A FairyGirl in New York...

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Day Two

Or

It’s a Fine Display of Cartography!

Or

This is Not. Grand. Avenue.

On Monday morning we all got up bright and early to pound the pavements on our search for suitable employment. Our first stop was T-Mobile on Steinway street to buy new cell-phones. Strange that ‘mobile’ is in the title yet they call them cell phones…but then this is a very strange country. I was served by a helpful young man who looked alarmingly like Prince. But even more alarmingly he was named ‘Angel.’ His mother had some high hopes, I thought.

We split into 2 groups of two as we thought that if four girls trooped around looking for work it might be a little imposing to potential employers. So Caitríona and I hit the road with our new cell phones and a list of Irish pubs to visit.

A word about the New York street naming system. Smart Americans are rare, but when they do come along they really make it count. Whoever came up with this system is quite simply a genius. Basically, you can find almost anywhere in New York by simply knowing two parts of the address - the avenue and the street number. They work like the co-ordinates of a map. Avenues run from north to south and streets run from east to west. By the end of Monday we already felt like Queens natives.

We spent a good two hours going into pubs and restaurants but just being told that there are no availabilities. We also left a few of them our numbers knowing full well nothing would come of it. (If Sex & the City has taught us anything it’s that New York men don’t call when they say they will)
Disheartened by our luckless morning, we returned to Steinway and found a Starbucks where we could sit down and escape the escalating heat. Just then we got a call from Denise and Nettie asking to meet up. They arrived a few minutes later with similar stories of unemployment. We decided to find somewhere to get some proper food to refuel for the rest of the day.

As we left still talking about ways to avoid impending destitution, a random middle-aged man sitting outside said,
“Hey ladies, what are you guys doin’ today?”
He didn’t seem like a creep so we answered, “Job hunting.”
“Oh right, and where are you all from?”
“Ireland.”
“See that’s where you guys are goin’ wrong. All the Irish in Astoria are down around Woodside. This is Greek territory round here, and they ain’t gonna give a job to some pale skin, blue eyed girl, you know what I’m sayin’?”
He then reeled off a list of Irish pubs in Woodside that we’d have a good chance with. He even suggested somewhere for us to have lunch.
“Cronin & Phelan’s is a nice little Irish bar round the corner. But don’t try the calamari there. No offence but you Irish don’t know shit about cookin’ calamari. I should know, I’m Italian.”
We thanked him for his unexpected but welcome advice as we left and he replied, “No, thank you, for U2 and The Corrs. Two of my favourite bands.”

Our next stop was Cronin & Phelan’s for some good aul Irish grub. Our waitress we noticed had a Donegal accent. She must know about Woodside pubs, and more importantly how to get there. After she took our orders, and our requests for directions, she told us which bus to get, where to get off and which pubs to go into. She even drew us a little map to help us out.

Encouraged by our full stomachs and little map, we found our bus stop and waited. When the first bus came along we were confused with having to use our subway passes instead of just paying for a ticket with money, so we had to get off and wait for the next one. The problem was only two of us had subway passes. We devised a little scheme where someone would use the pass then hand it to the person behind them so they could use it. And it worked!

But possibly our little scheme may have pissed off the very large, angry looking bus driver. We sat down to study our little map and found that it had little detail. We discovered that we had to get off at some place called ‘Grand Avenue.’ As we raced along we quickly realised we had no idea where we were going. A tiny Asian woman realised our quiet distress, and tried to help us, but unfortunately she had the same level of English as a teaspoon.

Then Nettie said, “This fucking map! Where are we supposed to be?!”
Denise replied, “Don’t blame the map. It’s a fine display of cartography!”
Nettie decided to go up and ask the bus driver to let us know when we got to Grand Avenue. Suddenly with a deafening blast, he loudly beeped some hapless driver off the road. This happened several more times in the next few minutes. Clearly, this was not an approachable guy.

Still, not easily intimidated, Nettie bravely walked up to the meanest bus driver in town and asked him to let her know when they got to Grand Avenue.
“This is not Grand Avenue,” was the reply she got.
“I know, but…”
“This is NOT. GRAND. AVENUE.”
Realising this was not a man to be argued with, she sat down. We’d have to work this one out on our own.

Luckily, we're all smart girls and New York is easy to navigate, so we did finally get off at the right stop. We split into the same two groups again and began phase two of the job hunt.
After about two hours of going in and out of Irish pubs and getting nowhere, it felt like we were just going round in circles.

We all got the bus home after a very tiring day, with only vague promises of job offers to cling to. To celebrate our first full day in the States, and as a reward for our hard day's work, we went to see Sex & the City at our local cinema. One thing I have to say is, New York audiences, are very dramatic. They cat-called, cheered, gasped and laughed loudly the whole way through. There was even a round of applause atd the end. This was a strong contrast to the Irish audience who I'd seen it with the week before. People laughed at the funny parts, but there were no cries of "Go Samantha!" or "Oh no, he didn't!" that the Americans so easily used.

The four of us walked home in the warm New York evening, laughing at our new American neighbours and guessing which SATC girl we were most like. Suddenly, looking for a job wasn't so important anymore.

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