Clearly not a New Yorker

Bolt Bus was amazing. I slept a little, played Text Twist a little, watched a movie, browsed CNN.

The bus ran a car off the road. By "ran," I mean the bus had its blinker on and it was changing lanes and in the middle of changing lanes, a car tried to pass us. WHO DOES THAT. I am pretty sure, unless you stole a tank from the army, no vehicle trying to pass a bus changing lanes is going to win. Well obvi that car had to swerve onto the shoulder as the bus driver pulled our bus, safely, back into the original lane.

30 minutes later, I glance out the window and laugh at the cars stuck in traffic... until I SEE A CAR EXPLODE. IN THE MIDDLE OF 95! This red sedan just blows up and is burning up and flames are everywhere and police cars have held traffic back. I look around because I want to yell "OMG THAT CAR EXPLODED THAT'S AMAZING" like that kid from The Incredibles. Too bad NO ONE ELSE is awake/paying attention.

Still later, Mr. Chocolate (our silky voiced driver), asks a passenger to take a picture of another Bolt Bus. He acted like he'd never seen one before. Not a good sign.

Other people on the bus around me:

Woman mid-breakup - This woman sat in front of me and from the moment we got on to the moment we got off, she was on her laptop working on the SAME EMAIL. FOR 5 HOURS. How do I know this? Because she'd type a little. Pause and close her laptop and stare out the window. Then open the laptop and delete what she had written and rewrite a new one. I know it sounds creepy, but I could see the reflection in the window. It wasn't like I intentionally kept checking the window/the reflection to see what she was doing. Or anything like that.

Man reading sci-fi - This guy gets on the bus and passes out in 30 seconds with his stupid iPod nano blasting. Then he pulls out his iPhone and starts playing with it. And then he shuts everything off and reads this book with spaceships and aliens on the cover. By the time we get to NYC, he has read the entire thing.

Idiot behind me - Keeps answering his phone really loudly. We pass a sign that says "Welcome to Delaware" and he says on the phone, "Dude, I just woke up. No, I didn't plan to fall asleep. Where are we? 95. Wait, wait. Here's a sign. We're at Dover Newark. Wait, no. That's an exit. We're near Dover Newark." Then as we're about to enter the Lincoln Tunnel. "I can see the skyline. Now we're entering a tunnel. I don't know where this is. There's a lot of traffic. A tunnel."

FAST FORWARD - I get off the bus and walk to the subway. I need to refill my metrocard. I push the buttons on the machine, it says insert card, I shove my card into the machine... and jam it. It's too far in to pull out, and the machine is not accepting it. Instead, the screen keeps flashing "INSERT CARD." There's no cancel button, there's no back button. There's nothing I can do but awkwardly stand there until the people behind me go to other machines. The whole time, I am pretending to buy a metrocard. I take out my credit card, pretend to swipe, and stand so that my body and baggage obstruct the flashing screen. As soon as it gets less crowded, I move to the machine next to me.

As I go through the turnstile, I understand that I cannot carry my kit bag to my side and expect to make it through. Somehow, in my mind, I believe that I can force it through. Like a running headstart and just pop out on the other side. My running headstart ends poorly because my bag gets caught and I end up semi-getting the wind knocked out of me. I struggle. Most people can work their way free. No, I have to have someone help me out with a nice push.

Fab.

Dumpling Man NYC style

I really like Marco and Luca's in Charlottesville. The dumplings are juicy and pan fried so the outside has this seared crisp layer. Then you sink your teeth through the dough into a ball of mouth watering and well seasoned pork. The sauce it comes with is this mix of soy, hot chili, and possibly hoisin. I've never questioned the ingredients because my mouth has always been crammed full of food.

I swear, this isn't all about food. After Chinatown, Big really wanted some dumplings from the Dumpling Man, a little food place we found online. Somehow, probably because the word "dumpling" is in the store name, Big thought the Dumpling Man was in Chinatown.

No. Wrong. So wrong. My backpack is crammed full of baked goods, I'm sweating through my shirt, I'm stumbling down the street in a dehydrated state listening to Big ramble on and on about how she doesn't like sweat, when this group of guys hollers at us. I am now 2 for 2 for being hollered at in a city I'm visiting. He calls out, "Hey sugar." When we don't respond, he uses another name. I don't remember what it was. Something not as appetizing as "sugar." Like "salt" or something.

The only reason I remember "sugar" is because Big and I debated who was who. I insisted I was sugar. She could be salt or spice or taco or whatever he called her. My trump card was that I already had a prison name so I had more street cred than she'll ever have. "Scrumptious" makes me more gangster than anyone else I know.

We walked past NYU's campus and through what has been referred to as a very trendy area. Let me tell you, my seersucker = sooooo in right now based on all the looks I got.

The Dumpling Man is actually pretty small. You can order at the to-go window or go inside and sit down. It's kind of like bar sitting. Stools and a high bar are along one wall, and chairs and a low bar are on the other side of the room in front of the dumpling makers. Big and I ordered and sat right in front of the dumpling makers to watch these classy Asian ladies at work. We got steamed vegetable dumpling, daily special vegetable dumpling, daily special meat dumpling, and this pumpkin pie batch of four.

They were alright. The pumpkin pie batch was so rich and thick and sweet and I could only have one. Big decided she wanted more and since she had got the first round, I went to get the second.

Here is the completely unrelated to food part - the guy taking our orders was very... nonchalant about everything. He wasn't really focused and was a poor listener and just terrible. He had a very hipster lady friend come in and the whole time I was ordering, she kept looking me up and down in what I considered a very judging way. I ignored her and sat back down. Big insisted that the "judging" look I saw was really her checking out my butt. I knew these seersucker shorts = magic.

I needed to go to the bathroom, so I headed to the sketchy back area. It was a one room bathroom for both men and women. I did my business and when I tried to flush, it wouldn't go. Most people, as I have learned from others telling me I'm an idiot, would have just left. I wanted to fix it. I lifted up the back of the toilet and noticed the water level was down. I turned on the faucet and started scooping water from the sink to the toilet. In the process, water was splashing everywhere. All over the floor, the toilet, the walls, the trash can... and the sink wasn't draining as fast as the water was coming out, so then that overflowed.

At this point, I'd only gotten like... 3 cm of water into the back of the toilet. I see a 409 bottle and decide that is perfect. I unscrew the top, dump the 409 in, and try to fill the empty bottle with water. Of course the bottle is too big to fit, so I bend the plastic with my brute man-strength and fill it with as much water as I can. A few rounds later, the water level is finally where it should be. Proud of my achievements, I flush... only to watch nothing happen. FAIL.

I wash my hands and go out to tell Big we have to leave before my efforts are discovered. She points out that 20 minutes later, our food still hasn't come (I want to point out that 19 of those minutes was spent trying to fix the toilet). We sit there and wait, watching everyone before and after us get their food. Meanwhile, the cashier who rung us up has gotten off and he and his lady friend are sitting at the high bar behind us.

1. No man that big should ever wear jeans that small.
2. It wasn't even like they were painted on. I don't know how it's physically possible for him to have fit into those pants. Unless he used like... a shoehorn or something.

The lady friend is still staring/judging me. We sit and wait. And wait. And wait. As we're waiting, as my luck would have it, the lady friend suddenly decides she needs to go to the bathroom. She is in the back less than 30 seconds before she comes back out shooting me death glares. I pretend to not notice. She grabs her giant shoehorn-man-friend and they leave.

At this point, I go the front and ask them what happened to our order. They have no idea. To make up for this FAIL, they give us twice as much.

Why do I always write about food? FAIL.