Day 11: A nice surprise

📍 Location: Chinatown, New York, USA

I started this day with a pleasant surprise. I was planning on quickly making myself some breakfast before I had to go to school. Since there’s no kitchen here - just a fridge and a microwave - that means that I can either make myself a bagel or a wrap.

For the record, I keep my food - except for the things that go in the fridge - in my empty suitcase underneath my bed. That may seem a little bit weird, but believe me, I’m sure that the inside of my luggage is the cleanest place in the whole room. And since I’m planning on being on the road for a little longer, I’m not going to take any risks of getting food poisoning by letting my food get effected by the germs of the hundreds of people that stayed here before me.

So I wanted to go for a bagel. I grabbed the sack of bagels from my luggage, only to find out that someone already ate my breakfast before I did. Well, ‘something’ I should say, because it was immediately clear that - by the way the plastic sack was gnawed open and the sight of the bagels that had now more than one hole - this was the work of a mouse. My roommate had already warned me about our little friend last week. Normally I’m not that scared of mice, but the knowledge that there was one inside my luggage just freaks me out. And it must’ve been there for quite a while, because it also got to my tortilla wraps and shit all over my towel. Disgusting. That towel is now in the trashcan. So as my breakfast. Luckily I’m moving to another apartment in a few days. I hope it’ll be one without mice.

After school I went to Chinatown together with four other girls. We had lunch in this really nice and cheap restaurant called Nom Wah. Super good Chinese food! After that, everyone went their own way. I went to Bryant Park - definitely my favorite spot in New York so far. This place is an oasis of calm in the middle of this loud and hectic city. Everyone is sitting at the little tables and chairs that are placed everywhere is the park, just enjoying their day. The vibe is very peaceful. And because there is a wifi hotspot, it’s also a perfect place to Skype and to work on the blog a little bit.

In the evening I went to a stand-up comedy show. I bought my ticket just the day before online and I was very excited about it. This was something that I really wanted to have seen before I’d leave New York. The good thing about going alone to these things is that you’ll meet other people before you know it. While I was waiting in line for our seating, I came across two very nice retired ladies from Texas who were my company for the night. Loved them. They were so sweet and funny. And they got even funnier when they started nipping on their fifth ‘One Night Stand’.

The show itself was very simple. There was one host who introduced all of the stand-up comedians. And there were a lot of them - I think we saw about 10 different faces. Each comedian had 15 minutes to perform and make the crowd laugh. Some did a really good job, but there were also a few who could not even crack a single smile. Very painful to watch.

To be honest, I sometimes had a hard time understanding the jokes. But I have a hard time understanding jokes in general and I’m usually not the first person to get the clue, so I think it was just me. It happened to me a few times that the whole room was laughing, except for me. Then you have to fake it, because otherwise you look like a humorless person who doesn’t have a single joy in their life.

But don’t worry, I did laugh a lot of time sincere. I’m happy that I went. Wouldn’t have missed it.