driving in the city

nyc is a totally different world. there they have cafe's that only have salads as their entrees. there's also a chess district where old men yell "you just jumped from the frying pan into the fire" and "is this a joke?" at each other over and over at 3am. at the nyu bobst library, they even have a handy set of stairs overlooking the library's entrance ten stories below. often used when studying becomes too stressful. but perhaps the most strange (and certainly most annoying) thing is the way drivers there are able to communicate a wide variety of thoughts an emotions simply with their horn. a beep could mean anything from "stop" to "go" or "get out of my lane!" or even "you're pretty good looking, can i have your number?" yup, nothing quite like getting lost in noho at 4am in the morning.

the plan

phase 1:
buy car

phase 2:
??????

phase 3:
girls!!!

movie star

i first spotted her across the street,
standing, staring at nothing at all.
hurriedly i crossed, glad that i had a chance to meet,
such a great star just outside of the mall.

dark strands of hair brushed her rosy cheeks of red,
and skin so fair there was no need to flaunt.
away just yonder her entourage she led,
to lunch at her favorite restaurant.

just off to her left i happily sat.
calvin klein underwear and a bobbing dog's head,
were the topics of this afternoon's chat.
i gazed on her as today's specials menu she read.

as i summoned the courage to ask what dish she would be picking,
she announced that she would of course, have her usual lemon-grass chicken.

upside-down land

australia is kinda strange in some ways...

at dinner last night, i ordered grilled barramundi, which is a type of estuarine fish. when i received my food, i was rather dismayed to see that while the plate containing the food was huge, the fish fillet (pronounced "fill-it" here in australia) was about the size of my fist. unfortunately, i am accustomed to american sized plates of food where if it doesn't provide fifteen hundred thousand calories, it's not a meal. when presented with such a plate, i thought, "this isn't enough for a real man!" and ordered a chocolate and blueberry bread pudding. that came on an equally huge plate, but the actual food turned out to be even smaller that i had imagined. the weird part is that after eating these two smidgens of food, i was so full i felt like falling asleep at the table. maybe a sign of getting old?

after dinner, i called my friend in melbourne to confirm my arrival. however, when i called, i was hardly able to speak because my mind was so completely blown away by the price of the call. i was hoping to talk for a while, but i found that i had but sixteen minutes of talk time on my calling card, which had about ten USD of credit on it. calling the US? no problem. calling australia? that'll cost you.