New York to Los Angeles

It was hard to wake up this morning I was so tired. I went to bed at around 1:30am last night and woke up at 7:10am this morning to hop in the shower and decide on what I wanted to wear. I decided on a white dress. Comfortable and cool in this hot humid weather. I've only worn a dress twice on this trip and both times have been when meeting up with Ryan. I thought I'd change for the plane, but decided that the dress was perfect fot the plane ride as well. Subtly in the back of my head, I think that when a girl looks nice she gets treated better by those around her as well, such as the shuttle bus driver or people in the airport...I could be wrong but who knows.

Ryan was late by a half hour, but I didn't mind. I had perched myself on a bench outside on the corner and continued to read Eat Pray Love. Turns out he had stayed at work til about 2:30am so I'm just amazed that he was able to wake up to have breakfast with me at 8am. The fate of a potential wall street disaster has kept people in the financial business working through the weekend and the night. It's a big deal. Lehman Brothers, the 4th largest financial firm in the US will likely be filing for bankruptcy, thanks to the investments in dropping housing market, if nobody buys them out. Barclay has backed out, and BofA took up the opportunity to buy Merril Lynch instead. If Lehman goes down, it is likely that it will take down other financial companies with it and greatly contribute to our economy's recession. So Ryan, along with many others, worked late into the night to do analysis on their files at JP Morgan Chase. I watched CNN news last night and saw people leaving with bags and boxes of stuff from the Lehman Brothers building. That must be tough to be so quickly without a job...just like that.

We walked down to the corner of 57th and 11th and shared french toast and a western omlet at a small diner. The food was pretty good and darn cheap compared to a regular meal in the City. We talked about the banking industry, traveling, and just life. I felt very comfortable around him...it's as if we didn't spend 12 years apart as friends lol. We have a lot in common and I hope he makes an effort to keep in contact as well.

I walked with him to the subway station at Columbus Circle and we split up to go our separate ways. I can kick myself for not getting a picture though. Oh well. Perhaps in the next 12 years eh? On a whim, I headed down to Union Square area taking the 1 and getting off at 18th Street. I walked around and bought some pink roses for Aunt Margaret and picked up a few fruits and a coffee at the farmers market. Aunt Margaret liked the flowers and I put them into a hairspray nalgene bottle for her (LOL) as a vase. Then it was time to pack up, spend some time with Aunt Margaret, and head downstairs to wait for the Blue Shuttle. I'm going to miss New York I thought to myself. For a city, I was relaxed most of the time I was here. I walked a lot, and experienced a lot of the City despite also not doing anything a lot of the time as well. I seem to be good at that...looking like I'm doing absolutely nothing all the time, and yet still being busy going out all the time. An odd mix of extremes.

I'm going to miss Aunt Margaret too. I think she's younger at heart than I am even though she's 81. We have a lot in common and I absolutely loved spending my time and evenings with her. She's got a coop in Queens that I'm considering taking off her hands if I like it. It's too bad that she didn't tell me before so I could have gone to check it out yesterday. Oh well, I'll go check it out next time I'm in New York, which hopefully will be soon. As well as see cousin Jimmy who does IT at a law firm in Manhattan and other family members I might've only met once before. Buying a place on the east coast is somewhat feasible now that the LA house is officially rented as well. Next house after that...Italy. Or Monaco lol.

I slept in the front seat of the full shuttle bus on the way to the airport. I wanted to see the scenery around me as we drove from Manhattan to JFK, but I could not stay awake for the life of me. I was awoken when we got there by Erik's phone call asking for technical elective recommendations in Computer Science. I was so groggy that I couldn't really think straight and I said I'd get back to him lol. The plane ride went smooth, and now I'm back in California. Good ole California...but it's just not New York.