33) Pre-Canada Day in Central Park

The Canadian Consulate in New York celebrates Canada Day every year by holding a free concert in Central Park. To ensure there is no conflict with July 4th activities, the show is norally held the weekend before July 1st. For the ninth annual celebration, Toronto-based Apostles of Hustle and Halifax-based Sloan played a four hour set under the blazing sun.

Soriaya, Reiko, Greg and I brought a picnic lunch to the festivities, which included cupcakes from teh 72nd St. bakery. Yum!

32) I am a survivor

I am really starting to feel like I belong here. On the subway, I march to the correct platform, stand at the appropriate place to enter an air-conditioned car, and wrap my arm around a pole for balance whilst I engross myself in my book as the car lurches and squeals about the tracks. The sign that says "FIRE can be caused by garbage on the tracks, please don't litter" or the one that says "RATS eat garbage, please don't litter" no longer intrigue me.


I have a routine in the mornings - the sixth person to shower at 8:40am and I join my roommate Lizzie to catch the 9:30 number 1 South ferry bound train. We exit the train and I buy a 25 cent banana as my mid-morning snack from the vendor on Broadway and 50th. He always wants to give me a plastic bag with my purchase, which I always eschew, and he shakes his head with a laugh. "Okay miss, NOOO bag for you."

At my desk, I line up my breakfast nibbles, my mid morning snack, a mug of coffee, a glass of water and whatever newspapers were still left in the kitchen (the magazine staff start earlier than the .com crowd and deplete both the coffee and newspaper supplies). I read the Associated Press news wires and pick stories for the nation, politics and entertainment pages. I then update the world blogs from journalists in the Middle East and Asia. Then I begin my own little exploration projects for article ideas. My pitch was accepted today and I hope my final article will be ready for next week. I also met my journalism idol for the summer - a half Japanese writer who researchers labour and women's issues at Time. We are going to lunch together next week - I am excited.



---------------------------------

My cousin Ashleigh came to visit this weekend - one of the highlights of my summer. Her infectious energy still lingers in my veins and for that I am happy.
















We wandered around Hell's Kitchen and then down to Time Square where we had a fortuitous
meeting with a caricature sketcher whom she quickly befriended with her rapid-fire mandarin. By the end of our session, we had determined that the best Chinese food in NYC, not prepared in his own kitchen, was to be consumed in Flushing - the last stop on the 7 train to Queens, and NOT in Chinatown as we had been falsely led to believe. He also provided Ashleigh with the phone numbers of his relatives in Beijing.
















------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



During one of my 75-block jaunts home last week, I discovered a delectable Hungarian pastry shop. It is the kind of place one expects to find near a college: a dark interior with angsty student art work adorning the walls; rickety, mismatched wooden furniture and a collection of young wannabe scribes, philosophers and poets decked out in band shirts for groups no one has heard of and social justice causes no one in the mini-van majority will ever support. It serves coffee from chipped cups and the most daringly decadent chocolate mousse and vanilla sponge cake. My friend Greg, a copy editor at Associated Press, and I go there in the evenings if the monstrosity of a Greek-themed Italian gelato and French Patisserie shoppe (that is a whole other story!) is full.

31) Girl in the Big City

This is my city for the next two months: the Big Apple. An endless array of neighbourhoods and pedestrians and stores and noises and smells.

Despite the calamties of the past week, I am eagerly anticipating the exploration adventures to come. Tonight I went to the East Village to meet with friends from McGill, some of whom I have not seen in almost seven years. We ate at a hole in the wall Thai restaurant called Fake Orchid. With enough room to seat 12 persons, the walls were adorned with garlands of psychedlic flowers, neon christmas lights and enough hello kitty memorabilia to stock a small novelty shop. The portions were tiny, so we headed next to a Japanese resturant famous for its large angry panda bear statue with red light bulbs for eyes - oh and its dollar beer. Outside the exit is a cotton candy machine and every patron gets to make their own baton of sugary goodness upon departure.