USA: Chapter 2 - There's Nothing in Brooklyn

Sunday, as we all know, is church day. Also, this Sunday was also my first full day in New York. It also was the day Pammie would finally arrive at the hostel. She had actually been in New York before me, but she was staying with her friend across the river in New Jersey.

I awoke early, even before the sun, so I hesitate to say 'bright and early'. But I remained in bed as long as I could, i.e. until the sun came up. So around 4.30 am I was up doing the usual fretting about future plans etc.

But first, breakfast. The previous night, I had scouted the region around the hostel and it seemed that there was an interesting place to get breakfast a few blocks down, somewhere near Little Puerto Rico. So, all ready to make the short trip down there, I left the room at around 7am.

I wasn't sure if the shops would be open so early, especially on a Sunday morning, so I decided to delay going out for as long as possible. So I explored the hostel itself. And, it so happened that I walked out to the backyard which I had spotted from the hostel room,

and adjacent to it was the kitchen. And pasted up on the kitchen walls was a sign saying that breakfast was free, and below that sign was a whole assortment of goodies ready to be eaten.

I hesitated and waited - there were not many people there as yet as I don't think many people wake up at 4.30am in the morning. And, slowly and with much trepidation I helped myself to breakfast. My favourite joghurt with frosted cornflakes.

And a banana and a slice of bread with butter and jam. But mainly the joghurt.

After breakfast, there was still a few more hours before Pammie would arrive, and before mass, too, so I decided to go walk around. Perhaps I could check if indeed the church was nearby.

The church, Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii, was very easy to find; so there was still plenty of time to do other things. So I walked back down to Little Puerto Rico, hoping to see how it would be like on a Sunday morning.

Closed, by the way. Too early.

But there was a characteristic spire of another church - a bigger one, probably - in the not-too-far distance, so I walked there to check out Mass timings as a back up plan in case Pammie couldn't make it in from New Jersey in time.

Ultimately she did make it in time, so we went for mass at Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii.

Mass at that parish was different. Very different from Singapore. And not different bad. It was a very intimate setting. Perhaps in all there were about 70 people at the mass - very different from what we are used to in Singapore, where I think the ballpark figure is closer to 700.

But the homily was slightly more interactive, in a way that is impossible in my home parish. Plus the priest was highly entertaining. If only we could have brought him home, I told Pammie.

It was back to the hostel (temporarily) after that to change, before we went down to Little Puerto Rico again. By now, it was bustling with activity, so we stopped for a small bite. Some Latino curry puff.

The main objective of going down there was actually to take the subway, since the station closer to the hostel was closed for this weekend due to construction works.

Ultimately we didn't skirt the problem of the subway being closed around the city - in all, we took a grand total of 2 hours in the New York subway system travelling up and down. Apparently New York works like this: during the weekend, some lines decide to shut down, so that left us with only one working line going from our little corner of Brooklyn to the main stuff at Manhattan.

But entering Manhattan; that was something else. The L train, the one which is closer to the New York Loft Hostel, crosses the East River (separating Manhattan from Brooklyn) in an underground tunnel. That, in itself is an interesting story - you can actually feel the train plunging deeper below the East River. Your ears get plugged a bit. But that's actually a story for another day.

Back to today and we were on the J train, heading to Manhattan over the
Manhattan Bridge. And the views of the East River were fantastic.

At long last, and another train officer away, and we were finally at Central Park, at the Natural History Museum. However, seeing as we spent a good 2 hours in the subway system, we only had about 1.5 hours for the Natural History Museum. This number was further reduced by the presence of a flea market - no, 2 flea markets (well, one was more of a farmers' market) - in the vicinity of the museum. So in the end, we only had half an hour for the museum, which was quite ridiculous considering the size of it. So another day, then.

Lunch was at Shake Shack's which, according to Pammie, has the best burgers in the world. The queue outside was shocking. Scary, in fact. But apparently my cousin convinced me that it was worth it - she had waited 3 hours in queue to get in before. Twice.

I'm not sure about best in the world because I haven't tasted all the burgers in the world, but this was definitely the best I've tasted. Move over New York, New York (the restaurant, of course).

I'm jumbling up the sequence of events a little here, but honestly, it doesn't have any effect on the story.

*

The reason why there was such a time limit on everything was because today, at the Summer Stage in Central Park, there was a concert. Free of charge. At 7pm. By the time we were done with not visiting the Natural History Museum, it was already about 5pm.

My first experience in Central Park, famous as it is, was a really bad stomach ache. And the distance to the nearest toilet was quite far. Never mind. Once I got to the toilet; long queue outside. More closely resembling the queue outside a ladies washroom after a movie than a men's room in the middle of Central Park.

It must have been the excessive amount of custard that I had had in Shake Shack.

Just a little background to the situation is required here. Pammie hadn't slept the whole night - apparently her friends in New Jersey don't sleep on weekends. So when we went to Central Park, she was already in zombie mode. So we decided to go stone in some corner of the park on the grass. She wanted a nap for 15min but she went slightly overboard with the short nap in the end. While I played with my camera.

She finally awoke about an hour later, so we had just about enough time to get to summer stage comfortably. At least comfortably behind this queue.

A little about the Pink Martini group. There are 12 members, 11 playing different instruments including the piano, drums, violin, cello, and bass, and one last vocalist. However, their vocalist was out for a few months with throat surgery, so they were working with 'guest' vocalists. They're from Oregon, even if we had originally thought they were Aussie.

The Pink Martini was fantastic. I won't actually give commendations individually to any particular member of the group, even though individually they were brilliant. If I wasn't so paiseh and if it wasn't such a ridiculous request I would have asked him to sign my fingers. The fusion of the instruments, however, was out of the world.

Pammie bought a CD at the end of it and we got it autographed.

[img of the pink-martini CD - yet to be acquired]

I realise that I don't have any clue of what to say for autograph sessions. So I just ended up tagging behind Pammie and smiling at the Pink Martini members.

By then, night had finally fallen over NYC and all things considered it was time to get out of Central Park and to Brooklyn. So after a quick $2 hot dog each from a roadside vendor - very plain - we were back on the subway, not getting lost this time, to the hostel.