New York Adventures version 1.0
This past weekend I headed out to New Jersey to see a family friend's daughter's 12th Birthday Party. (*sigh*) I remember what is what like to be twelve. Just on the verge of becoming a teen, but still not quite one. Those were some fun years. Anyways, at the little family get-together, my Uncle Joe brought along a friend of his named, Bronwyn. The poor girl stood out like a white icing rose on a chocolate cake. This party was mainly filled with indo-caribbean music and food. I sat beside the red headed girl since she looked interesting and also about my age. Bronwyn moved out to New York from Reno, Nevada to teach. She was once a commodities trader and got tired of it regardless of making a huge paycheck. Later in the evening, my other cousins were trying to show her how to belly dance, and how to rotate her waistline in a high beats per minute track. I have to say, Bronwyn did a very good job for her first time. After that, I was demonstrating to her how to dance to reggae music. How to dip and listen to the rhythm. Don't be fooled, Bronwyn is a trained classical dancer! She is an expert ballerina and probably out dance me, but I was just showing her the basics of west indian dancing.

After a fun night, her and I exchanged numbers when we found out that neither of us had a buddy to explore New York with. So the first expedition was for me to take the Long Island Rail Road and travel over an hour by train to meet up with Bronwyn in Queens. From there she took me for an introductionary tour through her neighbourhood and then we took a subway to get some sushi from Monster Sushi in Manhattan. That time we took to get to know more about each other and eat some Philadelphia Rolls. We ate the shared item that was #114 but I can't remember the exact name. (Nigiri - something) After leaving the sushi joint, we decided to go and check out a movie. So we got on the red line of the subway and headed towards Lincoln Center. On our way, we were passing 50th Street Station. The station's tile work was all silhouettes of "Alice In Wonderland" but there was also a silhouette of a "Humpty Dumpty" figure and even a "Willy Wonka" figure. As Bronwyn and I were discussing why would they choose this particular station for the tile work, a girl sitting beside her on the train butted into our conversation and told us that all the extra characters are in the second installment of "Alice In Wonderland" written by Louis Carroll. Apparently, this girl had written some intensive term paper on Louis Carroll and knew all about it. What were the odds?!?! As for why the 50th Street Station was decorated with Louis Carroll's characters still remains unknown to us at this time, but we are researching this as we speak.

Bronwyn and I got off at the Lincoln Center stop and walked over to the Tower Records store that was having a 4 day 25% off sale. Bronwyn went upstairs to the Jazz section while I was on the main floor listening to some new club trance music. After sampling a CD that I chose not to buy, I went upstairs to find Bronwyn. When I did get up there, I found her talking with an older guy named, Chris. Chris had this "intelligent" look to him sporting un-designer spectacles wearing casual atire and carrying a box of CDs in a brown shopping bag that he recently purchased. As I introduced myself, we all got into conversations about jazz music and artists. Chris mentioned that he met Leonard Cohen in the late 70's in Kansas City. Bronwyn is a huge Cohen fan, and mentioned to me that she'd do things to him if she ever met him. Even if he is about 80! Well, after Bronwyn picked up some CDs, we said "goodbye" to Chris and headed over to the Lowes Cinema. We tried to catch the next film that was playing at 9pm. The next one was, "The Quiet American" starring Micheal Caine and Brendan Fraser. When I got into the theatre, I was unimpressed with the selection of food, screen size and seating capacity. All of that aside, we did manage to get some nice seats thanks to a generous group of individuals. The movie itself was quite powerful. I was trying to contain my harsh coughing with the large Coke that I bought. It worked for the time being. I only heard one whisper from Bronwyn during the movie and it was her saying, "He reminds me of my dad..." while she was looking at Michael Caine's character. After the movie, Bronwyn remained still. She was emotionally drained and didn't appear to have touched the regular sized Coke that I bought for her. Her cheeks were dampened from tears. I was so worried but she assured me that the movie was very sad. I could see that. The movie was sad, so I relaxed a little. Just the whole idea of a fun time with Kelvin then ending with tears doesn't fit right with me. I felt somewhat guilty. Maybe if we had seen a comedy... Anyways, she was back to herself later once we got on the train. I gave her a big hug and it seemed to help. Poor girl. We departed as I headed to Penn Station while she was going towards the number 7 train. We text messaged eachother on our phones until we got home. It seems like I can finally being to explore New York City!