Some of my photos from the first day in New York I posted in my teaser post, but here are some more with a little account of what I was up to. We started out going to the Brooklyn Tabernacle for a Sunday service which was awful. I had only wanted to go because I heard it had a great gospel choir, thinking that meant it would be like that great scene in the Blues Brothers with James Brown as the reverend. Instead it was a boring very contemporary service and I ended up sitting next to someone who smelled like a cat box. Also, the preacher kept saying that the South had not invented gospel and that Southern churches are not as diverse as the big inner-city Tabernacle because Southern churches aren’t integrated. Um, what?
After got back to Manhattan we ended up wandering over to China Town to explore.
One of my roommates was on a mission to score some sketchy “faux” Tiffanies and sure enough we managed to find someone who helped us out in that regard. We went to the Mahayana Buddhist Temple and got some lunch at a wonderful place called Noodle Village where we feasted on dumplings and cuttle fish ball soup. Although now I’ve seen a picture of a cuttle fish I feel bad having eaten it. But it was TASTY.
Now anyone who knows me knows I have a great and undying love for Sailor Moon so I was delighted when I saw her peeking out at me from a rack full of adult-sized outfits completely different from this little child-sized jacket. I’m sad it’s too small to fit me or I totally would have gotten it!
We tried hiking over to where the guide book said Mark Twain’s house was, but has long since been bulldozed for a giant apartment building. We were pissed when we only found a plaque attached to the wall after walking forever and ever, but we saw a lot of neat stuff along the way, including the melted bicycle in the picture from the teaser post and a really cool store whose significance I realized only while looking it up for this post– Patricia Field’s shop in the Bowery. Unbeknownst to me, despite the fact I’m a twenty-something American woman who watches a fair amount of TV, Patricia Field is a designer who is best known for creating Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City as a fashion icon and who did the costumes for Devil Wears Prada. I’m floored considering the pretty huge difference between how much I love everything in that store and how much I love the outfits on the show and the movie.
What I love about big cities– you never know when you’ll turn a corner or cross the street and run into fun, fabulous interactive art like this nifty spinning cube.
Speaking of clothes, we accidently walked up to an H&M and the roommates HAD to go shopping. I can’t quite get on the H&M fangirl wagon. Everyone I know LOVES them and can’t wait to make it to a major metropolitan area to pop in and buy three bags worth of cute, cheap goods but their stuff just doesn’t work on me. I have tried and tried to have a torrid relationship with H&M because everyone raves about them and when I tried the clothes on they are just a little bit off. Maybe I’m shaped funny, who knows, but it doesn’t help my love for the store or my self-esteem that H&M has the only dressing rooms in the world than can make me look like I have a muffin top in my underwear.
Here are two ensembles I tried on. I really wanted to splurge on this sweet-heart topped jumper/mechanic outfit but everything I loved about what the neckline did for my top half I hated about what it did for my bottom half.
This dress was so perfect on the hanger, but on me I suddenly had double D’s and swimmy wing triceps. I had imagined floating around like a mystical Grecian goddess in it, and it just wasn’t fitting right. Still, I had to capture the glamour of shopping in NYC, and I think these shots got a good idea of what I wanted the clothes to do that they didn’t in 3D.
Though I was defeated by H&M, my roommates made out like bandits and stocked up on summer essentials. I waited outside and chatted up a couple Arabic hot dog vendors who were convinced I was British, apparently because I didn’t sound American to them. There was enjoyable people watching as I sat on a fire main eating my good New York hot dog, and eventually the vendors packed up and moved on for the night, leaving me to wonder how far away the depository for the carts was and what the ins-and-outs of the hot dog vending industry might be. All I know on that topic I learned in A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. If you haven’t read it you should, and I’ll be back in a few days with a continuation of my New York updates.