Lebanon – as in the town, not the country

Disclaimer: This is NOT New York City

This last weekend we went where the grass really does grow greener. Home home on the range! Where the deer and the antelope and the med students play. We flew into Portland on Friday morning and I couldn’t help but drool over the mountains smothered in green trees. When we landed at PDX, one of my most favorite people in the world was there to greet us in all her glory – my grandma, Christmas country music blaring from her SUV. There’s no place like home…

I surprised Tyler for his December birthday with tickets to the Body World exhibit at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and we spent three hours of the afternoon pouring over dissected bodies (some skateboarding, others pondering…you know, everyday activities for dead people) and individually dissected body parts, including a black lung and gallstones. Yum! Each display had a description and Tyler loved explaining beyond the provided information. Because it was his birthday present, I let him. He was like a little boy in a candy shop! Towards the end he had to sit on a bench. At first I thought he was tired, but then sitting next to him, he explained that he was afraid he was going too quickly through the exhibit and had gotten in a “finish mode,” in which his main motivation was to get through it. He wanted to bask in the glory of the dead bodies. Again, it was his birthday…

That evening we indulged in Five Guys (and enlarged our behinds) and then prepared for the next day’s interview…

The rooster crowing at 5:30am startled us to awakenness (oh wait, that was Grandpa’s snoring) and we headed down I-5 towards Lebanon – as in the town, not the country. My mom and Bryce were in the front seat. Bryce was playing Colbie Caillat’s “I Do” over and over again. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that if he really listened to the lyrics, he would vomit in little-boy disgust. After the 25^th time of hearing those peppy acoustics blasting from the front seat, we got off the freeway and entered Oregon, pre-Industrial Revolution. We saw cows, and sheep, and I think there might have been a barn (so progressive). Driving through the farm fields in a Toyota Camry could not have been any more different from taking the bus to Harlem. I’m not sure at what point we entered Lebanon – as in the town, not the country – because the cows all looked alike.  Nevertheless, my trusty GPS Judy guided us to the medical school, which appeared through the thick Oregonian fog like an oasis in a forsaken desert. There was a waterfall greeting our entrance, and the school stood large and in new, red brick – a far cry from the rundown New York school in the heart of Harlem. We dropped Tyler off at school, and then waited the day out in anxiousness, hoping that everything would go well.

To make a short story even shorter, his interview went amazingly well, he discovered that 15 out of the 107 current class are LDS, and that people at the school root for three teams – OSU, UO, and BYU. Imagine that! In the middle of nowhere, there are MORMONS! A pleasant surprise indeed. Tyler loved the school facilities, and everyone there was very welcoming and excited about the school. We’ll hear back from them January 1!

I’ll admit…despite the school being in an extremely rural location, I couldn’t help but think about how nice it was to be near family once again (and I’ll also admit that living next door to cows would be nothing new to me. Moooooo! And Tyler would love that, I am positive). But who knows! (The story of our lives.)

Stay tuned for news from Lebanon – as in the town, not the country.

The New York Times (Earley Edition) Part III

Ok I admit it. We actually slept in on a trip to New York City. During my first two times to the Big Apple, this would have been an atrocity! We had things to do and people to see! But I guess the combination of Tyler and I was too weak to resist the human need to sleep. We had planned to pass by Central Park that morning, but decided to forgo it, deciding that it was, after all, mostly grass. And it was too cold to roll around in it. So we got up, greeted the slew of Indian people working at the small motel, checked out, and headed to the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a GORGEOUS day out – cold, but beautiful. As we walked across the bridge, we could see the Statue of Liberty out in the harbor, and we got a magnificent view of the lower Manhattan skyline. 

We took our sweet time walking the bridge, and finally arrived to the borough of Brooklyn. Believe it or not, this was my first time actually in Brooklyn, and I was ecstatic. Immediately upon entering the Borough, I felt like I could breathe a little bit easier, not having an armpit right in front of my nostrils. 

We walked around downtown a little bit, Tyler drew on a piece of living art, and we began the search for Grimaldi’s Pizza, rumored to be the best around, and located almost under the bridge. Well, naturally we got lost, but with help my trusty GPS Judy, we made it, tired and extra hungry.

The place was packed, as is every popular New York eatery, so we had to wait in a line outdoors, but the place was a movin’ and shakin’ and it really didn’t take us that long to be seated. Granted, we had to share a four person table with two young Asian girls, but that’s part of the experience, right? Elbow to elbow, baby. The pizza was huge (and fantastic) and we devoured the whole thing, along with Olde Brooklyn root beer in glass bottles (love). Pictures of famous people graced the walls of the establishment, and one could tell the locals from the tourists in the way they ate their pizza. Tyler, being Italian and all, knew the correct way, bless his heart. I hate looking like a tourist.

After lunch we had some time to spare so we walked just down the street to the Brooklyn Bridge Park where the Manhattan skyline was spread out before us across the water. The park was quiet, the sun was brightly shining, the water was blue, and I thought, “Finally. This is the New York I could live in.” I can see now why Francie, in a Tree Grows in Brooklyn, talked so highly of the place where she grew up. It really is magical.

Snapping back to reality, we had to make our way back to the subway,

 and rode it up to Harlem, where we caught the bus back to the cardboard box. On the subway, Tyler mentioned that this could be the last time we ride it. I couldn’t decide how I felt about that comment. I thought maybe I needed to get out of the situation and then do some reflection on our visit. After making it to La Guardia Airport, our flight was delayed, so I had plenty of time to think. We both liked it. Looking at it through non-tourist eyes, it appealed to me a little less than times past, though. I would definitely want to live farther from the Manhattan crowds. New York, however, would be a grand adventure.

After a long trek back to Salt Lake City (more delays and a missed connection flight in Denver) we arrived to our humble abode at about 1:30am, exhausted. The trip, at that point, seemed like a blur. Luckily we have pictures to remind us of that one time we ate Al Sharpton and Barack Obama, or of our near death experience. And thankfully we have this (very) lengthy blog so we never forget the joys of the Big Apple.

Stay tuned for updates regarding Touro NY!

The New York Times (Earley Edition) Part II

I felt like I had been hit by an MTA bus. It was 5:30am in NYC (3:30 Utah time—yet again) and I was feeling the late bed time the night before (or was it that bar we hit up?) Nevertheless, we got ourselves up, ironed, and made the bus, headed back to Harlem. After dropping the little boy off at school at 7:45 (I think I was more anxious and nervous than he was and he was the one blindly heading to into the firing squad!), I put on my rap music (yes. I. did.) and set off on my independent walking tour of Harlem and the Bronx. Like a little lost puppy, I meandered up and down residential streets placed between bustling main streets. The whole world was out and about walking their kids to the rundown public elementary schools I saw, causing me to wonder what it’s like growing up in Harlem. The churches in Harlem were incredible in their gothic architecture (I’m converting). 

Malcolm X Blvd Church

Anddddd I felt extremely out of place, feeling like I stuck out like a sore thumb in my pea coat and pale skin. Nevertheless, I tried to look like I knew exactly where I was going the whole time as I bounced up and down to Black Eyed Peas. Eventually I found a grocery store, one of my adventure’s goals, and explored inside, noting the much higher prices ($7.60 for a box of Honey Bunches of Oats, $4.00 for a gallon of milk, $8.00 for ice cream??). I also spotted the Harlem LDS church, which among the warn-out buildings and dark grey sidewalks, stood out like a sore red thumb. I tried the doors, but they were locked, leaving me in my sins on Malcolm X Boulevard.

The LDS Church in Harlem

After having sufficiently conquered Harlem and the lower Bronx, I set out on the subway to find Fordham University, as well as a huge outdoor holiday market at Union Square. Unfortunately I started on the wrong subway and spent much of my adventure time underground trying to recuperate my sanity. I did, however, surface (not unlike a gopher) a few times, having given up on my ability to read maps, and was determined to find my way by foot, no matter how long those blasted Manhattan blocks might be. After many blocks, my legs felt otherwise, and I would sink down into the darkness, once again, trying to follow the light to the end of the tunnel. To make a (very) long story short, I did not make it to Fordham, but I did finally arrive to Union Square! Like a long lost traveler stranded in the Serengeti dessert, the smell of hot apple cider and every other Christmas smell imaginable (minus certain inevitables following a filling holiday meal) greeted me much in the same way that the smell of a baking chocolate cake meets the nostrils of a chubby little boy. I walked around for a bit. I watched the dogs scanter about in their 4x4 feet dog run (is this humane?), made a purchase, and then eventually realized that I could no longer feel my fingers, and decided to return to Harlem. At 2:15 Tyler got out of his interview, very happy with how it went, and we spent the subway ride to Battery Park (where you can see the Statue of Liberty) analyzing and rehashing his interview. He’s a smart one, that boy is!

At the Lady

The events following our short viewing of the Lady in the far distance included, but were not limited to, Wall Street (Zuccotti park, anyone?),

 the World Trade Center site, Little Italy dinner (where Tyler knew more Italian than the “Italian” waiter), 

Dinner in Little Italy

and then towards the end, our almost certain demise – Rockefeller Plaza…

We thought it was so perfect that they were lighting the Rockefeller Christmas tree exactly on the night we were going to be there. How festive, right? Yeah, if you call mob hysteria and certifiable spectators your idea of a holly jolly Christmas. Like cattle, we were herded up a side street, where we could only see a big screen showing what was going on just around the corner – a cruel taunting to one in love with Justin Beiber (I’m talking about the person next to me, come on guys!) We did not have even a little bit of holiday hope in our hearts of seeing the Christmas tree. People just kept crowding in on us, to the point that I could smell the man’s armpit in front of me because I was in his armpit. At that point, I could not even see the second-rate TV screen. Not wanting to imagine WWIII following the end of the program as 10,000 people all tried to leave at the same time, Tyler and I decided to head out early. Unfortunately, some others had the same idea, and we were forced to not only fight ongoing traffic, but also people pushing past us from behind. Eventually, we reached a human brick wall, the NYPD having stopped the migrating crowd in order to allow cross traffic to continue. Apparently, one man did not think this was ok, and he started pushing his way through the wall. What happened next is a blur, but we heard screams and all of the sudden people started pushing and shoving in a mob panic. Five NYPD officers rushed into the crowd. I was getting stomped on and was afraid I would die right then and there under some large, gum-stuck boot coming down onto my face. All the while the NYPD cops are yelling, “Calm down! Calm down!” I think one even patted Tyler’s shoulder (because he was out of control, let me tell ya!) Eventually, we made it out (alive) and hurried in the direction in which people were NOT.

After such a traumatic, near death experience, I needed cheesecake. So we got some at Grand Central and drowned our emotions in sugar and fat. 

At Junior's eating cheesecake!

After that, the blubber on my behind said to walk, and walk we did. In search of Washington Square Park, I think we covered almost all of the East side of Manhattan. Somehow we waltzed right into it, however, as a trumpet player announced out entrance (true story…sort of. ) It was beautiful and well worth it!

 By that time, I could hardly walk anymore, but out of need for survival, we made the trek back to the subway, and then to the bus, and then to the cardboard box.

The length of this blog post is to inspire real life feelings of fatigue and exasperation.  You’re welcome.

The New York Times (Earley Edition) Part I

Tyler and I woke up Tuesday morning and thought, "Let's go to New York!" And so we did. Ok, so this is a lie. But we really did wake up Tuesday morning (at 3am) and think about going to NYC (because we were). So really, that's not a lie at all. (Sidenote: My grandma would always ask me if I knew where liars go. She would reply before I could anwer: BOLIVIA. Naturally.) We woke up well before any human being should (or insect, bird, reptile, or mammal for that matter), and began gathering up last minute things before Tyler's parents picked us up (bless their souls). And then we headed to the Big Apple!

The flight was uneventful. I ended up sitting next to a lady from New Mexico who gave me an appointment card for a DO doctor in update New York, just in case Tyler ever ran across his name while at medical school. For some reason, Tyler and I have never flown together without leaving with a business card of the person next to us. We just have those faces, I guess. Naturally. When we arrived at La Guardia airport (Tyler having nearly peed his pants for reals on the bridge to the airline gate), the New York humidity hit us hard, and we were suprised to find it 60 degrees --- and pouring down rain. Terrific! But were not about to let any weather slow us down. Oregon blood running thick through my veins, and by marriage, his, we called the airport Comfort Inn and they came and picked us up. Bless their souls. Our hotel room was no bigger than the size of a large cardboard box, but it was a bed and a toilet, and that's all one can ask for. After getting a map of the subways, having asked the Indian man at the front desk at least eleven times to repeat to us where the bus stop was in his thick accent, we jumped on the M60. Destination: Harlem. The plan was to figure out how to get to the med school, and meanwhile hunt down the Chicken and Waffle House we found on Yelp (highly rated, might I add.) The bus was a straight hour shot to the school, but the only problems were a) We had never ridden it yet, b) we couldn't see any of the street signs in the dark, and c) we couldn't understand what in Haites name the bus driver was mumbling into the speaker every time he announced a stop. With the help of my trusty phone GPS, Judy, however, we managed to realize when we made it to Harlem. Actually, I take that back. I think we realized it when the bus flooded with more black people than BYU has ever seen at once. We were, to say the least, the minority.

Welcome to Harlem, yo.

We made it to the school just fine (and very white) and walked around the area, trying to keep my umbrella from flying inside out due to the NYC hurricane that had decided to grace the island with its blustery presence. The theme of our three days could have been Wrong Way Wonders, because Harlem provided us with the first time of many of walking many, many blocks trying to find a restaurant, only to find it was the opposite side. Wrong turn. Wrong way wonder. We ate at a fun place, Amy Ruth's, famous for their Fried chicken and waffles. Tyler ordered the Reverand Al Sharpton. I can't say it was my favorite. Just a big hunk of fried chicken on a plain waffle. Maybe I'm not Harlem enough.

The Rev. Al Sharpton at Amy Ruth's

I ordered the Barack Obama -- bbq chicken, baked macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes. AND they even brought us out cornbread to start the meal. MmmmmMmm. Finger-lickin' good, my friends. After sufficiently clogging our arteries leaving little hope of surviving past the ages of 35 and 34, respectively, we waddled out into the hurricane again, this time, with little chance of blowing away in the wind. That's one point for Obama. We managed to find our way to a nearby subway, which we could only hope would take us to our desired destination of Times Square. This was not, however, before we saw a prostitute and her John being arrested by the NYPD. I heart NY.

Times Square was awesome, and continues to be the reason none of the the third world countries have electricity. We snapped some pictures, and even saw a man in in a cow-print speedo and rainboots, dancing. Priceless. Tyler thought of joining him, but then was beat to it by another adoring fan. I told Tyler he can take his own show on the road to Salt Lake. Tyler loved Times Square, and said if we live in NYC, he doesn't think he would ever get tired of it. I told him he may change his mind after the twelfth or thirteenth time, when the speedo man is still there.

Later, when our Times Square fix was satisfied, we hunted down another subway and managed to get on the correct one, that would connect us to our bus. This success merely gave us a false sense of accomplishment and security, and predicted nothing of the coming two days in terms of navigation. At least, that night, we made it to our cardboard box alive and well.

Prostitutes, hurricanes, and Al Sharpton aside, it was a beautiful beginning to an even more beautiful three-day New York life.