Cross Country Road Trip- USA

We finally get into New York and are trying to locate Jen's cousin's residence somewhere uptown. Anyhow, of course we couldn't find any parking, so we parked our car in a garage for the night (cost: $40!) and lugged our stuff up to her cousin's apartment.

As soon as we took a much needed shower, we knocked out until 9pm. I woke up just as Mike called me, chatted for a bit and then got ready to head out for dinner.

Charlene, Jen and I took the metro to East Village and ate at Yaffa, a really cool Euro-Asian deco-style cafe. I had their yummy, but salty, crab pasta, Jen had their salmon tortellini and Charlene had the miso black cod.

After dinner, Jen took me to Veneiro's for their famed fruit tart. We chilled there and enjoyed every bite of the yummy dessert.

After Veneiro's, Jen and I bought some watermelon and decided to go to a bar and hang. We started eating our watermelon and by the time we finished, we didn't feel like ordering a beer anymore. So, we just ended up leaving.

We are such party animals.

Since our feet started to hurt from our shoes, we decided not to walk to Washington Square. Instead, we went to Union Square and hung out smoking a cigarette and just chatting.

A rasta comes up to us and asks if he could bum a smoke off us. We are the sharing type, so we give him one. He starts chatting with us and telling us about his life and the poems he writes, so we decide we'd continue hanging out with him for awhile.

Jah'maine tells us we should go home and change and meet him back at Union Square and he'd go get some smokes for us. We gladly oblige.

True to his word, he arrived with some. Jen and I were enjoying our surrounding and Jah'maine was talking a mile a minute while his friend was muttering something incoherent under his breath. All I could remember was that I was glad when Jah'maine turned his attention to Jen. I just wanted to be left alone to enjoy my night.

At around 5am, Jordan, the whiz kid chess player comes by with some halal chicken. It smelled so good that I had to run across the street and buy some.

Around 6am, this little kid comes up to us with a Chinese menu inserted inside his Mad Magazine. He's like "Hey, there's this new Chinese restaurant! Check out their menu". He was really adorable so I took a look and it was pretty funny. It had items listed as "Baby corn with adoption papers" and "Unfortunate Cookies"..."Squid with wheels". The kid kept going up to random people telling them to read the menu and telling 'Your Mama's So Fat' jokes.

At this point, a bum (he's wearing a wig made out of what looks like shredded tickets, aluminum foil for stockings, and sandals and socks with the toes cut off them) walks up to me and asks "What's that you're eatin?" "Umm... halal chicken....do you want the rest of it?" I offer.

"Where'd you get that from?" "I got it from that vendor over there" I point across the street. "Nah, I don't eat anything from the carts. Don't you go eatin' anything from the carts now, you hear?"

Apparently, beggars can be choosers.

As the sun began to rise, he pulled up his aluminum foil wrappings around his shins and trudged off into the distance. But not before the little boy tried to get him to look at his 'Chinese Menu'. "Squid with wheels?!" the bum snorts, 'Uh uh, that don't sound good!'

At this point, there were a bunch of Jah'maine's friends that had come to join us. We were all crackin' up and just havin' a good ol' time. At 6am, Jen and I took the metro back uptown and didn't wake up again til noon.

After having lunch, Jen and I went to pick up our car and I got to drive around New York for a little bit before heading for Maine. I really like driving in New York. It's very hectic and crazy, but fun.

We drive into Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and then, finally into Maine 6 hours later. The drive was amazing and very scenic.