Shakiya, and I made our way over to Popeyes’. Since I’m difficult and not on purpose, I ordered something that wasn’t even made so we had to wait a little bit thanks to me. As we were waiting there were these two boys who could not have been older then the age of 12 years old. And they were hysterical.
                At first they got yelled at for dribbling a basketball inside the dining area. Then they went up to the worker and tried to negotiate purchasing a biscuit. The conversation that was held was this:

Young Hood Boy #1: Yo let me get a biscuit for  quarter.
Popeyes Employee: There 75 cents. So you need two more quarters.
Young Hood Boy #1: I know how much they are, I’m asking you to give me one for 25 cents.
Popeyes Employee: Nahh.
Young Hood Boy looks over and says to us: Yo this n!@@a is wack.

                At that moment I was willing to give this little kid money for his biscuit but after seeing what he did it totally changed my mind in doing so. Not only him but his little friend both pull out a nice, fat stack of money; one of them had their fat stack of money rolled in a blue rubber band and the other kid had his gently folded but in a rubber band as well. These kids had more money than I had in both of my bank accounts combined, which is a little too sad. So these ghetto fabulous boys start talking about how much money they do have and got all loud and excited, and I had to give it to them they were a great form of entertainment as I waited for my food to come (which was still NOT in my possession at that point).
                There was even three adults waiting for their food to come and they were even laughing at this free form of entertainment that was being provided for us.
                With the help of an angel my food FINALLY came, so we had to leave because we did not feel the need to eat there.
                Starbucks, Shakiya, and I are making moves to leave Popeyes and these ratchet little boys were so sweet and said by to us. That conversation went like this:

Young Hood Boy #1: Bye!
Me and Shakiya: Bye!
Young Hood Boy #2: (to me) Bye! You’re so pretty!
Us: (Laughing)
Me: Aw thank you!
Young Hood Boy #1: Yo, she’s with her man right there!

From the time we left Popeyes to the time we got back to Shakiya’s bedroom those boys was the topic of our conversation.

The Cat in the Hat-- uhmm Park?

            Luckily this past week has been b-e-a-u-TIFUL. It actually feels like spring time in New York and not spring time Russia. So when it is over 70 degrees and sunny, you’re trying not to spend a massive amount of money, and you live in the NYC, what is the stereotypical activity to do? Go to the park of course! Not any of those basic parks, you go the central one. 
            Picture it: free from class, didn’t have to see the awful kids I babysit, eating a nice pesto pasta for lunch on a subtle hill with a great amount of shade and as I’m doing this all I’m with my love Starbucks (boyfriend not drink) at the same time.
            So we are both sitting and judging and watching all the people go by. We see the mommies and daddies and of course nannies walking with their children laughing and smiling and eating ice cream. We had a nice spot right in front of the dirty water hot dog/ ice cream stand, so we saw people purchase all the hot dogs, pretzels, drinks, and ice cream they can buy. We even saw some people having a “photoshoot.” We stared at the people walking their dogs and puppies.
            All of a sudden I’m staring at all the people and I look and there’s a cat. Now I am not talking a stray cat with nasty fur and looks like he needed to be taken to the nearest shelter asap but a nice, well groomed, healthy cat. On a leash. Yes that’s right on a leash. For some reason no one paid the cat on a leash as much attention I did but I haven’t been that baffled in a long time.
            The cat and the owner were both casually strolling like this was normal. Gorgeous day out so the cat has to go out. The cat was pretty normal, like cat normal. He didn’t pee or poop on bush or get feisty with anyone from what I saw.
I will call him Larry. He will be forever known as the Leashed Feline Larry.