a to do list

This is a to do list that my friend Kat wrote when I visited New York City for the first time. She is the very best tour guide, if you have the energy to keep up.

1 - Turkish Bathhouse: This was a very strange experience. Besides already being in awe of the city that I had only experienced through my small teevee screen, I now found myself mostly naked with many strangers in a strange and cavernous bathhouse. I saw a topless women get beaten with some branches, which apparently is supposed to feel pretty good. I was wearing rented shorts and not feeling all that great about it. There was just a mess of human beings in a very small room that was far too hot and dark for my taste.

Just when I was feeling like it was junior high all over again, a cute girl said, 'Hi, [my real name here], how's it goin'?' I talked to her for a bit, completely confused as to how she knew my name. When I found Kat again - she knows most of New York, apparently - I asked her who would know that I was here. It turned out to be a friend of hers that I had met several hours before, but couldn't place the face.

I'm not sold on the Turkish Bath. It scared me.

2 - We took the Staten Island ferry. We also managed to get a New York Pretzel, and I got to say that Montréal actually does a better New York Pretzel than New York.

3 - We only walked part way across the Brooklyn Bridge, but I was impressed.

4 - I don't know what the Bulgaria is. I imagine a club. We didn't get to this one.

5 - Kat dragged me through Harlem and her old neighborhood. It was amazing to be so white and probably obvious Canadians when we opened our mouths. Everyone recognized Kat, cause she is just that lovable. We even hung out with some of her friends in an apartment. I felt pretty white, but people seemed willing to smile. There seemed to be an eerie number of funeral homes.

6 - We walked by Katz's diner, but I hardly cared about this movie icon.

7 - Never saw the Sunshine theater. Maybe next time.

8 - B and H is a famous camera store. We didn't make it to that one. Good thing, cause I didn't have much money and I would have come out of there bankrupt.

9 - I went to the MET. It was my first few hours alone in NYC since Kat had a statistics exam. I could have spent the whole 3 days in that building.

10 - I did not get roughed up.

11 - Freedman was an old boss of ours. He wasn't home. Just as well... I'm not the prank call sort of person.

12 - I don't eat greasy breakfasts. Mostly because you need to have sausages and eggs for a greasy breakfast and I hate eggs and meat (possible exception for bacon) should not be eaten before lunch in my world.

13 - Had the pretzel, but missed out on the hotdog.

It was a good trip. I took the train down from Montréal. I think that is the way to travel. Kat is still the best tour guide ever.