Monday, April 30, 2007

Hi folks. I actually composed a new update for the blog about a week ago, but then was deprived of email access and was unable to post it. I'm not complaining though, as the main reason for that deprivation was that we were sitting by the side of a lake in beautiful sunshine, a long way from any internet connection, celebrating my brother's marriage by the ingestion of alcohol in various forms. It was wonderful.

I'm back to New York this afternoon; Lisa went ahead of me yesterday (total travel time from Lough Derg to W157 St: 16 hours).

Anyway, here's some of the rubbish that I wrote last week:

How goes? I'm sure there can't be as little happening in Edinburgh as the low level of activity on the blog would suggest. I want to see some posts, goddammit. (I except from this remark those of you who have recently sent emails.)

It was *just* turning nice when we left NY last weekend. Apparently it's usual to have about a week of nice weather before it turns unbearably humid.

More things that have happened in NY:

- I was in our local corner shop recently picking up some painkillers. As I carried out my transaction, a woman jumped in behind me, ignoring the queue, paid for whatever she was getting, and left. The man who had been behind me in the queue approached the counter in turn. Paying for his chocolate bar, he calmly said to the owner: "If you ever let anyone cut in front of me again, I'll come back in here with my 357 and stick it up your nose." At that point I left.

- There is a very greasy fried chicken joint just beside our local subway stop. At night, its powerful stench attracts citizens from miles around. It's mouth-watering. Me and Lisa were coming home from a night's drinking recently and found ourselves in need of fried chicken. Inside the place there was a queue of mostly Dominican people. Just ahead of us there were two guys, our age, one black and one Dominican. The black guy was lamenting his ineligibility for the 'Spanish discount' - the extra chicken you get in such places if you order in Spanish. "I have to improve my Spanish!" he complained. "But I do speak *some* Spanish! Yo hablo Espanol! Yo quiero Taco Bell!" Then he looked around for some objects to name. "Pollo! ... Comida!" Now looking in our direction: "Rojo! ... Rojo flaco!" At which point Lisa burst out laughing. The Dominican guy said: "Very good. And I'll tell you what's funnier, is that she understands you." The black guy now looked a bit embarrassed. I stood there grinning, not sure what was happening. The Dominican guy prompted Lisa: "What does it mean?" "Skinny redhead," she said. "Aha!" I said, spoiling for a fight. Well, everyone seemed to find it very funny, so I decided not to beat anyone up. In fact, we made friends with the two guys. Maybe we'll meet them in there again.

- The world's biggest rainstorm. Holy hell.

Dave I hope you are looking after the snooker for me. I have been able to watch a bit of it here at home. The Matrix-style rotating-table graphic that they do is definitely the best thing that has ever been on tv.

Ciao for now.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

fuhgedabadit

This is now officially the Lisa&Conor in NY blog, for a while anyway.

Thanks for the posts, those of you who have put stuff up. Sorry it's taken so long for us to do so.

So how is everyone? I keep imagining that there are all sorts of shenanigans going on in Edinburgh that I'm missing out on. Well? I hear you've had your summer already; hope you enjoyed it. I was jealous to hear that people had been out on the meadows kicking a football and each other. It's been wintry here ever since the second day after I arrived, so there hasn't been much in the way of outdoor activity. It even snowed a couple of times over the weekend. Not very heavily, and it didn't stick, but still. It's April. Come on.

What have we been up to? Hmm.

We've been to a couple of really good pubs - or 'bars', if you will. We were in one on Monday, with Lisa's ex-flatmate, which is on the premises of an old hairdresser's. It's called 'The
Beauty Bar'. The gimmick is that they didn't actually renovate or redecorate the place. They stuck some beer taps in; otherwise it's just a dimly lit, abandoned hairdresser's. You
can sit along the wall under those ridiculous big hairdryers that look like helmets. There was also a cool place called McSorley's. It's an Irish bar, as you might have guessed, but
retains the nice elements of being an Irish bar - i.e. sawdust on a bare wooden floor, surly barmen, decor and fittings that might have been arranged by a blind person - and little of the cheesy stuff. They serve only two types of beer - dark and light. They're brewed by the pub. For some reason a pint comes divided between two half-pint glasses.

Of course, pints here are smaller than at home. Annoying.

Also, the decent bars are concentrated in a few small areas, well downtown from us - the two I mentioned are down on the lower east side. There's not such a thing as a local pub here. The closest we have is a Dominican-run diner that happens to be open late and serve beer.

We had our friends Clare and Simon, and their (now our) friend Sherlyn over for dinner on Sunday. (I went to college with Clare, back in my undergrad days. She's now working here, doing fMRI studies; Simon does similar stuff.) It being Easter Sunday, we thought we would serve part of a dead lamb - part of its leg, to be precise. So we stuck that in the oven and roasted it. It was great. Much wine was also consumed. Clare and Simon are well into their wine, so had
brought some really nice stuff. Clare also had made a chocolate and Guinness cake. It was a beautiful thing. An enjoyable night was had.

Things I have seen

- Morris dancers in Central Park. Why? They weren't English, either, they were locals, so it can't be dismissed as some homesick expats engaging in their bizarre national sport.

- A car chase. Seriously. One block from our flat. It wasn't a very exciting car chase, to be fair. There were two unmarked police cars trying to get another car to stop by flashing their
lights (they had one of those flashy-police-lights placed in the front window). He wasn't stopping, so one of the police cars accelerated in front of him and then braked, forcing him
to stop. At this point, anticipating an exchange of gunfire, I fled in the direction of the flat. I can only assume that the cops just shot the bloke.

- Mad people on the subway. Lots of them.

Things that haven't happened

- Being mugged. Actually, everyone is so friendly it's ridiculous. The area we're in is very working class and mostly Dominican and black, but I feel less nervous walking around than I have sometimes felt in Edinburgh or in Dublin when there were drunk/dodgy people around.
The other day I was in our local 'laundromat'. Apart from being conspicuous by the shade of my skin, which was considerably fairer than that of anyone else within ten miles, I also
clearly had no idea how to use the machines, or how laundromats work anyway. Everyone was falling over themselves to help me. A nice lady, whose expression suggested that she had me pegged for a harmless retard, pretty much did the whole thing for me.

Having said all that, I was taking a walk on my own one evening last week, and decided to head east, towards the Bronx. It was kind of nice for a while, but then I got onto this run-down
side-street - and here 'run-down' means seriously run-down - vacant lots, dingy buildings, bars on windows. There weren't very many people around, but those who were there didn't seem like they had much to do. I turned around and walked back.

- Doing touristy stuff. We do intend to. But it's also kind of nice to just live in a place, rather than feel like you're visiting it.

We'll be back in Ireland as of Saturday week, for my (remaining unmarried) brother's wedding. His friends are not renowned for their restraint, so it should be interesting. We'll be back
here on 30 April, I believe.

That's about all I can remember for now. Keep us updated about how you're all doing.
We'll lash some photos up v soon.

Oh and by the way, have I mentioned that our apartment building is a former residence of Duke Ellington? Cop that.