We woke excited for more fun on Sunday. Well, at least I awoke excited for more fun. I can't speak for Susan. On a side note, for anyone who has not had the pleasure of seeing Susan wake up. She goes from what appears to be a deep, deep sleep to sitting up talking. It is pretty amazing. It's like **sleep...sleep...sleep** "I'll take a shower now since I take more time afterwards getting ready." It is quite shocking, really.
Let's see. We ended up at Cosi for breakfast, which was quick and delicious. (But be forewarned, the Manager has no 'accsess' to the safe) Then we hopped on the One train up to the "Church and Gown" area (I learned that from one of our New York Walking Tour cards). Susan is a huge fan of Madeleine L'Engle, and wanted to attend a church service at Ms. L'Engle's home church.
The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. Wowwie-wow-wow. What a church. It is the kind of building that can only be described by making that sing-songy "awwhhh" sound while shaking your hands in front of you to try to describe the humongous enormity of it. It is also beautifully ominous. It is an Episcopalian church, so I thought it would be somewhat similar to my own Lutheran services. Hmm. There, I was wrong. They used incense. Lots and lots of incense. It was in this gold hangy thing - like what I associate with Catholic churches - and they swung it all around. It was like crazy-incense-swinging day at church or something. Except that I think I was the only one so amused by it all. Everyone else was very solemn and reverential, and even bowed towards crazy incense-swinging man. Maybe they were bowing at the incense. There was also lots of singy-chanting. We did the entire Nicene's Creed in one tone. That felt long. And the sermon itself was not a milquetoast-y Lutheran sermon (or even a fiery Lutheran sermon) it was like a campaign speech on a political trail. It was too liberal for even me. (Granted, I'm not the most liberal liberal) Very, very odd.
Wow. That was a lot of writing about the church. Man, that incense just really got to me. Oh, and the communion wine tasted funny. Jesus' blood tastes different in Episcopalian. (Is it sacreligious to say that?)
Because church went long, we bypassed the subway (my executive decision) because we were already late meeting my Special Guests. I thrilled with excitement as we crazily rushed, in true NYC-cabbie fashion, towards Grand Central Station.
Special Guest 1: Aaron. I met Aaron the very first night of college. I went to the pop machine (it was in Minnesota, therefore 'pop' is infinitely more correct than 'soda') with a dollar, desperate for a Diet Something. Unfortunately, the machine only took coins. Thwarted! Just then, a guy came up to the snack machine, his own dollar in tow in search of... let's say peanuts. The guy's dollar didn't work in the snack machine, so we made a trade. Peanuts in hand, he was satisfied. I however remained parched. He didn't have any change to give me for the pop machine, BUT! he did have Diet Coke in his room, and was happy to share. The rest was history. Aaron and I maintained a good, if sometimes slightly competitive (mostly on my end, as he generally won) friendship throughout our time at St. Olaf. I had not seen him since graduation, five years ago.
Special Guest 2: Dana. I met Dana in Salt Lake City, Utah at our orientation for AmeriCorps. She and I were two of the five volunteers headed for Sitka, Alaska. As I am wont to do, I made very fast first opinions. Everyone seemed very nice, but I did note in my trusty journal that Dana seemed like she might be 'boring.' That's all okay, though, as Dana labeled me as likely to be a 'snob.' We spent the rest of our year in Alaska proving each other wrong. She's the snob and I'm boring... Wait! No, both of us are freaking cool and can spend hours talking about absolutely nothing. I had not seen Dana since we each left for our respective medical schools three years ago.
I honestly wasn't sure if I'd easily recognize Aaron and Dana (who had already found each other before I arrived). But, there they were, in the middle of Grand Central Station, just like I remembered them. That was very cool. So we made our introductions and decided to head towards the financial district/waterfront are. I was in kind of a blur at the time, (I was still like "Oh my gosh! It's Aaron! And Dana! Here! With me! Aaron! Dana! Wow! This is weird! But not weird! How weird that it is not weird! Dana and Aaron!") so I don't really remember how we made that decision.
After some aimless wandering and bantering and catching up and getting to know each other, we ended up at the Heartland Brewery for lunch.
At some point, we decided that it would be fun (and free!) to take the Staten Island ferry out to... well, Staten Island. It would give us a good view of the Statue of Liberty and of the city skyline. So we walked (and walked) over towards the Battery. We made a little side trip to the Irish Hunger Memorial (Irish Hunger Memorial? Yes.)
Ooh. And now I must go help with an A-line. By 'help' I mean 'stand and watch and try not to fall asleep.' Ahh, the life of a med student...
4 comments:
Well, it's true. Or, it was the one time I awoke her [at Jeff and Adriene's house that one time]. It's quite amusing, unlike my arms-flailing rendition if I am not already mostly awake.
I thought it was a regular Coke.
Well... I was polite enough to not mention that it was actually Nathan's Coke. :)
I would have given you one of my own if having pop in my fridge had been a day-1 priority :)
Come to think of it, that was probably the beginning of the end with Nathan. I'm meeting girls with his pop while he's arranging his Transformers.
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