I just realized that I had started this draft last month and never finished it, my bad, here is the finished post. -Jay

…I spent the weekend in New York City. It was like being in another world. Let me tell you all about it.

My wife, since she was very small, has had serious problems with pork. When she was 12 she had a sever allergic reaction after attending her uncle’s pig roast. Later on there were more episodes. Eventually, the cause was narrowed down and ham/pork/pig by-products was identified as the cause. So for the next 10 years she avoided it entirely (harder than it sounds: pork chops, bacon, sausage, salami, hot dogs, corn dogs, marshmallows, gummi bears, pepperoni, spam, Tylenol gel-caps). After all this time we decided that it might be beneficial to have another test done to see if she was still allergic. The closest facility for doing this test was in New York City.

Sarah booked a hotel in Jersy at a very resonable rate and we invited her mother to come with us. The drive down was pleasant until we hit route 17 just outside of Paramus. The traffic was crazy. Our hotel was at the end of a 90 degree turn off of a 55mph highway with no off ramp. So,

It was tense. That might actually be the best word to describe our trip: tense. Our mornings consisted of getting up early for a 15 minute walk to the bus stop, $21 bus fare and a 45 minute ride through the Lincoln tunnel to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. On our first day we just walked around a bit. We saw Times Square, Rockefeller Center and lots of other tall buildings. It was such a different world than where we came from.

At the end of the day we hiked back to the Port Authority and got tickets from a vending machine $18. We then found out from a non-english speaking bus driver (through a series of noises and gestures) that he could not let us on the bus to Paramus, NJ using our tickets that each said “To Paramus, NJ” It took us 15minutes to find the ticket booth one floor down and have the aging ticket taker tell us that the tickets couldn’t be accepted because they were from an old machine and that they couldn’t be refunded, but we could buy new tickets from him: $21.

We ordered food in and crashed hard that night. The next morning we took the bus back to the City ($21) and prepared to brave the infamous Subway system.

Let me take an aside here. I’m a brave man. There are few things that unsettle me. Riding and navigating the New York City Subway put me on edge like an 18 year old girl backstage at a U2 concert (groan).

No smiles, no one talks, and people either avoid all eye contact or stare directly at you. I like smiling and nodding. I enjoy acknowledging the existence of people around me. I don’t like craning my neck upwards to make it absolutely clear that I’m not looking anyone in the eye, lest they stab me for my cheekiness.

The worst part was stepping off the subway a stop too soon and finding myself standing on a dark deserted platform looking very touristy and seeing a guy nod in my direction. His buddy nodded back and they both started walking towards us. I almost crapped myself.

I spent a great deal of effort during the trip trying to look like I could kill someone if I had to. I’ll admit, it is hard to feign confidence when in the back of your head you are thinking I wonder what it feels like to be stabbed in the gut?

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