Drinkall And The City: Getting There

There was no grand entrance to the Centro Maria Residence. The taxi turned the corner of 10th ave, coming up to 539 54th street and the driver mumbled in broken English, “Here ye is.” No clue where he was from, no clue what he was saying, no clue how I survived the drive. I handed him my $10, letting him keep the $4 tip, mostly because I didn’t want to take the time to wait for change and awkwardly hand him $2 or something. (I would come to care, though in 3 weeks time, when I had to use my credit card for an iced coffee due to lack of change.) Whatever.

I struggled up the stairs of the all-women’s residence, lifting my three-wheeled (fourth fell off), overweight suitcase with all of my might. When I entered the forest green-walled and copper furnished lobby, a young sister greeted me and told me I had to wait in the tea room for the main sister to finish up at mass. I followed her down the hall and patiently sat for half and hour in a large, classroom-like room. It was dim in the room; a map of the world (arguably the size of the world…really, it was huge) plastered on the wall ahead of me; the sound of birds chirping and little kids playing off in the distance coming through the cracked window. A slight breeze was blowing in and it felt just like the calm Sunday morning that it was. I thought I was in New York City?

I was sitting on the forest green couch closest to the door when the littlest, sweetest nun came in. She gave me a hug, as I was awkwardly prepared for the handshake thing, and I was so thrilled about this for two reasons. One, because goodness how sweet, and two, because she was actually shorter than me! Who would’ve thought…

I took a tour of the entire building, leaving my monstrosity of a suitcase in the elevator. After observing the various study rooms, dormitories, and dining room, I came upon room 212. A single about the size of my double at Saint Mary’s, I was pretty pleased. The sister closed the door, reminding of the option to attend lunch at 1:00 and smiled and said, “welcome.” 

I never spent too much time in the convent while I was in the city. I kept myself pretty occupied throughout the day and was ready to collapse by the time I got back to my room. (Of course…all before 11:30 at night.) So what’s the deal with that? Basically, I had a curfew. 11:30 on the weekdays, midnight on the weekends. Honestly, it wasn’t too much of a struggle considering the fact that as a 20-year old, 5’2 (and a half), blonde female…there really was no need for me to be out past that time by myself. The issue came when I would have to leave places super early in order to be back before curfew time. I never was late, though and I successfully managed to stay out of trouble. Yay.

The good thing about the time restrictions was that, if you told the nuns in advance, you were allowed to stay the night out, which I did a couple times with my fellow Louis Vuitton-interning Belle and bestie, Gina. Honestly, it could have been worse. Curfews aren’t all that bad.

The afternoon I got there, I decided to test out how I would be getting to work each morning. Well thank goodness I decided to do this prior to the morning because it was one experiment of trial and error…mostly error. Before we go any further, I would just like to point out that in the span of three weeks, I rode the subway a total of two times. Once as an errand out to Brooklyn for my internship and the second time, to accompany Gina on mission impossible. I never got to ride the subway by myself (bummer). However, I think one of New York’s best kept secrets is the bus system. Seriously, it’s fantastic and if you feel like dropping a few bob on transportation, Uber is also a phenomenal option. Nothing quite like the Uber experience… but for work purposes, the bus it was.

I found the bus stop closest to where I was living thanks to a lady I met at the convent. I figured out the bus times and waited patiently for the bus to come. My goal was to figure out what would give me plenty of time to get down to Greenwich Village, where I would be working everyday. Hard knock life, I know. (I was living in midtown, which is about a 45 minute walk away.) Well, first off, the bus was about five minutes late, so I made a mental note of that.When I walked up to the bus, I was a bit concerned when I saw everyone swiping their metro cards. Okay, so they’re all real New Yorkers and I feel so out of place oh my gosh okay wait he just threw in some coins, okay it’s fine. So I hand the bus driver my $3, expecting him to hand me .50 cents and let me on the bus. Yeaaaahhh. No. He looked at me like I literally had twenty heads and basically screamed at me, letting me know that the bus only takes coins. DUH.

My confused self and I step to the side of the bus as others got on, and I rummaged through my bag to find $2.50 in coins. It was taking forever and the bus driver seemed so angry, so I just got off and embarrassingly sat on the bench, probably really, really red. As the m9 drove off and I counted out some change for the next one, I made another mental note to stop by the bank in the morning and get a couple rolls of coins. 

When I arrived in Greenwich, I was taken aback at just how gorgeous the neighborhood was. The cobblestone streets, the beautiful steps up to each home, and the oak trees lining the streets all took my breath away. These are the steps every blogger talks about! 

I found the beautiful home I would be working out of no problem and decided to take a walk along the Hudson, just a couple blocks down Horatio. Enthusiastic runners, obsessed dog-lovers, and tanning teenagers filled up the Hudson River Park. I couldn’t help but smile at the leisure time people thrived off of on the edge of such a hectic city. I walked all the way down to the Freedom Tower which absolutely blew me away. I had visited the 9/11 memorial many times before, but each time it just feels so different. There always seems to be a new name on the walls.

I decided to walk back to 54th street for timing experiment purposes and to practice walking with a purpose. Believe me, I learned pretty quickly as I passed Port Authoriy bus terminal. Another mental note: take a few extra minutes to walk up to 5th ave rather than 9th the whole way. Walk down when you reach 54th, Hannah. I made it back in time to get my room situated and prepare for my first day of work.

As I closed my eyes, I felt accomplished. I’m in New York City all by myself with no air conditioning but I have a fan and it’s going to be okay.

The loneliness had yet to hit me.

Photos provided by the author.

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