New York - Day 1
Did you know Qantas hand out DIY bondage kits on their international flights? No really - I now have a neat little bag containing ropes, blindfold and miniature dildo. As a bonus, the dildo also unscrews to reveal a hidden toothbrush. Ew.
Also, RotK screening on the movie selection rocks big-time. Way to go Qantas! But what rocks even more is swapping headsets to listen to "The Girl Next Door" (soft porn romantic comedy) while watching the battle scene at Osgiliath. Picture if you will... Faramir looking up at swooping Nazgul: "Nooo... this is all my fault!" Nazgul: "I can't stand this any longer." (flies off-screen) Faramir: "Will you just look at me, dammit?". Much hilarity.
And finally, the first real USA experience on landing in LA airport: a prominent photo of Dubya displayed beside the US flag, for all arriving travellers to see and marvel at. Donald and I exchanged looks but managed to refrain from spitting or flipping the bird at the picture, seeing as such is probably an indictable offense over here in the Land of the Free.
But anti-Bush sentiments aside (and actually, there are plenty of those floating around in Democratic-voting New York City), I'm loving it here so far!
Got up at 6:45am to take the train into New York City today - managed to convince body that it was waking up at 8:45pm after an afternoon nap, so was not really tired. On down side, stomach then decided it must be time for dinner. Damn this jet-lag...
The train through New Jersey state takes an hour and winds past town after quaint American town. The forest is beautiful and quite distinctive - lush, green, but with a different, more exotic feel than the standard European oaks and pines. Each town is really like a small village, with almost-identical weatherboard houses, slightly worn, lining the streets, and a single high street with shops and maybe a church. Except for one town, which had three fairly large churches within sight of the station - called, somewhat unsurprisingly, Brick Church! We also had our first experience of the ubiquitous tipping system when we were given a dime change back from a $20 for train tickets costing $18.90.
We arrived in NYC, Penn Station at 8:35 with plans to go up the Empire State Building early to avoid the crowds. As we approached, however, it became obvious that the top of the spire was completely wreathed in mist (it was already drizzling, so much for summer) and the guard helpfully informed us that we wouldn't see a thing from up there. So we decided to postpone it for a clearer day.
Spent a wide-eyed hour or two walking the streets of midtown Manhattan, spotting such sights as Times Square (neon everywhere, no crickets to be seen) and Broadway (more theatres than you could poke a twirling baton at - fin, I bet you're jealous!), the Chrysler Building, the Rockefeller Centre and the impressively large edifice of St Patrick's Cathedral (in which there are services all Sunday, leaving no real time for us to poke around, play with the organ or test out the acoustic with a bit of Laudate) and Grand Central Station.
By this time we'd walked nearly all the way to the east edge of town, where the United Nations is situated. A one-hour guided tour of the Assembly and Council buildings was well worth the wait in the rain to get in, firstly as it's the only way to actually view the insides of the buildings and chambers, and secondly for the interesting view of world politics provided by the history, activities and operations of the UN.
Then it was time for lunch, so we headed downtown to the 2nd Avenue Deli, apparently a famous landmark and lunch spot (since it was written up in all three of the tourist guides I bought to read on the plane!) in what was the old Jewish quarter of town; now the only shop along that strip still under its original trading name. Also apparently suffering somewhat from Lonely Planet Syndrome, or just its general famousness, as there was a queue stretching down the block to get in. Luckily, a table for two is rather easier to obtain than a table for seven, so we weren't waiting too long, and the matronly woman taking the waiting list (an archetypal American Jewish woman, straight out of US literature!) brought free samples of food out for everyone waiting, which made it considerably easier to endure!
Well. Everything you've heard about American food is true. Before we'd even ordered, our tiny table was packed to the edges with a big bowl of coleslaw, a dish containing six each of two types of pickled cucumber, and a plate full of rye bread and challah. (And this was for two of us! Do they really expect people to eat six pickles each? SIX?) Having made the pilgrimage to this famous New York kosher deli, I felt obliged to try some traditional kosher and deli food. Being used to understanding everything on the menu in the Melbourne restaurants I normally frequent, from okonomiyaki to gaeng daeng to lardons and bastourma, I was somewhat baffled by a menu full of items such as "kasha vardeshkes", "kreplach" and "knish", none of which I was familiar with. However, our immensely friendly waiter (gosh I love the tipping system here, service has never been better!) was only too happy to answer all my questions and even bring me a sample of the above-mentioned kasha to try - it's farfalle pasta with buckwheat grains, for those who are as ignorant as I was; an odd concept (grains with more grains), but quite tasty. Eventually I ended up with a soup/sandwich combo - a plate of matzoh ball soup, featuring one immense matzoh dumpling the size of a tennis ball, melting and tasty in a fragrant broth, plus a half-sandwich (tuna salad), New York deli-style. And in New York, sandwiches are as much larger than life as everything else: a good four inches high, and filled solid with tuna salad, plus some token lettuce to make you feel healthy. The pastrami sandwiches I saw others ordering were piled just as high with sliced meat (think 15 or so layers of pastrami!), and let's not even mention the double decker sandwiches, with as much again of corned beef on top of that!! While at home a bowl of soup and half-sandwich would be a nice satisfying, not-too-heavy lunch, this one had me swearing I'd never eat again before I was more than half done. I reckon those matzoh balls expand in your stomach... Meanwhile Donald made a brave effort with a giant turkey burger, served with just as giant a serve of fries (still called French fries on the menu, Congress notwithstanding).
So, I feel like I've had a true New York eating experience now. If only my stomach would return to normal size...
It just so happens that Kate's choir, Schola on Hudson, was having a concert today in Jersey City. Guess what they were performing? of course, Carmina Burana. So after lunch it was off to Jersey City via the Path train for my second CB in just over a week.
We managed to cope with the rather uninformative public transport system which told us which stations we could travel to but not where they were in terms of anything else (such as where we wanted to get to!) and arrived at the concert just a bit too late to get in for O Fortuna, but snuck in after Omnia Sol Temperat. The performance, with 30 singers (and only five basses, a la MonUCS, except that these basses were mostly competent solo singers in their own right and thus rather better equipped to deal with Carmina on their own!), percussion and pianos in a church (first time I've heard of CB in a church...), was completely different to the SUMS 120-voice symphony orchestra extravaganza of last weekend. In fact, not only the scale of the work but the interpretation was distinctive, with many tempos much slower than one usually hears - somewhat disappointingly, in many cases. This led to a somewhat less exciting CB than normal (IMO), although the choir performed commendably. A particular highlight (and again unlike the SUMS concert!) were the baritone solos, which were shared amongst a number of members of the choir. This gave the flexibility to choose the right type of voice for each piece, unlike the normal challenge of finding a bass who can make both the richness of Omnia Sol Temperat, the vocal acrobatics of Si Puer Cum Puellula and the virtuosic highs of Estuans Interius sound equally convincing. In fact, the latter movement was particularly good, added to by the dramatic acting out of the text by the singer.
We joined the choir for dinner after the performance, tried to convince them to tour to Australia for MIV, and had a rather interesting discussion about Australian choral music - one of the choristers, hearing where we were from, said "Oh I know some Australian music - who's that composer who writes all the Aboriginal music?" Me: "Uh-oh..." Yes, Stephen Leek is our sole representative of Australian (and indigenous!!!) music amongst average choristers here in New Jersey. Oh, the shame.
More hearteningly, though, the choir director was very positive about Australian choral works, and when we mentioned Past Life Melodies (thinking that this is the Australian piece that seems to appeal most to US choirs), she was diffident to say the least - I think her exact words were something like "I've conducted it five times and that was three times too many." We hastened to assure her that Sarah Hopkins is not representative of most Australian choral music.
Anyway, plans tomorrow include Statue of Liberty, WTC site and Brooklyn Bridge, so I'd better go to bed and get some sleep...