Sunflowers in Brooklyn

I shot this while walking through Bed-Stuy. It was a welcome sight.

No Sleep 'Till Brooklyn!

Our explorations of our fair borough have taken us to many different neighborhoods and Stephanie and I have both come to the same conclusion: we belong in a different hood. Now I love our apartment, but after seeing how nice some of these areas of Brooklyn are, I have to say another move is probably in our future. I'd say about eleven months and two weeks in our future, but we can hang until then. At least the area we're in is safe. Though trashy. And covered with graffiti. And the trains run above ground, not below it. We took a roundabout way of getting to Brooklyn Heights tonight in search of the famous Grimaldi's Pizza. It didn't take us that long to find it. It was the restaurant surrounded by the mass of people. We've been meaning to try some Brooklyn pizza after that fiasco at Tony's, and this is the place we want to do it. There is apparently a big rivalry between Brooklyn and Manhattan Pizza joints. We've been Ray's Pizza (which, incidentally, ours is no longer a Ray's, but has become a Famous Amadeus' Pizza, I know, terrible right?) supporters since our arrival, but that is not on the home front. Well, we will have to wait for another day. The wait at Grimaldi's was like two hours long - for pizza! Instead we walked down to the pier and saw the city from the waterfront. Stephanie took this excellent footage of one of the "NYC Waterfall's", part of the exhibit at the MoMa we went to three weeks ago.

We headed back to the subway happy with the view, but disappointed with the lack of pizza. Yes, we ended up back at Ray's, scratch that, Amadeus'. That's six times now, but who's counting? There are so many free things to do in the city. Tonight we're heading to Central Park where SummerStage is putting on a dance show. The show was pretty awesome. The backdrop would change colors between dance routines. Sometimes it would be a deep red, others blue, or screaming violet and fuchsia. When the dancers would come out, the whole scene would resemble an iPod commercial. All you could see were black silhouettes against the brightly lit screen. The stage lights would come up as the dance began and the dancers' features would slowly come into view. The event was a mix of hip-hop, ballet, jazz, and interpretive dance. It was something different and new. You couldn't ask for a better place to see a show; under the treetops (three stars out tonight! (the balls of gas, not celebs.)).

After the show ended at 10:00 we started to head for home. We want to get in early so we can get up in the morning for the CBS Morning Show at the Apple store. We turned a corner from what must be the shopping capital of the world on the Avenue of the Americas and found ourselves in "Korea Town." On one street everything was "American." (Of course this is said with the deepest, gruffest voice one can muster.) Then, around the corner, everything and everybody was speaking Korean or written in Korean. New York is a surreal place.

Shot of the Empire State Building all lit up for the MLB All-Star Game!

Follow the yellow brick..... wall?

The Road Part III

As we left the mass confusion that is New Jersey, the road seemed to get a little easier to navigate. Jersey seemed to be nothing more than a hastle. All of the roads we one unidirectional, you couldn't make a left turn or a u-turn anywhere, and the gas station attendants insist on pumping your gas for you. Because of this I was forced to go to mutiple stations to fill the truck up. (Three, actually). At one station I had done everything except chosen what type of gas I wanted, the man pushed the button for me and expected a tip. Goodbye Jersey! Hello New York! The insterstate into Brooklyn took us around Manahttan so I wouldn't kill us or anything near us with my gigantic truck. We did have to go through one toll which cost us $16.00. Outrageous! The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. My parents met us in Brooklyn and helped us unload the truck.

Here are some pictures of our mess:

Here's our New York playlist:

01. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Yeah! New York

02. Madonna: I Love New York

03. AC/DC: Safe In New York City

04. Ryan Adams: New York, New York

05. Moby: New York, New York

06. Belle & Sebastian: Piazza, New York Catcher

07. The Village People: New York City

08. The Strokes: New York City Cops

09. Pet Shop Boys: New York City Boy

10. Billy Joel: Uptown Girl

11. The Pogues: Fairytale of New York

12. The Eagles: New York Minute

13. Bob Dylan: Hard Times in New York

14. LCD Soundsystem: New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

15. Martha Wainwright: New York in the Fall

16. James Brown: Down and Out in New York City

17. Sting: Englishman In New York

18. Frank Sinatra: New York, New York

19. R.E.M.: Leaving New York

After a hard day's work unloading the truck and stuffing it into what used to be our living room, we all went out for pizza - Brooklyn style. My Dad found this place a couple of stops down from us called Tony's Pizza. It was touted by some website as the best pizza in Brooklyn. I hope it's not.

Prime Suspect and The Squid and the Whale

The mornings come early in New York. I spent the better half of my day in Brooklyn checking out more schools and going to get fingerprinted for my teaching certification. I change my mind, the better half did not include these activities. In fact, I can't even say it was half considering the hours we've been keeping here in the city. I'm sure we'll slow down a bit when we both have jobs to go to everyday. Anyway, the inside of a Brooklyn police precinct is much like you'd expect. It's hot, sweaty and stale in the lobby. It took forever for the "reception cop" to ask me why I was there. So long in fact that it happened to be about forty minutes after my schedules appointment. There are wanted posters all over the place. Don't worry, none of these correlate to the area we live in, just the area south and east and west of us. After a significantly brief period of running my fingers through ink (which I could smell for the rest of the day and could not help but sniff like magic markers) and placing them one at a time in small squares, I departed dear old Brooklyn to meet Stephanie back in the city. The next time I'm here I'll be a resident.


By this point in the afternoon schools were beginning to get out and hopes of making it to the ones I have my eye on in Manhattan were all but lost. I also had to consider the fact that I wasn't dressed the part for an interview thanks to a lesson I learned about Brooklyn in the summertime in a shirt and tie on Tuesday. We headed out to get some lunch and visited a couple of New York tourism staples. When we actually live here, Steph and I have a plan to spend the weekends acting as tourists and hitting up all of the sites in the city. We are going to start with one of those tacky double-decker bus rides where they stop to gawk at every hole in the sidewalk where a star has spit and every building one was arrested in. We might even wear I Heart NY t-shirts and statue of liberty visor caps. We'll do it up properly. There will be pictures, I promise. As we took in the sites of the city I took some shots of the Apple Store, St. Patrick's, FAO Schwartz, and some other stuff I took while we were walking around.

We ran through Central Park and took note of all of the nannies acting as surrogate parents to the children of people too busy to be busied with their own children at 5:00 in the evening. Central park is beautiful by the way. Incredible. I know it is breathtaking on its own, but after walking around the concrete jungle of the city, it is such a breath of fresh air to see more than one two trees grouped together.

We were just in time to sneak into the Natural History Museum before it closed to check out the space exhibit, dinosaurs, and of course, the squid and the whale (though disappointingly, these are in separate rooms in real life). We didn't have time to actually look at any of the exhibits, but it is one of the first things I want to do when I have a whole day to explore the premises.

We ended up going back to Ray's for dinner. Hey, it's cheap and delicious. We then headed to Union Square where a series of non-violent protests were being held condemning China's actions in Tibet and calling for a boycott of the Olympics. I joined a mailing list for more info on the next protest. This is such a crazy place.

Would you give this man a job?

Today began the big job hunt. Once I find one I will take its blood and smear it all over my face. For now, I am disgustingly bloodless. I walked all over Bushwick looking at schools and trying to get into some to talk to someone. It doesn't work quite like it does in Florida. Well, now I know... and knowing is half the battle. I must have walked nearly 100 blocks around Brooklyn. I spent the day meandering. It all felt kind of pointless. Oh well, there's always tomorrow. I'm going to start looking for jobs in the city.

Anyone seen August Rush?

I think the most surprising aspect of the city is the way it sounds. Outside of our hotel room a chorus of car horns, revving engines, and voices rises up from the street. I have never heard so much music in my life. Walking down the streets in Brooklyn was like walking right through a Putumayo compilation. The countless ballads of Brooklyn oozed from open apartment windows and passing cars.

Early Sunday morning I stepped off of the subway and right past a Baptist church, which was really just a small room in-between the corner deli and a Chinese take out restaurant. The power of the music flowing out of the open door into the street vibrating the walls and nearly knocked you back a few steps. The organ was a wall of sound, and the only way to describe the vocalist voice was deeply deeply soulful.

Heading back toward the city, I began to notice a lot of people carrying instrument bags. Some I recognized - guitars, a stand-up bass, a banjo, violin. Still others were more intriguing built into shapes I had never seen before. While waiting for my first subway to emerge from the tunnel I stood and listened to a Chinese man playing an instrument I had never seen before. It was played like a cello, but was skinny and had a huge resonator at the bottom. I have no idea what it is called, but it sounded like the soundtrack to every movie you have ever seen that takes place in an Asian country.

Across the tracks on another train, I caught a crowd gathered around a man feverishly drumming on a set of ten-gallon buckets. The intensity and intricacy of his drumming reminded me of Justin. The crowd was really into it, and so was I for that matter, but the 6 train came and cut me off from the spectacle. I could still hear his steady heartbeat over the roar of tracks.

In the park where August Rush played, street performers had set up all over the place. The first act I caught was a six-piece reggae ensemble. It was a strange combination of reggae, rock, rap, ska, and had a violin player. It was - alright. Later in the same spot I would catch these guys:

As I headed out and back to Brooklyn for one last time that night the diversity of the city really struck me for the first time. Sitting there on the subway, I saw more different types of people in one spot than I had seen in a long time. My train was a, at the risk of sounding cliche, melting pot of races, sexualities, economic status, nationalities, ages and cultures. The sounds of the train hissing through the tunnel and the steady clacking of the tracks were joined by the myriad of languages being spoken on that particular car. I closed my eyes and let the sound of it all wash over me.

Union Square and the Apartment Hunt

Sunday morning in Manhattan seems to move just as fast as any other day. We began to make appointments to see apartments while we were still in the Tampa airport. For weeks, we had scoured Craig's List to find scam artists at it and real apartments come and go faster than you would ever imagine. Finally, Sunday morning we had a real stroke of apartment hunter's luck. I had called and left a message regarding an apartment and within ten minutes we had received a call back and were out the door on the way to Brooklyn. We viewed a number of apartments, but ultimately the one we fell in love with was the first apartment we ever went to in New York. We sign the lease tomorrow. That's it. Bang. Just like that. We had been in New York for less than twenty-four hours, and we had an apartment by 11:00 in the morning. You can check out some pictures we took here.

By noon we were starving, but we still wanted to walk the area a bit. We stepped into a local deli/grocery/convenience store and bought a sub. New York lesson #2: Real spicy mustard requires accompanying beverage. (In case you missed it, probably because it was only inferred, New York lesson #1 was: always have your umbrella handy.) Back to the hotel we rode. Back over the Williamsburg bridge and through the bowels of the city subway. We emerged at Lexington and 49th street greeted by the sight of The Barclay a block away. Now we wanted to celebrate our good fortune. We headed down to Union Square, via Subway of course. Have I mentioned how much I've enjoyed the walking and mass transit? I've even gotten used to the speed with which you are required to dart through traffic in order to continue on your way. We spent some time in the park at Union Square shopping the street vendors and listening to the street performers play. I bought a pair of shades from a lady for $5.00. The nose bridge piece disappeared somewhere around an hour later. He he. Oh, and there's three giant shoe stores and a Forever XXI we had to visit (obviously not for me on this one). We learned that New York lesson #3 was to have comfortable walking shoes. Steph traded in her flip flops for this cute, yet functional pair of tennis shoes. Once again, we were starving. We at at a little paneraesque restaurant where everything was served on foccocia. Not really what I'd had in mind for my first New York pizza, but it was still pretty good. We'll go to Ray's (as seen in Iron Man) later this week. Steph indulged me and we went to The Strand across the street. I have never seen so many books, and I work in a bookstore. I think Sinatra put it best, "I'm in heaven..." A few bargain book purchases and an hour later, we headed out past the movies where we were dismayed to see tickets went for $11.50 a person. We can't even pretend to be students as our student IDs are from Florida State. Oh well, you win some you lose some. Now I'll have to watch all of my movies illegally online. Just kidding.

We headed back to Brooklyn to walk the neighborhood again, this time at night. Our street was really safe and quiet; snug would be the word. We walked for about thirty blocks and took the G line back to the city. Someone was really looking out for us today.

Us in Union Square.

Rocking my new aviators.