jose and carolina (in town)
Preface For some reason, I've been having a real tough time writing this entry. Maybe it was due to having to working 64.5 hours this past week. Maybe that there was so much that happened that I don't know what to write about. Originally, I was just going to write about one of the experiences, but I think that it would be missing the point that I was trying to make. So instead, I would just like to sum things up, and return to them intermittently in the future.
Jose and his fiancé, Carolina, were one of the first to move away from Rochester. Inspired by winter sports and a more adventurous lifestyle, they moved to Colorado. That was about two years ago, but it still feels like yesterday--we missed them greatly once they left, for they were instrumental in Elizabeth's and my social lives. Introverted as we were, Jose and Carolina would get together with us practically every weekend and force us out to dinners and movie theatres. They really helped out, especially when Elizabeth was new in town.
Well, since their move, we haven't really had a chance to see them except briefly during our wedding last year. And now, they were coming to visit us, for the long holiday weekend. Originally, we were planning to go out to Colorado to visit them this very weekend, but we got the phone call and apparently, they beat us to the punch and were coming here.
They arrived sometime on Thursday night. I was asleep, but Elizabeth stayed up and welcomed them. It was unfortunate, but I had to work the following day. Waking up early, and tiptoeing out of the apartment, I saw them cuddled up in the air mattress in the living room quietly sleepy. It was good to see them again.
Returning home later that afternoon, I was looking forward to meeting up with them for a weekend of pure Jose and Carolina--ness. I had originally planned to take them to all the tourist-y hot spots, but it didn't seem appropriate. For some reason, the generic *Here's-New-York* just didn't seem personal enough. Instead, I wanted to show them more of the *Here's-where-New-Yorkers-hang-out* The only problem was that we didn't really know much of that.
The only thing I could offer was getting us into NBC studios. Fortunate enough, my current employee identification enabled us to enter pass the security guards. At work, they told me it would be okay just to flash that. I approached the security guard, nervously I reached in my wallet, raised up my identification, and smiled slightly to mimic my expression in the picture. As he nodded his head, I was shocked. After blinking a couple of times, we just walked past him. We entered the elevators and I just started laughing with relief. Inside, it was fun for about fifteen minutes, and then the novelty quickly wore off.
I was a little dumbfounded as to where to go next and felt slightly embarrassed.
Jose and Carolina seemed to know a few places. They came prepared. We visited an apparently well-known restaurant called Jimmy's Bronx Cafe that served up some exquisite Puerto Rican cuisine. We walked around Little Italy, Soho, and Greenwich Village. We also went to the movies in a new theatre in Time Square. We watched Mission Impossible II. I love going to the movies and believe it or not, I had not been inside a movie theatre in about a year. And to satisfy my unusual urges for more Puerto Rican Cuchi Fritos type cuisine, we cruised around and found a cuchi fritos restaurant. Jose and Carolina introduced us to homemade coconut ice cream that they spotted at a small store a couple of blocks away from the restaurant.
Other than the different places we visited, we also had a few talks about past events and situations, exchanging stories about good things that have happened over the past couple of years, and also some not so good things. And after listening to their stories, I have realized that for myself, after working in a few places and meeting so many people on such temporary basis' that I have gained chameleon talents to fit into new work cultures more rapidly. And, it was possibly more important to stick to my own morals and judgements, for they are my true toolkit.
In summary, I know it has been a couple of years since we hung out with Jose and Carolina. It is nice to know that they are still showing us new experiences and that we are still learning from them too.
And yes, I'm still thinking about opening cuchifritos.com, the Internet portal to cuchi fritos restaurants in New York City. <wink>
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