New York and Two Nights of Dreams

So, I've recently returned from New York City, which I visited with my dad, Heather, and Hope for the first time (my dad was the only one who had ever been before). We left late on Wednesday night and arrived at JFK Airport around midnight. A friendly cab driver named Carlos drove us to our Sugar Hill/Harlem Bed and Breakfast in a fancy car that begins with an "M" that I cannot remember the name of right now. Our first view of the city was of the buildings all lit up at night and an empty black sky above, as though all of the life throbbing in the city below had devoured the starlight. It was cold in New York City, but not much colder than it was in Winston-Salem - if anything, the wind was a bit sharper (I wore a scarf the entire time we were there, which is strange for me because I don't like to feel fabric around my neck). Carlos dropped us off in front of our brick residence, which could be accessed by climbing a set of about five stairs bordered by an iron rail. Beneath these stairs, not easily seen from the sidewalk, was an iron door, through which one could access the key to the rooms inside if you had the combination given by the owner of the Bed and Breakfast in an email, which thankfully, Heather had. Grabbing the keys and some suitcases, we opened the heavy wooden door and entered the tiny antechamber of the building. We passed the living room and hurried upstairs to our room, which I think was called "Nina's Room." Each of the rooms was dedicated to famous jazz performers - for example, one room was "Ella's Room." I'm not sure who Nina is - Alexis probably knows. Our door was the first at the top of the stairs, and within it, there were two beds, a King and a twin, with a bed beneath the twin which could be pulled out and set up. The twin bed rested against the wall and the window, and directly opposite this bed was a blue, intense painting of Miles Davis where his eyes were very wide. My dad immediately noticed this, being a fan of Miles Davis, and remarked that he would be staring at me as I slept (I would be taking the twin bed). Apart from the bedroom, there was also a bathroom. Downstairs was a "common" area, which consisted of a living room/computer room, and a den. On the basement level, there was a kitchen area, and the remainder of the floors contained bedrooms. So, after exploring the premises with Hope, we put on our pajamas and went to bed, expecting to be woken around 8:00 in the morning for breakfast in the main house of the Bed and Breakfast, which was about five blocks away from where we were staying. So, in the morning, we all showered and headed over so that we could meet the owner of the Bed and Breakfast, Jeremy Archer, in person. He was a pleasant, middle-aged, thin, bald man with a British accent and low voice. The main room that we saw in the main house was the dining room/den, in which there was a table/chairs and couches, respectively. Up on the mantle were variously colored and shaped vases, and interesting paintings hung about. A variety of music was always playing in the background, and on the table was a glass container of philosophy - there were little sheets of paper with quotes on them. The one that I remember read, "I'm not afraid of death; I'm afraid of eternal life." I do not know the speaker of the quote. Jeremy made really delicious scones; they were sort of cheesy and had a bit of spice to them. He also had a gray cat, named Smokey, about whose gender Hope and I quarreled that first day. I kept referring to the cat as a "him," while she constantly corrected me, saying, "It could be a girl," at which point I asserted myself, saying, "Nah, I think that there's something decidedly masculine about this cat." When Jeremy returned from the kitchen after the fifth time that this happened, I asked him the gender of the cat and he replied nonchalantly that Smokey was a female. The decidedly-male cat had tricked me! That same morning, we were joined at the breakfast table by an elderly but sprightly couple whom we initially guessed were also from England. They told us that they were, but that they had moved to Toronto, and that this was their first time visiting the city as well. Their names were Diana and Derrick, and Derrick reminded me of the butler from "The Dark Knight," while Diana was super-nice and friendly. I desperately wanted to ask them, upon their mention of Toronto, if they had gone to the museum and seen the chair there and all that, but I restrained my inner dork, intending to bring it up the next time that we talked to them. Unfortunately, the next time that we saw them was the last time, as we were going out the door of the main building on our last day there.
Anyways, after breakfast that morning, we purchased metro cards and traveled on the D train to the middle of town with the intent of visiting the biggest toy store in the world, FAO Schwartz. Hope was particularly excited about this trip, and had been talking about it for weeks - she had $100 to spend, and I knew that it was burning a hole in her pocket. Halfway there, we passed a gorgeous cathedral that was open to the public, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and so we stopped inside to take a look. All around the perimeter of the cathedral were exhibits dedicated to various saints. After that, we finally made it to FAO Schwartz, which was packed with parents and children. Hope and Heather went scouting in the doll section, while my dad and I wandered around the first floor for a while, looking for potential toys for Kalyn. I eyed some of my favorites, decided to keep them in mind for later, and headed upstairs in search of the Big Piano which is featured in the movie "Big." Sure enough, after meandering through action figures and bath toys and Barbies, I caught a glimpse of a sign at the end of the hallway which read, "Big Piano," and I could see kids hopping across the floor. I led my dad over there and was immensely excited to get onto the piano and perhaps try to play some Beethoven. I was finally let in with about eight little kids (I was the only one there over the age of ten, I'll bet), and as I tried to pick out a tune, I found myself unable to hear the black notes very well over the racket of eight people jumping on the piano simultaneously (the black keys didn't light up like the others, and so you couldn't even pretend to hear them). After a couple minutes of feeling silly, I grabbed my shoes and left the piano. My dad and I were about to leave to meet up with Hope and Heather when the two supervisors, a tall blond man named Robert and a rosy-faced girl named Melissa, cleared the piano floor and announced that they were going to do a mini-concert. They performed the two songs that were played in "Big," as well as a couple of other songs which were pretty amazing to watch. Their grand finale, which they made us shout "Encore!" for, ended up being an arrangement of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," which was absolutely amazing, particularly how they accomplished it with their feet. After this, we found the others; Hope had purchased a $56 doll named Tess, who was equipped with two ballerina outfits. We moved back downstairs and I decided to get Kalyn a microplush elephant hand puppet, who was quickly named Murray Perahia after Murray Perahia the pianist, who was born in the Bronx and who had the same eyes and facial expression as the elephant. We went across the street to a restaurant called "Pop Burger," and then met up with my dad's friend Dave outside of the toy store. The last time I had seen Dave was when I was eight years old - I had no memory of his appearance, though he seemed to become familiar as I watched his mannerisms. I remarked later in the trip that he reminded me of Disney's depiction of Dickens' ghost of Christmas present, for the sole reason that he was always laughing about something or other, seemed always to be filled with mirth. He led us around for a while, sight-seeing, and Hope hung on him the entire time and seemed to be completely enamored of him. That night, I believe, we went to Grand Central Station, which was filled with booths where people sold things to tourists. That day began my quest for a reasonably-priced flapper hat, because I had encountered just such a hat earlier that day that I had haggled down to $25, but I felt like I could do better than that. However, as I found that night at Grand Central, $25 is quite a reasonable price in New York City. I found what I was looking for on the last day, at a booth in Brian Park - $25. A violinist played partitas, Christmas music, and such outside of the booths, and I gave him $2. Once you ventured into the big central space of the station, where you could branch out to different hallways depending on your purpose for being there, it was as though the sky opened - because on the ceiling, there was painted a depiction of the night sky above, with the constellations and everything, and a couple of pictures of angels dotted among the stars. The first thing that I thought of upon seeing this ceiling was the ceiling of the Great Hall in the Harry Potter series. It was a beautiful thing to behold. For dinner that night, we ate at a sushi place and the affair of dining lasted for about 2 hours. Hope passed out next to her mother in the booth, and my dad and Dave reminisced (not so fondly) about their college days at Wake Forest. My dad played the psychologist and talked about Dave's anger issues that he dealt with back in college and their connections with drinking and such. Heather mainly listened and occasionally said, "And this, Robyn, is how not to be in college." After dinner, Hope was roused by the mentioning of Pop Tart World, which was near to our location in Times Square. We walked over there and made delicious custom Pop Tarts with our choice of icing and decorations on them (I had a strawberry milkshake pop tart with vanilla icing and chocolate chips). After this, we returned to our room and slept. The next morning, though we were tired, we had slept in, and therefore did not have time to dine with Jeremy and the other tenants (I was disappointed about this because of the conversation that I wanted to have with Derrick and Diana). Instead, we had our breakfast at the Dunkin' Donuts that was near our subway entrance. I had my first bagel in New York that day and it was scrumptious. After that, we took the subway to Macy's, where we traveled to the eighth floor with the intention of visiting Santa Claus. We were initially going to abandon this exploit because of the sheer length of the line, which curved multiple times about a strange train which ended up being a hallway to the North-Pole designed room that wound around to the room with Santa Claus in it, however I am glad that we did not because the wait was certainly worth it (and the line moved relatively fast owing to the fact that there were clones of Santa on duty as well, or so I would guess). After finally reaching the room with Santa Claus, I joined Hope on his lap as was promised after she gave him a huge hug. When he asked her what she wanted, she said a whole list of things, "A baby doll, a telescope, a Ken doll, a scooter. . ." He nodded and said, "I'll see what I can do." And then he turned to me and asked me what I wanted. I said, "May I please have the Glenn Gould recording of Beethoven's 12th and 13th Sonatas?" and he said, "I'll definitely have to see about that one!" Then, some of the elves took pictures, and we were free to exit and collect our photos. We then met Dave near Wall Street, which he guided us through, telling us interesting things about each of the buildings (he knew a lot about the area because his residence is located there). We took a picture of my father near the statue of the bull which is supposed to represent a strong market, and we walked over to a small water-side park from which we could gaze at the Statue of Liberty. While we were there, Hope invested in a Matroyshka doll, and either shortly before or after that, we dined at a little Italian place where I tasted New York pizza for the first time. It was tasty. That day, Dave said something that has made me think a little bit. I said something about how I prefer jogging to team sports and he said, "You know, Robyn, I was reading an astrology book - and it classified all of the weeks of the year by a title, and I found the the title for our week of the year was very accurrate. Our week is called 'The Week of the Loner.'" I was initially unsure of whether this was a good thing or not, but then I decided that it was rather accurrate, considering that I am often content to do things alone. In fact, things are less awkward that way. That night, we dined at a very fancy Italian place, seated at Katie Couric's table, no less, and went to the NYCB's production of the "Nutcracker" immediately afterward over at the Lincoln Center. It was absolutely amazing - I thought that the choreography, especially at the beginning during the family scenes, was brilliant, and I remarked several times throughout the show that George Ballanchine is the bomb.com. Unfortunately, the poor candy-cane man with the hula hoop didn't make it through the hoop the last time and we felt very sad for him. The next day, we dined with Jeremy again, though we didn't see Derrick and Diana until we were going out of the door. We went ice skating at Brian Park (and I found my brown flapper hat), where they played excellent music (Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Buble). I wondered why they didn't play this music at the Annex when they have ice skating there. After ice skating, we dined at a place called Sarabeth's, where I had a pleasant conversation with a man and his daughter Genevieve while we were waiting to be seated. This restaurant was right across the street from Central Park, and so after lunch, we went riding through the park on a horse-drawn carriage while our Irish horse-driver told us things about the park that I couldn't understand because of his accent and his distance from me. Our horse was named Oscar and he was gray and dappled. After the ride, we walked a good distance to the Museum of Natural History, which we walked through for about an hour. My dad and Heather had quarreled, and so he was unable to focus through the whole museum; we spent the most time in the Rose Center for Earth and Space, which I found to be the most interesting part by far. We spent the rest of that night in the room at the Bed and Breakfast, where Hope and I played with Murray and Tess, read some Junie B. Jones, and watched Elf. Downstairs, a wild bridal party was being thrown by the co-owner of the Bed and Breakfast, Bernadette. This distressed my dad and Heather, because we were to wake up at 3 in the morning so that we could board our return flight at 6:00. This wild party did not end until 10:45, at which point we had been trying to sleep for about an hour. We were very grumpy people the following morning, though, luckily, we were able to find a cab to drive us to the airport as opposed to taking a series of subway trains. There were two flights to get home, but we finally did, and it was a sweet experience to return, even though it was still very cold outside.
Whew. My fingers are twitching now.
To the dreams! The first one I had was from two nights ago, our last night in the Bed and Breakfast. I dreamt that I was giving these large gaudy roses to my teachers for presents. I dropped one in Mr. James' office and happened to run into Dr. Moss outside of the Arts Building, where I presented him with his rose. Then, I was in Ms. Freitag's room, and I had decided to give her a glass mosaic-y sort of bowl instead of a rose. She scolded and made fun of me halfway through class for having it on my person - and told the class that it was distracting me from math, and this was why I was having issues in her class. At the end of the class, I informed her that it was her present and stormed from the classroom without waiting to see her response.
The next interesting dream that I had was from last night, and it contained two parts. The first part seemed to consist of a disturbing, detailed accound of a lynching, which we had to write a report about for school. In the next part of the dream, my friend Aaron invited me over to his house for dinner, and his mother had prepared this lasagna with pears in it. I could tell, in the dream, that a large part of her impression of me depended on my response to her cuisine, and I dreaded eating the lasagna because I already knew that I wouldn't like it. That was the end of my dreams from that night.