Date: July 26, 2010
Location: Plattekill, NY
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I want to go to the city. We have been to New York City many times and we have had our first experience of big city exploration during our tenure this summer at the Newburgh/NYC North KOA. If you have suffered through some of my previous blogs you are well aware of our first sojourn into New York City this year. But, I still want to go to the city.
Our first trip was a pure unplanned excursion into Sacce Tag. We just got in our car, set a destination in Sacce and drove a way. Adventure and exploration was truly in the hands of our GPS. Sacce Tag is a great game and a neat way to find treasures that we really did not know we wanted to find. Our next excursion into the city is going to be a little more planned, or structured. I think we are going to take the train. We are going to take the train because we have a slightly more structured reason for our trip and because we have not done that yet. Trains run on a supposed schedule and because of that it means we need to be a little more grown up about our plans.
It was while we were thinking about pretending that we were actually going to have real grown up plans that a simple realization came to my little brain. I realized that being “cosmopolitan” is not a fashionable, chic attitude. It is a reality and a necessity if one lives in or near a large city. The chic denizens of a large metropolis do not eat “fashionably late” because they want to be cosmopolitan. They eat late because that is when they finally can find time and the opportunity to put some food in their tummies.
As we were looking at the schedule for the train and the needs of travel time we found that you can not get anywhere in the city in a timely fashion. The ride into Grand Central Station takes, at least, an hour and a half. You then need to find a subway to the destination in the city that you have chosen. This can take a quarter of an hour or so, and then you need to get to the final point either on foot or some other means of transportation. The city is a big place and nothing is right next door. Our destination on this trip is Ellis Island and that means that we will have to stand in line to buy tickets for the ferry and then stand in another line to board the ferry to get to Ellis Island after the ferry stops at Liberty Island. In short, if we get up at 6:30 am, on our day off, we might be on the island by lunch. That may be bit optimistic, but it is our plan.
I relate this schedule story not to elicit sympathy, but to explain that it takes a lot of time to get anywhere in the city. Because of this, eating late is not cosmopolitan chic it is a cosmopolitan necessity. If you get out of work at 5 or 6 you are not going to be home before 7 or 8 and not eating dinner much before 9 or 10 pm. Chic and stylish just became mundane and necessary. Living in and near a big city takes on a new meaning when you actually experience it yourself. You begin to understand the urgency and pushiness of a big city persona when you understand the reality of a million or so other people trying to be in the exact same spot at the exact same time you have decided to be where ever it is you want to be. They are not being consciously pushy and or arrogant. They are just trying to exist in a jungle that is almost beyond description. When all of the curtains are drawn back and the real wizard becomes visible, we are all just animals trying to eek out an existence to the best of our abilities.
This is not meant to be a negative representation in any form. It is just a reality that a back woods farm boy from upstate had to learn on his own. Fashionably late is not an element of class and sophistication it is a reality of the world as it exist in a big city. Fashionably late is really an element of schedule functionality not of social grace. So if I want to enjoy the multi pleasures offered in a large metropolis, which I do. I will get up at 6:30 am on my day off. I will ride a train for an hour and a half and I will stand in line to board a ferry. I will do that because that is the only way I can get to Ellis Island and there is only one Ellis Island and it is located in the harbor just off the southern tip of Manhattan Island. I will do that because it is there and I am here. I will do that because there is no place else I would rather be tomorrow and there is no place else quite like New York City. Even a hick form the upstate sticks can live the cosmopolitan life style. He can when that is the only life style available.
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