Moving and Eating

Today we got up and had to move me into my residence hall at the School of Visual Arts. My place is brand new and five blocks from Michelle. We moved my stuff from her room using the large moving bins from her hall. It’s a little nerve recking rolling your most important belongings five blocks down 3rd avenue. This experience finally gave me the feeling that I was in NYC and a part of their odd society.

During the afternoon we settled in and met up for dinner. Again, we took the advice of our list from Cindy and Misha and went to the New Chao Chow in, you guessed it, Chinatown. Walking through Chinatown was fun because of all of the stands on Canal with all kinds of stuff. The best were these older women selling illegal copies from China of movies currently in the theater here. They would try to do it inconspicuously without much success. The restaurant was great, we finally felt like we were taking in what the city has to offer.

After dinner we took a walk through Little Italy, Michelle loved this. One thing I loved was the old buildings with awesome craftsmanship on the exterior, some probably 100 years old. On Mulberry Street, there are little Italian restaurants lined onto the sidewalk for about 6 blocks as well as stands with knock-off sunglasses and purses. We went into one place with these items and something was just unsettling about it. The main seller was clearly a New York Italian who gave me the sense that you didn’t want to cross her. Real Italians would stand on the street and attempt to give you a menu to check it out, they were charming. On the other hand, carnies at carnival game stands were not. They had people giving out free tries to rope you into playing their game. I had some fun taking the try and then not giving them the satisfaction of paying to try again. After this we got back on the 6 at Spring Street and went back to relax.

-George and Michelle the New Yorkers

Chinatown from Canal and Mott

New Chao Chow on Mott just north of Canal

Eating beef in scrambled eggs at New Choa Chow

Mulberry Street in Little Italy

An old building on Mulberry Street