I checked to see if it was a holiday, or if I was somehow caught in rush hour. For the most part I've been away from public transit during the crucial morning and evening rush hours, and given the choice I'd always rather walk a mile over squeezing into the train cabin. Except for once when I was smashed in so close to someone in front of me that the top of her fluffy hat kept tickling my chin. The girl in front of me was tiny and I tried my best to hold my position so she wouldn't get more squashed. I was so afraid to sneeze.
The longest I've had to wait for any train so far is twenty or so minutes for the L, because it only runs in those increments late at night, which is often when I return home. Those trips are never bad though, as I'm always more awake than my fellow passengers, and often catch the sun rising as I walk the one block back to my apartment.
This morning's outrageous scene reminded me of the Disneyland Star Tours line, as everyone waited to board the next shuttle to Endor. When the L pulled up a few minutes later, there was already an incredible mass of people stuck inside, and there was no way I was going to bother trying to get on. Turning to a girl nearby, I asked if this was normal.
"I've never seen it like this. Ever."
I contemplated just walking across the Williamsburg Bridge into the city, as the sky was clear and the weather (relatively) warm. A nice stroll across the bridge wouldn't be too bad I thought. Heading up the steps together, the girl offered to share a cab into the city. Since I was under a bit of a time constraint, I thought it wouldn't be that bad of an idea.
As we stood on the corner waiting for a car service to arrive, a pickup truck rolled up and a young man leaned out to call my acquaintances' name -- which I hadn't asked, because that would have been weird and impolite.
"Piper!" he called out of his window, leaning over to hand her a newsprint copy of something. The two were friends and as it turned out, he was heading into the city so Piper and I just hopped in for the ride. Over the next twenty minutes, as traffic wedged its way into Lower Manhattan, I found out that they were both in the art scene, one a multidisciplinary artist and the other a curator. As their conversation turned from upcoming trips to China, to possible future exhibitions, then to the sorts of automobiles that may be owned in their future, I started to realize that these were probably the most foreign creatures I'd encountered yet in New York.
I had no idea what they were talking about, the people they were referencing, or the world they existed in. "Ah, this is the young and hip Brooklyn I've not come across yet," I said to myself, "Intriguing." The young man who picked us up thought I was Piper's friend and halfway through the ride, he asked how we knew each other.
"Oh we just met right now, downstairs at the subway," I replied. Surprised but amused, he jokingly called out Piper's full name and what state she was from. Then she did the same to him in a moment of fake alarm. Of course I already knew his name as I was leafing through the newsprint magazine advertising his recent work, which was being shown in a gallery opening later that night. In the back of his pickup were boxes of the program, and he was headed into the city to drop them off.
"Yeah the L was having some issues and we were going to share a ride into the city when you came along," Piper said to him, quickly adding, "But I had a good vibe about him." So on went our short journey and after arriving in Soho, I jumped out and said a quick thank you and good bye.
Of course, because I am who I am, I later Googled them both. Turns out this is who they are and I was right, they are the most foreign people I'd yet to meet in New York -- but possibly a common occurrence in Brooklyn? If I had known they were so easily Internet found, and what they did and who they were, I would have asked a billion other questions on the spot. (And then they would have ejected me out of the backseat with great haste.) Instead the only evidence I had of the random experience was the black ink smudged on my fingers from all the newsprint as I hustled uptown to complete my errand.
This morning's outrageous scene reminded me of the Disneyland Star Tours line, as everyone waited to board the next shuttle to Endor. When the L pulled up a few minutes later, there was already an incredible mass of people stuck inside, and there was no way I was going to bother trying to get on. Turning to a girl nearby, I asked if this was normal.
"I've never seen it like this. Ever."
I contemplated just walking across the Williamsburg Bridge into the city, as the sky was clear and the weather (relatively) warm. A nice stroll across the bridge wouldn't be too bad I thought. Heading up the steps together, the girl offered to share a cab into the city. Since I was under a bit of a time constraint, I thought it wouldn't be that bad of an idea.
As we stood on the corner waiting for a car service to arrive, a pickup truck rolled up and a young man leaned out to call my acquaintances' name -- which I hadn't asked, because that would have been weird and impolite.
"Piper!" he called out of his window, leaning over to hand her a newsprint copy of something. The two were friends and as it turned out, he was heading into the city so Piper and I just hopped in for the ride. Over the next twenty minutes, as traffic wedged its way into Lower Manhattan, I found out that they were both in the art scene, one a multidisciplinary artist and the other a curator. As their conversation turned from upcoming trips to China, to possible future exhibitions, then to the sorts of automobiles that may be owned in their future, I started to realize that these were probably the most foreign creatures I'd encountered yet in New York.
I had no idea what they were talking about, the people they were referencing, or the world they existed in. "Ah, this is the young and hip Brooklyn I've not come across yet," I said to myself, "Intriguing." The young man who picked us up thought I was Piper's friend and halfway through the ride, he asked how we knew each other.
"Oh we just met right now, downstairs at the subway," I replied. Surprised but amused, he jokingly called out Piper's full name and what state she was from. Then she did the same to him in a moment of fake alarm. Of course I already knew his name as I was leafing through the newsprint magazine advertising his recent work, which was being shown in a gallery opening later that night. In the back of his pickup were boxes of the program, and he was headed into the city to drop them off.
"Yeah the L was having some issues and we were going to share a ride into the city when you came along," Piper said to him, quickly adding, "But I had a good vibe about him." So on went our short journey and after arriving in Soho, I jumped out and said a quick thank you and good bye.
Of course, because I am who I am, I later Googled them both. Turns out this is who they are and I was right, they are the most foreign people I'd yet to meet in New York -- but possibly a common occurrence in Brooklyn? If I had known they were so easily Internet found, and what they did and who they were, I would have asked a billion other questions on the spot. (And then they would have ejected me out of the backseat with great haste.) Instead the only evidence I had of the random experience was the black ink smudged on my fingers from all the newsprint as I hustled uptown to complete my errand.
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