La Gran Manzana

I’m currently 36702 feet in the air, somewhere east of Florida and north of Cuba. I’m pretty sure that my right shoulder is getting sunburned, sitting next to a window for 3 ½ hours, and I’m even more sure that I’m the only white person on the flight. Again.

The person on the loudspeaker (or whatever it’s called) has had to remind everyone on board at least three times that they cannot ask for more drinks or snacks until they’ve gone through the whole cabin and everyone has gotten some first. Is this an airplane, or elementary school? Kidding. I can’t blame them though. The mini chocolate chip cookies are good.

ANYWAY, clearly, I’m writing neither from campus nor from the Shell station (excuse the awkward formal language there), because I am quite sure that neither of those places could be found 36702 feet above sea level.

I went to La Grand Manzana this weekend. I’m not sure if they actually call it that- I’ll have to check and get back to you- but anyway, it means “The Big Apple”. It was Parent’s Weekend at my sister’s school, so my parents decided to drive down and see her for the weekend. Then they decided to fly me up for the weekend. And claro, I wasn’t about to say no to a weekend of seeing my family, food that I didn’t need to pay for, free texting, water pressure, witnessing fall, and good ol’ Americana.

Side note: I’m listening to the 90’s station on Jet Blue’s XM radio station, and Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody” just came on. Blast from the past much?

Anyway, I left the DR and got on a flight to JFK Thursday afternoon. I got in at around 5ish, did the whole customs thing (I really enjoyed the video of traditional American scenes- a guy sitting on his truck on a farm, the Vegas Strip, fall colors, Times Square, happy children, etc etc etc while I was waiting in line to go through customs. We ♥ America, so should you! Oh, wait, it’s practically impossible to get a visa? Hmm…), and hopped on the air train to someplace. Then I took the longestttttt subway ride to Penn Station.

I came out of the subway terminal and the first thing I saw was the Empire State Building. Now, please don’t get me wrong, I really do not identify myself as a tourist in the traditional sense when I’m talking about New York City. While I’ve never lived there, I’ve been there at least 15 times and usually don’t do the stop-in-the-middle-of-the-sidewalk-and-take-photos thing. However, this time was different. I propped my suitcase up on a street corner, sat on it, and took multiple photos of the Empire State Building. Which I’ve already been up in twice… so it really wasn’t that necessary… but it just felt important to me, at the time.

I met up with my sister and headed back to her dorm. We got dinner at her dining hall (I love going to dining halls at other schools- no matter how crappy the food actually is, everything seems wonderful in comparison to the dining hall at my school. Which, in reality I guess… isn’t that bad) and headed out to explore the city.

One of my goals for this weekend was to eat as many baked goods as humanly (and physically) possible. This started on the subway, when my sister gave me a cupcake from Crumbs that she’d bought earlier that day. This continued when we went into a mini market or grocery store or whatEVER and bought a slice of candy bar cake. Yeah, candy bar cake. This cake was not only covered with candy bars on top, but also had candy bars baked into it. Mmmm…

We then headed downtown and explored a bit around NYU. We got lost a bit, but eventually found some really good falafel. You can find anything in that city.

The next day we met up with my parents and did some Parent’s Weekend stuff. We then did a lot of shopping and baked-goods eating. Another cupcake from Crumbs. It was a Blackbottom Cheesecake Cupcake. "Brownie cake with cheesecake baked in topped with vanilla cream cheese frosting covered with brownie chunks and vanilla cream cheese drizzle." We also went to Lincoln Center, which I’d never been to before. The fountain was awesome, and reminded me of the water shows at Kahunaville back in the day. Expect about a hundred times better.

Saturday we hit up Walmart, and I bought multiple jumbo bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Like, 5 of them. They’re not exactly impossible to find in the Dominican Republic, just pretty difficult and pricey. A few of my friends in the DR asked me to bring some back, plus I brought some back for a Halloween party that ISA is having on Friday. I also need a costume… I’ll figure that out later.

We got lunch at a restaurant called Community with my sister’s roommate and her family, and then just kind of explored for the rest of the day. We walked halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge (I’m normally not so cliché touristy, I swear) and got dinner at this place called 7A in the East Village.

This morning we dropped my sister back off at her university and my parents drove me to JFK. I miss cars. Okay, I mean, they do have cars in the Dominican Republic, claro, but I miss cars that have A) Working seatbelts, B) Working speedometers C) Are driven by people who drive better than I do (something that’s very easy to find in the States, but seemingly difficult in the DR). Okay, maybe when I say “I miss cars” I mean “I miss going places in cars that aren’t conchos.”

So yeah! That was my quick-soak-in-as-much-Americana-as-possible trip. It wasn’t absolutely necessary for my sanity, but it was nice. I’ll probably post this blog in a few days, because I can’t get wifi from the plane, claro….