So You Think You Can Travel to New York

Dear Readers,

We’ve all heard that New York is a scary place, the likes of which few—-and by few I mean 19,490,297 by a 2008 population estimate—-have dared to approach.  And we all know that scary places are best avoided entirely unless one is equipped with a sound guidebook.  Therefore, Readers, I have taken it upon myself to venture where few (19,490,297) have gone to explore this practically undiscovered territory (discovered by only 19,490,297 people), and pave the way for future explorers, like myself, to similarly experience this new land (discovered only recently in 1524 A.D.). My most stunning observations can be found exclusively here on this blog site, because they have not been deemed sufficiently stunning to make it into any of the tourist guidebooks. Which stuns me.

In my hometown of Portland, Oregon, there is one main train that runs east to west through the city and its suburbs, and a more recent one that goes north to south. This simple train is divided into three primary colors: the red line, the blue line, and the yellow line. This simple setup excludes nobody, not even a two year-old child who wanders outside and decides to head downtown to the Baby Gap, because even a toddler can identify primary colors. New York, on the other hand, has underground trains called “subways.” As you can imagine their very name causes mass chaos and confusion as it leads one (me) to believe there are sandwiches down there. But once you (I) accept that you won’t be purchasing your favorite cold cut trio on the subway, you’ll never find an actual sandwich shop, because you’ll get lost in an an overwhelming multitude of subway lines, ambiguously labeled with, not primary colors, but alphabet letters such as “A” and “E.” These New York subway lines are thus prejudiced against illiterate or preliterate persons—-toddlers searching for the Baby Gap being only one example—-and even against literate persons like myself who made it through the entire alphabet of subway lines without arriving at my attempted destination.

If you make it out of the alphabetized subway lines alive, you’ll find an unexpected odor waiting for you above ground. To describe its pungence: Imagine that the mouse residing in my friend’s apartment in New York mated with a skunk, and its offspring subsisted on a diet of asparagus and prune juice, and then defecated. That would have smelled better than the streets in my friend’s neighborhood.

Despite the befuddling subway lines and scented streets, there were several advantages to New York City that are unparalleled by Portland. Most notable was that in New York I possessed a superpower; that of invisibility. This was awesome, because I’ve always wanted to have my very own superpower. As I traversed congested sidewalks and attempted to dart passersby, I discovered that not a single New Yorker attempted to dart me. In fact some walked right into me, and yet neither their paced was slowed nor their progress deterred as they passed over my flailing body scrambling to upright itself in the midst of the crowd. And while my friend Ricardo declared that I was in fact still visible and that I was simply experiencing pedestrian propriety in typical New York fashion, I am fairly certain that he’s just jealous because he is not invisible, too.

Readers, I hope that these thoughts help you in preparing your first trip to New York. While I understand that New York might still sound daunting, I encourage you to read through my cubic zirconiums of wisdom as frequently as you’d like prior to plotting your own travels toward New York, and I think you’ll find New York to be a pungently pleasant vacation destination.*

–Troi out

*Troi believes that all states are created equally and she assures you that all inoffensive material found here reflects her opinion, whereas any potentially offensive material reflects the opinion of somebody else.

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