7/13/03 Brian in the West Village!; Brian translates Spanish by bike; Testing Brian's new work commute:







Brian is now officially a city dweller!!! He moved into his godmother's apartment, smack in the middle of the West Village on Bleecker Between Charles and West 10th street. She doesn't need it during the summer, and Brian will use it as a springboard, while he searches for his own place, and begins his new engineering job. It's on the first floor, so here's Brian, shirtless, in his apartment, visible from the sidewalk.




Brian brought a bike to the city so we could bike together, and so here we go, for real, for the first time of what will be many more. He kisses Melissa goodbye, as she heads out to her house in New Jersey.




We bike up the west side to the 70th street pier, where a Spanish lady asks to borrow my cell phone. She's lost her husband, her cell phone died, and she's trying to leave a message for him to find her on the pier. I don't speak Spanish well, in spite of two spectacular years of Roslyn High School's attempt to teach the language to me. Brian, on the other hand, has lived with a family in Spain for a few summers, and speaks Spanish fluently. And I could always count on him to rub it in my face in High School. But today, it came in handy, as he brokered this deal with the Spanish lady. Even when I was dialing for her, he translated cinco into five and ocho into eight, etc. I could have done the numbers part myself (sesame street taught me those), but the flashbacks to my two-year-in-a-row "C-" midterm grades in Spanish were making me nervous. I'm so glad they tried to teach me a foreign language beginning the year after the phase of human development when the brain is most receptive to new languages. Good job public education assholes.





We biked back to Brian's apartment. It's a colorful 1-bedroom in a fabulous location. Perfectly comfortable.




The bed is on a diagonal in the middle of the bedroom. What a way to squander a luxury my studio apartment doesn't have.


Brian and I then headed for his new job. He wanted me to walk through his transportation steps on his way there, as we was nervous about his first day tomorrow morning.




The office is on 42nd street and Madison avenue, directly above the Shuttle Train station at Grand Central. Here's Brian on 42nd street.




In fact, upon further inspection, we found the entrance that leads from the subway directly into his building!!! He won't even have to go outside! The luxury! 347 Madison! We couldn't believe it.




Close up.




Heading back to Brian's new temporary apartment, he was much more relaxed, as seen in this photo, after experiencing the ease with which he can get to work every day first hand.