Friday/Saturday – Day 10/11
January 9, 2014
Friday I was off to a new state: Connecticut. After an elongated breakfast with Ben and Dan (fantastic as always), I took off to Grand Central Station to catch the ‘Metro North Line’ to Westport. After an hour long train ride, I stepped off to see Susan Greenberg and Eric O’ Brian waiting for me. Both were close friends from Penn, and Eric, a real computer whiz, had been in the Glee Club with me. After my adventures from the past number of days I was pretty exhausted and, given the snowstorm raging, we decided that it would be a weekend in.
Lunch was just a bit of nutella and pumpkin bread over a long catch up. The sky soon darkened outside and before I knew it, dinner time had arrived. Fish tacos were the local specialty and I gladly partook. There really wasn’t much to report from the entire Shabbat, other than some much needed rest. When it was once again late, Susan and Eric drove me back to the train station for my train back to NYC.
NYC this time was a bit of a schlep. First off I had to retrieve my bags from Dan’s place. Then it was off to Simon’s in Brooklyn, three trains away and a twenty minute walk through the icy sludge. Unfortunately the directions he had given me were also only valid for weekends, so about two hours later I arrived totally worn out at his place. However I didn’t have time to stay and chat for long as Laura wanted a chance to say bye, so back I headed into Manhattan. This time the trip was only forty minutes, but I kept a close eye on the time as I needed to be back before Simon headed to sleep.
A last chance to sing with the crew was much appreciated, but before I knew it, it was past eleven and time to head back. After a somewhat shorter trip home, Simon and I chatted for a few hours, before I crashed on the couch with my bags resting against my head.
Wednesday/Thursday – Day 9/10
January 7, 2014
Wednesday was a bit of a sleep in and a lazy morning. I was due to see Simon Rosenberg, an old school friend, in the afternoon but my morning was all free, so I chilled in the apartment and got some stuff ready for my internship. At around 1:30 in the afternoon I met Simon at the subway and took him back to show him the apartment. He was so amazed by the gamelatron that he filmed it for a few minutes before we left. The afternoon saw us move from coffee shop to coffee shop and to falafel as well, to catch up on the last age that we’d been missing each other.
As the sky grew dark, I picked up my bags from the apartment, locked it all up, and said bye to Simon. I caught a train back to NJ where Ariella was waiting for me in particularly good spirits. After dinner, we spent the rest of the night working on a website for her, complete with running her own server on AWS (Amazon’s hosted resources). Her stack was Nginx+PHP-FPM+MYSQL+Wordpress but even that took a while to get going, as we went through every step so that she could learn the ins and outs of administering it.
The next morning I was awake alone as Ariella sleep following our long night. Pretty much as soon as she woke up, I had to race to catch the train as Dan had requested that I use the keys I still had on me to let a friend of his in. However, this whole afternoon the weather was becoming increasingly grim as dark clouds rolled overhead. Thus by the time I had reached the apartment a message was waiting for me that his friend’s flight had been delayed and I had to stick around a couple of hours more. By the time his friend Ben had arrived, it had started snowing, somewhat lightly, but the skies suggested things weren’t to stay that way.
I caught up with Simon again, just as the skies were really opening up, and we headed into the subway together. By the time we got out at 33rd St, the temperature had dropped a good five or so degrees and we hurried into 2nd Ave Deli for a somewhat traditional Jewish eating experience. The pickles, coleslaw and burger were delicious but I couldn’t manage a half of what was on my plate. Just too much! Simon completed his schnitzel and remarked on my poor attempt.
When we finished and walked back onto the street, it was already covered in a thin white layer. We both found this exciting for about ten seconds before the accompanying chill hit us. We almost ran into the subway and soon were at Marie’s, which was now almost a regular haunt of mine. However the piano player tonight was a little too interested in Simon and made advances that were probably enough to make anyone uncomfortable. I felt pretty bad as I’d hyped up the place. Soon after Simon left, the Laura’s arrived and I proceeded to have a great time again, walking back to Dan’s as humanely late as I could. One of the Laura’s gave me her number and told me to keep in touch so that we could meet up again on Saturday night and I promised I would.
Tuesday – Day 8
January 2, 2014
Tuesday morning I had planned to meet at 10:30 with Tova and Rocky Neumann, a madricha (youth leader) of mine from when I was in Primary School. They had met each other at UChicago, both being Jewish. Unfortunately for me, the meeting time had been mis-communicated to me and I ended up waiting in the cold for near an hour.
When Rocky finally arrived we embraced and both smiled widely. I hadn’t really had the chance to get to know her as an adult but I could immediately tell that she was someone who I would get along excellently with. Tova was late another half hour, but in the meantime I had an excellent chat with Rocky and her friend and decided then that I would have to make more of an effort to keep in touch with her. Additionally as an Australian expat looking to do graduate study in the US we had a lot more in common than our history. Tova finally arrived and we had a nice brunch together that took us well into the afternoon. From brunch we walked to the apartment I was staying in to check out the gamelan and to sing a little with the Steinway. Nothing really compares to such a beautiful piano!
From the music therapy, we then continued on to search for party supplies for Rocky, as she was to attend a secret warehouse party for NYE where we met with Ariella. I was asked a good deal of questions about what looked good and what suited and had not the foggiest, but I did my best and dutifully carried bags and merchandise. Soon the Americans departed and Rocky and I were left alone going from party store to party store searching for the right material for her costume. We settled again for coffee and a sandwich, finished off a little shopping, and then I was on my own again.
Not sure what to do with myself alone on NYE I found myself walking back to Marie’s, very early in the evening. I arrived at around 6.30 to take the same stool in front of the piano as the previous night. No familiar faces as of yet save for the excellent pianist Jeff. This night I now knew a few more of the songs, bought a few more drinks, and before I knew it the bar was packed with revelers. Laura from the night before had come with her friends and they sat down next to me. Over the course of the evening Laura, her friends (Laura and Mark) and I spoke a little more, shared songs and enjoyed each others company. I was introduced to a good number of people, all incredibly warm and friendly, most of whom could really sing. By the time midnight came I was having an incredible time as was so happy that I’d stumbled by.
New Years came and went and soon I was walking home again for the best nights sleep of the trip.