Foreigner in My Old Hometown

I had to stay overnight in Manhattan yesterday. My brother (the composer) was having 4 of his pieces performed at Merkin Hall, near Lincoln Center, so I decided to spend the night at my mom's. Shirra had the brilliant idea of combining this overnight with a trip to the nether-reaches of Brooklyn in order to get the DVD player fixed at the dealership where we bought our new car.

The trip on Wednesday was uneventful. I made it from the Noop to Manhattan in excellent time, dropped off a few things at Mom's, and then headed to Plaza Auto Mall. I could have had the DVD player replaced elsewhere, but Plaza did it for free, and it's hard to beat that price. After dropping the car off there, I decided to unicycle from Nostrand and Avenue M in Brooklyn to 89th and Broadway in Manhattan, breaking the trip with a stop just before the Brooklyn Bridge in order to take care of an errand and also to see some old friends at my previous school, Packer. In all, I unicycled about 20 miles.

After tutoring, I dressed and headed to see John's show. Because I was running a bit late, I took the crosstown bus over to Broadway. I realized during the ride that I hadn't taken a NYC bus in over 5 years. In that time, I didn't forget how to ride a bike, but I did forget how the Metrocard fits into the machine on the bus, but luckily no one mistook me for a tourist just yet. Then I hopped onto the subway for a couple stops down to Lincoln Center. I'm a bit more familiar with subways, and that trip went fine, tho a later one didn't.

After the show, I decided to take the bus back uptown with my in-laws, who were kind enough to attend the performance, too. The bus didn't arrive for 15 minutes, so when it finally showed, it was crowded and hot. This seems to explain why I hadn't taken a city bus in so many years, but actually the explanation is that buses served me no purpose. I could take a subway for long rides when I was in a rush, and I could unicycle any other time. And now that I've taken my first and second buses since Fiona was in diapers, I feel that I can wait at least another ten years before bothering with that again.

Today I had to retrieve my car at Plaza. Because I loved riding over the Bridge, I decided to uni down the West Side Bike Path (always a joy) and head over the Bridge before hopping onto the subway from there. This plan worked great until I took the wrong subway in the wrong direction. I hopped off after only one stop, tho, and eventually made it to Plaza just as the mechanic was finishing up the work.

The GPS had me driving up the West Side Highway, tho I normally head up the FDR Drive across town. I figured, how bad could the WS H'way be. Answer: I almost missed my first student. Traffic crawled, and there was no hope of switching to a better route because, as I remembered, there is none.

I thought I was a City boy at heart, but it turns out that I'm just a bumpkin after all.