Snow flakes are falling over her coat as a girl runs across 2nd Avenue with her dry cleaning in one hand, handbag in another, as a taxi toots for her to get across the road in a more timely manner. She can smell hot pretzels, is thinking that it is time for a pedicure at the place she saw on 51st and the soundtrack playing on her iPod is Carly Simon.
That girl was me on Tuesday! Such a Mary Tyler Moore experience… if I had a beret on, I could have thrown it in the air and looked quite the part!
Yesterday, was my day to explore the possibilities of neighbourhoods I would be settling in to if the Green Card thing happens.
I’ve decided that Sunnyside, Queens is it. It is so close to Manhattan, the location of the apartments is really close to the subway and it actually reminded me a lot of the Holloway neighbourhood where Fiona and I lived in London. It was very quiet with little stores and junk shops but has a nice quiet feel to it. The 7 train to Queens provides the most amazing view of the Manhattan skyline – it was great and I was such a tourist I just had to try and snap a photo from the moving train.
The apartment in Brooklyn was absolutely spectacular. In a gorgeous brownstone, with a huge park across the road and the neighbourhood has some great little hip cafes and it was all very cool but it was a bit too far from the subway for my own liking. This, and the commute time is longer as well. In one cafe I spied a jar of Vegemite in a window and thought about taking a photo, but the place even seemed too hip for that. So that was another factor. Jenelle has to fit in and whilst I may be a groovy chick, I definitely ain’t *that* hip hip hip. Sunnyside felt more ‘Jenelleish’ so if all the Green Card stuff goes to plan, hopefully Sunnyside will also go to plan. And anyway, who could say no to a place called Sunnyside?
In Brooklyn, I experienced Junior’s diner for lunch. Any place that brings beetroot to the table as a staple, get a good rating in my book and while I think nothing had less than 6000 grams of fat in the dish, it was great to sit down, warm up and chill out in such a great diner in the middle of Brooklyn.
I then did some more random exploring (of which so much of this trip seems to be just walking around and ‘taking it in’) and then headed back here, intending to catch up on some writing, when of course, the infamous Heath Ledger text message came in and everything went nutso.
Things have been quite crazy since then. I got mentioned on page 3 (!) of the Herald-Sun, page 2 of the Telegraph in Sydney and on news.com.au. I also had an email from Fox FM, which I am assuming was also to do with the hysteria that went on outside 421 Broome.
Now before all the craziness, I took this video while I was hanging outside my window like a loony. I call this feature film ‘Sounds of the city’ so you really do need your volume turned up, close your eyes and pretend you can smell pretzels. Oh how I love thee, NYC!