-- Jack Handey
On Sunday my plane arrived in to JFK at 5:20am, the sun had not yet decided whether or not to rise, the skyline twinkled with city lights against the dark backdrop of another day gone by and another about to begin. When the plane landed … I stepped off … thus starting my semester's adventure in New York City.
Before I go on to tell you about my first days here, I must share that the flight across the country was not completely void of entertainment. Checking in at PDX I asked the ticketing agent to place me in the most comfortable seats for overnight travel, ie. a row where there was an empty seat next to me (to ensure I didn’t get stuck directly next to THAT guy). I was flying two hours to Salt Lake City and then leaving Salt Lake at 11pm to fly red-eye to New York. The woman was able to get me in a row alone to Salt Lake but not to New York, as that flight was oversold and therefore completely packed with warm, sweaty and inevitably overweight people.
I took full advantage of the three seats that I had to myself on the two-hour jaunt to Salt Lake. I laid down and watched The Motorcycle Diaries and daydreamed about traveling across Latin America. I sat through my layover in Salt Lake (a friend was supposed to meet me at the airport for coffee, but she bailed. Punk.) and boarded the plane to New York without incident.
The plane’s seats were set-up 2-3-2 with aisle in between each set of seats. I was seated in a row of two next to a young foreign woman (I would guess from the Balkans or Eastern Europe by her accent) who was traveling to her first year of law school in New York City. We didn’t talk long because we both began to hunker down while the captain completed his final checks. Before the plane was able to push back from the jet way a piece of paneling INSIDE the plane fell of the ceiling and bounced off the guys seat in front of us, and hit the young girl on the head. Now, it was light and she was fine … but there lay a 6”x8’ piece of PLANE. Again, I REITERATE (before you call me a heartless bitch) that the girl was fine. The stewardess was called and came to her attention. The young woman swore she was fine and great to fly. The woman rushed away and went to the front of the plane. She came back a few minutes later to inform the young woman that she had to deplane and that the pilot would not fly with someone who had a potential head injury. The woman argued with the stewardess, but to no avail. She stormed to the front of the plane, and that was the last I saw of her. Mind you, as she was grabbing her bag from the overhead bin above our row she sneered something to the effect of “just wait until I make this my first case in law school”, which I thought was quite funny. She will be a great lawyer someday, I can tell. Now here comes the part where you may think I am heartless … I internally rejoiced that I could now lay down and sleep my way to New York as I had the ONLY EMPTY SEAT ON THE PLANE next to me. And it was a beautiful sleep, indeed.
But anyway, what would a plane flight be without shit falling from the sky and threats of a lawsuit?
So here I am, New York. I am writing from my bed in my cozy little room (see pictures included) and I am trying to write fast as I need to get to bed, I have a meeting tomorrow morning!
Ashley and I spent yesterday and today unpacking, rearranging our rooms (which are across the hall from one another) and running errands for the program. We live in midtown Manhattan on the Eastside, just two blocks from the UN. It’s great because we are so close to many of the main attractions. Around the corner from us is the Empire State Building, it takes five minutes to Grand Central Station and maybe fifteen minutes to walk to Times Square.
Tomorrow Ashley and I have our meeting with Ambassador Hirsch and Professor Formerand to discuss logistics and everyone else arrives this weekend. Next Tuesday I start my internship. I will be working in the Secretariat for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations for West Africa (which for this means Sierra Leone with particular focus on Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia).
In the days and weeks to come I will try to post more about my internship as well as many light hearted stories of my experiences in the city (for instance, today I called a woman’s child a girl when it was a boy … no, it was not a bald gender ambiguous baby … it was a two-year old boy who looked like a girl … )
For now, it is bedtime for me.
Love and Apples,
Jessie
**I saw Alyce on Sunday after I moved in to the Y. We had lunch in Riverside Park on the Hudson River … tomorrow night is her birthday dinner and so we will get to go out one more time before she leaves for South Africa. Yay! I also have gone out to dinner with Erica (yes, freshman year roommate Erica ... AWESIYA!) and plan to see Nick Vance tomorrow night (he lives near Alyce).
**My address, if you want to send love letters, is:
Jessie Evans
c/o Vanderbilt YMCA- Eastside Residence, Room 868
224 East 47th Street
New York City, NY 10017
No .. I was not trying to look cool on my cell phone for the photo. I got a call and Ashley thought it would be cute. Thanks, Ash :-P
