little tara

Sunday May 6th – Calvin had heard of a great place to have a gospel brunch in Harlem, so he and I arranged to meet up on Sunday morning to go and listen to some great music. He had met a woman in a bank who had introduced him to a gospel singer, and it was through this connection that he found out about Epiphany’s Cafe.

So, early-ish on Sunday morning, we made our way uptown on the subway. The weather was STILL grey!!! As we exited the station, we were unexpectedly swarmed by thousands of cyclists on the Five-Borough Bike Ride… not something we had expected!!! They took a long time to pass us, and luckily there were a lot of cops around to direct the traffic.

We kept walking and came across a MASSIVE queue that snaked around the corner of a block, along the block and then down another corner. Everybody in it was clutching guide books and daypacks. Both of our hearts stopped when we thought that MAYBE this was a queue for the place we were going to, but a quick stop to talk to one of the people waiting told us that the queue was for the Abyssinian Baptist Church service. Crikey. I had previously thought about visiting the Abyssinian Baptist Church for a Sunday morning service but this queue tells me that it’s already turned into… well, into a bit of a freakshow. I had always wanted to go to a gospel service but I didn’t want to feel like I was a spectator pointing fingers at the zoo, if you know what I mean; I felt a bit uncomfortable about viewing a religious service as a tourist attraction.

Not to say that I won’t be doing something similar at some point in the future, but it had never quite sat right with me. And seeing this queue, I just thought, bloody hell. There will be almost as many tourists as there are worshippers there. I was glad that we were going to a cafe. I don’t need to be inside the church to enjoy the music. And, as Sonya (the singer we met that day) ended up saying, “The church is inside you; you don’t have to be inside the church.” As someone who believes in a god but not necessarily organised religion, this sat very nicely with me.

We trotted past the queue and found Epiphany’s on a nearby corner. One of the many things that was nice about spending time with Calvin is that he was just as organised as I was. He had a map with our destination on it and he had a route in his head; I didn’t have to know where we were going, I just went. Often when I’m travelling, I’m alone so I always have to know where I am, or if I have company the people I’m travelling with generally leave it up to me because I have a good sense of direction and a good idea of where we’re headed. So in this case it was quite refreshing (and, I have to say, quite relaxing, too) to share the reins with someone.

We arrived at Epiphany’s, which turned out to be a nice little dark box of a cafe. It was pretty packed, so we shared a table with another couple until some other people cleared out and we got a table of our own. What a lovely way to spend a late morning and an early afternoon! The singers were Sonya Rogers and the Gospel Gems (all in their choir outfits), accompanied by two young men on a keyboard and on a drum kit. They sang a bunch of my favourite gospel songs along with a few lesser-known ones. It actually surprised me how many of them I knew; I guess a lot of gospel has sort of entered the ‘modern musical vernacular’. We beamed when they sang ‘Oh Happy Day’, shimmied to ‘Down By The Riverside’, stamped to ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’, clapped along to ‘This Little Light of Mine’, and sang along to ‘Go Tell It On The Mountain’. These three women had the most powerful voices, and what a vocal range! While we listened, we chose from the small menu to eat. We had waffles with a coriander-cream cheese dip, and some sort of corn twists with capsicum dip. The food was a bit ‘meh’, but we weren’t there for the food, and the music more than made up for it. We ended up staying for two sets just to hear our favourites again, and Sonya made a point of coming up and saying hello to us, as she remembered Calvin from the previous day. She just seemed like such a lovely lady; I was very happy to spend my Sunday there.

THE SUN!!! Where have you been for so long?!?
Outside the Chelsea Market,
New York, May 2012

Afterwards, we were still a bit hungry so we decided to head down to the Chelsea Market for lunch. Then I heard that Calvin had never been to the High Line Park, and that was that! We had to go, even if the weather was sucky! When we exited the subway station at 14th Street, though, something wierd happened. I could feel… warmth on my skin. My jumper felt a bit too hot. And then we realised… THE SUN WAS OUT!!!!! After days of grey skies and mist and rain, it was SUNNY! This prompted a short period of insanity where we pranced about in the middle of the street, waving our arms in the air, taking pictures of each other and the blue sky like kids on a Christmas morning when Santa was feeling particularly generous! SUN!

We raced into the Chelsea Market and bought some bread from Amy’s Breads, which we gobbled down with soup, and then fast-tracked it to Fat Witch where we each picked a brownie to take on a little ‘picnic’. Calvin went for the original, seeing as it was the first time he’d tried them, and I bought a Caramel Witch: the normal dense, kickass brownie but with a gooey thick layer of caramel through the middle. Nom nom nom!!!

The tantalising selection at Amy’s Breads, Chelsea Market,
New York, May 2012

We went full pelt out the front of the markets and entered the High Line on 14th Street. It was just beautiful up there. The sunny days made all the greens brighter and the wooden tones more glossy, and we had a ball. We wandered around until we managed to stealthily nab one of the wooden bench beds from a departing couple, and we spread out, kicked our feet up and stuffed ourselves with brownie goodness. Then, bloated with chocolate, we just sat there in the sun, soaking up the Vitamin D and watching the crowds go by. BLISS! Believe it or not, it eventually got too hot to just keep sitting there, so we went for a little walk in the direction of uptown. First stop was at the People’s Pops cart, where they were selling home-made shave ice and popsicles. The guy behind the counter had a giant block of ice and was shaving it by hand. Standing in the queue meant getting sprayed by flecks of ice… which of course wasn’t a problem on a hot day like that! I ended up ordering a raspberry and basil popsicle stick, which was heaven. It was basically just thick pureed raspberries, which meant the popsicle was lumpy and seedy and tasted damn good. Calvin got a strawberry and rhubarb one, which also looked amazing, and had actual pieces of rhubarb in it!

People watching was priceless that day. I laughed my ass off at a few sweet, dorky guys trying to pick up chicks:
Guy #1: Hey ladies, whatcha up to?
Girls: Not much, you?
Guy #1: (flustered) Me? Just chillin, chillin.
(Girls leave)
Guy #2 (turns to Guy #1): Chillin?!? You idiot.

The High Line in all its glory, surrounded by buildings and signs,
Chelsea, New York, May 2012

Poor guy! We also wandered past a child, probably about 4 years old, curled in the fetal position on the ground next to a bench, screaming blue murder. She was screaming so much that her face was beetroot. I glanced around for a parent and found him immediately, sitting on the bench and staring at her in disgust with his chin in his hands. He glanced up at me and rolled his eyes! Talk about disinterest; I wonder if she does that sort of thing often. He certainly wasn’t doing anything about it this time; I guess he’d just given up! Calvin and I found this whole scene incredibly funny and laughed all the way up to 23rd Street! We watched the butterflies and the birds, stopped for a break in the viewing window over 10th Avenue, and passed the High Line Zoo, a little art installation where someone has hung black and white polystyrene sketches of animals across the roof of a building. We walked all the way to the northern end of the High Line, where the next section is being developed; I wonder if I’ll ever see the ‘final product’.

Calvin and I take up our recliner seat and watch the crowds go by,
The High Line, Chelsea, New York, May 2012

From the High Line, Calvin and I walked to 8th Avenue and then went our separate ways. I can’t remember where he was going, but I was heading for the Hoboken Arts and Music Festival. I figured it would be a chance to eat some good food, hear some good music, and possibly drop in on Victoria at the Yankee Ferry. I had a couple of bus tickets already, which Charlie and I had left over from our little stint in Hoboken, so I thought I’d make good use of them. I walked to the Port Authority, where the buses are supposed to go every 20 minutes, and I ended up waiting nearly two hours for a damn bus. I HATE waiting for buses; it just feels so hopeless. Because if one doesn’t come, you have to figure out whether to hedge your bets – if you leave, one might turn up just as you get out of sight. But if you wait, and nothing’s coming… or maybe you’ve already waited an hour, and you’re already late anyway, so you would be totally writing off that time if you left… it’s a terrible dilemma. Every morning in Brisbane was a nightmare for me, because I stood at my stupid bus stop waiting for my useless, overpriced bus to come, and it never EVER came when it was supposed to. Never, in all my years of living in the same place, did I ever get the bus that the timetable told me to expect. Ugh.

A beautiful butterfly! The High Line, Chelsea,
New York, May 2012

Anyway, waiting at the Port Authority for that damned bus to come (I think there were supposed to be 4 or 5 while I was waiting) conjured up all the same frustrations I used to get every day on the way to work. And unfortunately, by the time most of us had figured out that maybe we couldn’t be bothered after all, the stairway up to the bus platform was blocked with people – so even if we had wanted to leave, we couldn’t. When a bus finally did turn up, I was frazzled and in a terribly grumpy mood. I was one of the lucky ones, though; most of the crowd had to be left behind because the bus was full. I was very, very thankful at that moment that I was not still staying in New Jersey; at least if your bus doesn’t turn up in Manhattan, you can walk or get the subway. If you live in Jersey and your bus doesn’t turn up, well, you can hardly just swim across the river, can you?

My delicious raspberry and basil popsicle from People’s Pops on the High Line,
New York, May 2012

So the bus came, and I got on it, and it took me to Hoboken, New Jersey. And would you believe it? The festival had ended at 6 o’clock. Had my bus come on time, I would have at least made the last hour or so, but as it was I turned up just after six when they were clearing up all the food stalls, markets stands and stages. I was spitting with fury! Damn buses!!! And what kind of music festival finishes at six o’clock, anyway? I decided to try to salvage something of my afternoon and have a look around Hoboken, which I’d intended to do when I was staying there but never found the time for. I walked along the main strip; most of the shops were shut, but the cafes and bars were open and I have to admit that a lot of them looked pretty enticing. The main drag was filled with beautiful old triple and quadruple storey townhouses, painted in various shades of cream, blue and brick, so the place looked like it had been preserved pretty well from its original era. A lot of the bars were playing music like Pearl Jam and Guns’n’Roses, which tells you something about the demographic of the people living here… all of a certain age! From the main street I took a walk out along the waterfront and the main pier, which totally lightened my mood and made the whole trip worth it. Because from here, on a little point, on this glorious blue-sky day, I had the most amazing, crystal-clear view of Manhattan from top to bottom; from the snazzy buildings of the financial district to the brown-brick edifices of northern Harlem, I could see it all. Visibility was amazing. I couldn’t help but do a little happy jiggle dance, it was so pretty. It’s a shame more tourists don’t try to make it over; the view is priceless and it’s really not that hard a journey… if your bus runs on time! So I stood for a while, enjoying the breeze and the view and watching the locals come and go. People walking with their children, kids roaring around corners on their little tricycles or scooters, a young man just sitting quietly and appreciating the view. It was great.

The stunning Manhattan skyline from Hoboken, New Jersey,
New York, May 2012

When I finally decided to head back, I found my way to a bus stop and found that the bus driver who dropped me off in Hoboken was the same one picking me up; it had taken all that time just to get his bus turned around in the traffic snarl caused by the festival!

I went back to the hostel on the upper west side, and found that my room mates were now all Brazilian. A couple of about my age, and a family of three (two parents with their teenage son). With the money they were spending on the hostel, I wondered why they didn’t just get a hotel room. Anyway, I said my greetings and then went for dinner at the Malaysian Grill… again! I had a really spicy char kway teow, sniffling my way through the chilli, and then went back to the hostel common room, where I met up with Calvin and a young Moroccan Frenchman called Hicham. We spent the evening swapping stories about our days and using the (annoyingly slow) internet. Karen joined us later in the evening, having been out with an older Brazilian woman that she met on the walking tour. Karen spoke not a word of Portuguese, and this Brazilian woman spoke barely a word of English – beginner, at best – but they seemed to have had a nice day. She asked about our plans for the next day, but she and I had very different ideas about what we wanted to do so I said I’d join her in the evening if I didn’t have something else on.

Much later, all of us finally decided to call it a night. I went back into my room and was hit by a wall of sound. My belief that the family should have got themselves a damned hotel room was reinforced when it turned out that the father, the mother AND the son all snored like freight trains, joined with harmonies by the man from the couple. Shitballs, I was angry. I was angry because the girlfriend from the couple must have known that her boyfriend was a foghorn, and with two of them they could easily have got a hotel room or at least a private room in the hostel, for about the same cost. I was also angry because the teenage boy kept waking up and could hear his own father snoring – even huffed and got angry at it and stuffed his head under his pillow – but for some reason had never thought to suggest that a private room would’ve been a better idea, so as not to inflict the honking on strangers. This is why I simply do not like mixed-sex dorm rooms. When women snore (and god knows, I’m sure I’ve been the culprit on the odd night, especially in cold weather), they just tend to be quieter than fat late-middle aged Brazilian men!!! Ugh. I tucked myself in and tried to block out the noise… and then I heard the scampering. Just quiet at first, and then clearer when there was a lull in the drone of the snorers… and I thought, oh no. I flicked my personal bed light on (one of the snorers grunted) and peered under the bed. I shook my bags around, and that’s when I noticed that a hole had been nibbled in my toiletries bag. Upon closer inspection under the bed, I found a half-eaten cookie and a couple of gummy bears, all of which had human-sized tooth marks and teeny-tiny nibble marks on them; a product, no doubt, of the teenage boy snacking in his damn bed when clearly there are signs all over the place that say that NO FOOD IS ALLOWED IN THE BEDROOMS. And little mice had taken advantage of this clumsy pig’s lacklustre grasp of hygiene. There, in the middle of the night, to the soundtrack of the fat snorers, I had to clear up that little shit’s mess and hope that the mice would not come back. I had read on Trip Advisor that there were mice at the hostel, but I figured that as long as I had clean room-mates it wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Apparently, having clean room-mates was too much of a problem.

Sigh. Tantrum over, I climbed into bed and vowed to kill them all tomorrow. Surely I could use sleep deprivation as an excuse? Ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Thanks for stopping by,

Tara.

P.S. For those of you worrying right now, all of the Brazilians survived their stay in my dorm room. No Brazilians were harmed in the making of this blog. I promise. Ha!

Tags: abyssinian baptist church, chelsea high line, food, gospel, gospel brunch, harlem, harlem gospel, travel