9of.us

Here I am in New Rochelle again. Yesterday held all the greetings: Biff, my mentor, gave me a big hug and talked broken limbs over breakfast, I greeted all my classmates, I got to see Rose (who kissed me) and Darlene and Marvette - my friends who work at the dining hall. I didn’t have any shampoo, so washed my hair with bar soap (it feels very strange to rub a bar of soap on your head).

After all the greetings, it was time to get to work again. And so it will be for the summer.

Traveling here was interesting (in the Minnesotan sense). The 9:30 PM train from Chicago didn’t arrive in South Bend ’till 11PM, and lost more time through Pennsylvania, so arrived in Washington, DC, 2.5 hrs late at 4:25 PM, when my train to New Rochelle was pulling out. So I got a 5:20 train to Penn Station in NY. There’s a lot of water on the East coast. It was lovely.

There are no trains from Penn station to New Rochelle, so I walked out (with my 100+ lb of carryon luggage) into the Times Square area, and tried to figure out what to do. Or rather, gazed at flashing lights and wondered what was going to happen next. Somebody in the line for taxis told me I could take the subway to Grand Central Station, so I walked over to the top of the stairs down to the subway and stood there thinking about how I shouldn’t carry more than 3 lb with my left hand, and each of my suitcases were 50lbs.

I asked a woman standing nearby how far it was to Grand Central Station, and could I walk? She said yes, I could walk, and then got muddled trying to direct me, so decided it would be better if she showed me, and led me down to the subway (”shouldn’t have had that margarita with the girls after work!”). She helped carry, bless her, and got me to a connecting train. In the meantime, she explained she was from Detroit, came here ’cause her boyfriend lived here, and was waitressing on a restaurant boat till she made a break singing jazz and R&B.

I found my connection, and struggled down the stairs to the new subway line. A young Jewish looking man in a Fiddler on the Roof cap watched me come down, and asked if I needed help. He had a thick accent and a kind face, so I explained, and he said he could get me there. He turned out to be from Algeria, his brother had put his name in the lottery for a green card five years ago, and he won, all his family remaining at home. Now he’s an “off the book” salesman. The train took forever to come, and then sat for a long time while we discussed green cards, so we ended up getting off after one stop rather than two. Waited again for another train, and made it to Grand Central Station. He helped get me on the elevator, and shook hands goodbye.

The last train took me to New Rochelle, and a $5 taxi took me to my dorm.