After many days

Written on a bus, June 21st 2009, typed on an airplane July 3rd, 2009

This week we decided to forgo one of us making the 6.5 hour car drive between Ithaca and Cranberry Land, and opt for both of us making a 4-5 bus ride to meet in NYC.

We stayed at Wolly & Marc's who have been featured on this blog this before. However since that time the two seriously upgraded their host-ability, moving from a cute yet small apartment to a 2 bedroom castle in the sky. Well, it's a 2 bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor above an Italian restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, but it could not be cooler.

I love New York. I think that even had I spent the entire weekend inside, I would still be happy just knowing that the city was out there.

Needless to say, we didn't stay inside the whole weekend. We went to a cool Asian-fusion place that was nice though over priced (the prices seemed reasonable, but the dishes were super small). Of course, we also went for dim-sum because I can't be in the city without eating a steamed pork bun. We also went food shopping and cooked a really nice meal for ourselves and for our hosts . Pictures to come when I get them from Marc.

Sunday there was an event in Central Park called Tel-Aviv Beach comes to NYC (or something like that). Having finished dim sum with Wolly, Marc and Dani & Gil and with nothing better to do before saying goodbye, we all decided to check it out. It was quite a walk from the park entrance to where it was, and on the way we saw a group of people in a pro-Palestinian march (More on this later). Between the walk, the march, and the humidity we started developing some sense of anticipation. BUT when we got there, it was a little ridiculous sand box. We stayed all of 5 minutes and then turned around and walked back to the apartment.

A note on the pro-Palestinian march, as promised: A strange little thing – about 10 people, mostly white American women, and maybe 2 people who looked like they might be of actual Palestinian decent. They were walking around the park, a distinct scent of pot following them shouting “Free Palestine” and “Long Live Palestine”. A bit simplistic, but you really can't blame them for that. My main “beef' with them was the lack of creativity. I would be very surprised to find out that they actually made the news somewhere. And I say – if your trigger is a Tel Aviv beach party, why not counter with a Gaza Beach scene featuring corpses and a few homeless people?Someone, I won't say who, suggested that they also could have dug a tunnel from that beach to the edge of the park.

Now I'm on the bus back to Boston. I'm on the infamous “China Bus” that goes between the China-towns of the two cities. This bus ride has given me a few tidbits to write about too. The first was the throwback to the rabid capitalism of China that I had right from the first minute I stepped in China-town. First, a China Bus woman standing close to where I got off the cab made me pay for my ticket to Boston in order to get an explanation as to where the Boston bus station is. Then, on the bus, the driver made a woman pay the full ticket price for her baby, because the baby was taking up a seat. Then, finally, on the way to Boston, the driver stopped at a Burger King that the bus company had cut a deal with. Since most of the people on the bus did actually order something the pit-stop took longer than planned. This made the driver mad, and he proceeded to threaten to leave, making one BK employee ran out to make sure that the bus does not leave before everyone gets their flood.

Another little bus inspired story has to do with bus etiquette. Across the isle from me is the only foursome sit on the bus (the kind with a table in the middle). Lucky enough, they are all friendly type people and so they keep talking. And the thing is, that I'm having a very hard time not listening in. So I know that 2 of them are french, one grew up in Israel and then the 4th guy just sort of seems like a dush . He keeps asking annoying questions, and making stupid remarks to try to up play the fact that he lived in Paris. One example is that he said something along the lines of “Let me see if I remember this” and then proceeded to recite all the lines of t RER with their letters and destination stations What's really annoying is that I keep having the urge to butt into the conversation. Initially I held myself back, misanthropically not wanting to talk to 4 random people that I won't ever meet again (especially not the dush). The thing is that beyond the Israeli thing, they kept talking about food! And the french people keep getting stuck on words, which then becomes a guessing game – but I know exactly what she wants to say! Things like she kept saying “sous vide” trying to explain that something is in vacuum or she couldn't remember the name “Grand Mariner” when the Israeli girl referred to a crepe she ate that was lit up.

I finally broke when the dush was trying to remember the name of a very sweet bread he liked. After a few rounds of them trying to guess, I just said “brioche, he means brioche!”