May 15, 2006: Dominica Moves to NJ, First Evening in NYC

It was hard to get back onto the normal work week schedule this morning. I got to work around 9:00. Dominica left Frankfort around 9:30 and decided to go east to US 87 and to come south down past NYC and to come into New Jersey from the North East. This was the first time that either of us was attemting that route.

I had a busy day at work and didn’t manage to get lunch until quite late. That ended up working out really well as Min made it to the office just as I was ready for lunch so she and Oreo picked me up at the office and we went into Warren to eat at the Thai House.

I got home at 7:30 and we decided that we really needed to get out the door and make an attempt at getting into Manhattan tonight so that Dominica would be able to see what she needs to do to get to her interview there on Wednesday. She is really nervous about riding the trains and wanted me to walk her through it before she had to do it on her own. So we drove out to New Brunswick to catch the train. We learned that the station really close to us, Jersey Avenue, only allows boarding during commuting hours in the morning for going into the city so it is useful for work but not useful for going in in the evenings. So we had to drive into our local city to catch the train.

It took us about forty five minutes by the time we figured out where we needed to go, how to park, how to get tickets, etc. We just missed the 8:21 train and ended up having to take the 8:54 which was running a few minutes late. The ride into Penn Station was about 55 minutes or maybe a little longer. The train stops in Newark and at the airport along the way which is really handy.

We got into Penn Station and had to figure out how to get to the subway. It is a little confusing but not too bad. We finally figured out how to get onto the A Train Express to Downtown. We hopped that and road to Canal Street. That took another twenty minutes or so. Not too bad but not great either.

The subway dropped us off on Canal and it was only about a ten or maybe a fifteen minute walk westwardly over to Greenwich and then down to the office where Min will be interviewing on Wednesday. It was pretty late, just coming up on 11:00, and everything in the area was closed. People can say all that they want about New York and specifically Manhattan being the “City That Never Sleeps” but the reality is that NYC is an absurdly early closing city. For a city its size there should be fifty times the late night ammenities that there are. So we decided just to walk right back to the subway and ride back up to Penn Station and maybe eat there.

We got to Penn Station right as they were boarding the train for New Brunswick and the next one wasn’t going to come along for another hour so we ran for it and got right on foregoing dinner. It was another hour back out to New Brunswick and then we had to drive home. It was really late but we were both pretty hungry.

We stopped at the Omega Diner on Route 1 since they are open twenty-four hours a day. The place was packed with college kids. Rutgers is very close. We ate dinner and then got back to the apartment. Oreo had been alone for a very long time at this point and was very glad when we got in. But he was a good boy and hadn’t made any mess in the house while we were gone. At least none that we found.

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