8/22/09 I Made it to New York!

Because of the way my new train room was laid out, it seemed logical to sleep on the top bunk rather than the bottom has I had been doing. This was a mistake. The tracks were really rough, and the train shook violently all night. The upper bunk has a safety harness, but even so I wasn’t eager to get thrown into it in the middle of the night. So I slept sporadically, rolled over toward the wall as much as possible.

I slept through Ohio and Pennsylvania, and spent most of the day in upstate New York. There were rainstorms moving through the area, which apparently train tracks can’t deal with. My train ended up being delayed by about two and a half hours. My fellow passengers were grumbling (especially since the snack car had gone to Boston when the train separated in Albany) but I was a bit nervous about arriving, so was happy to sit tight.

When I finally made it to New York, I had to figure out how to get more stuff than I could carry to a cab and then up into an apartment. I also needed to get the cab to stop twice: once at a bar to get keys and directions from Kate (who I am staying with), and a second time at a Brooklyn apartment I had never been to. It ended up working out, and as the cab drove me through midtown and across the Brooklyn bridge, I stared out the window like a starry-eyed tourist.

Today has mostly been a blur. I’ve responded to some apartment postings, tried to finish up the last of my assigned reading, and wandered a little in the neighborhood. With a bit more sleep tonight I’m hoping I’ll be more alert tomorrow, and with orientation staring on Monday, I’m excited to see what this grad school thing is really like. Thank you to everyone who has called, e-mailed, or texted over the last couple of days. I really appreciated it!