Day Two in Astoria *UPDATES* *LONG*

Hey guys! AH! - Love it here! This city is so neat.

Yesterday, I woke up in the arms of my lover. That was nice. I get used to sleeping with someone, and then I have to go home and train myself to not expect it; it's much easier learning new habits than breaking them.

Thinking that I could rock the kitchen, got up to make breakfast and surprise Rodney. I get way too jazzed about making stuff. If someone else was buying our groceries, I'd go wild!

What I tried: omelette- with green peppers, onions, and cheddar VeggieCheese (which is actually REALLY good). (and english muffins)
What happened: kick-ass cheesy scrambled eggs! (and english muffins)

Then after that, he did the dishes (points!) and I played the Sims. I cleaned up a little. We watched House. He played video games. It was pretty casual and random. Around 4 we finally got out of the apartment. Walked around Astoria to find a restaurant to take his parents to today (which became obsolete, because they already knew where they wanted to go haha). Once we found our restaurant, we looked around and these are the things we saw/did:

• St. Demetrius Greek Orthodox Church - very pretty, but didn't see a sign telling us when Mass was, so we didn't go today (and this made Rodney a happy man). But it was very beautiful from the outside and the mosaics are great. I wanted to hear the singing and stuff. Here's my favorite Psalm on YouTube.
  
• We went to the 99¢ store and got some stuff for the kitchen. I now have a soup ladel, 2 whisks, and a veggie peeler! This should make cooking a lil' easier. Wish I had this stuff when we were making potato soup, though...
• Found a thrift store, and we got a nice teapot and he got some books. Looked for a coat for him since the zipper broke, but no luck. I'm very excited that there is a thrift store and a dollar store. I was worried about costs, but Astoria is more like my hometown Warren on steroids with public transportation.
• We went to Starbucks. Rodney had Rooibos tea and liked it, so I'm going to add that to our little grocery list. We went to the supermarket on Friday and got some potatoes, onions, peppers, lunchmeat, milk, butter, and eggs. We have basics. But I we keep forgetting the damn salt! It's okay... we need to drop off our form for a discount card today, too...
  
• Checked out the florist. Some poor guy killed his bamboo plant. He seemed sort of attached. But the flowers were cool... there are a lot of florists and gift shops around here, actually... I hope that means Alyx will be getting lots of tokens of affection from Rodney... :)
• Saw a Czechoslovakian restaurant!!! Steallar. I've never seen such a thing.

We dropped of our finds at home, then hurried to the subway to meet Raina, Rodney's sister. She's really cool. Raina lives in Philly with her husband and she works in an animal research lab. She's a cat person, too. I was nervous to meet her, but once we got to the bar we were meeting her at, it was cool.

We went to The Dead Poet, which is a really nice pub. They had drinks named after famous poets and there were books stuffed in the walls. It was crowded and loud, but a lot of fun. Rodney got us drinks... he had the Edgar Allan Poe, and I drank the signature drink, The Dead Poet. I got to keep the jar glass it came in as a token... Rodney's token was a book taken from the wall, which must be encouraged because it's stamped on the inside "This Book Stolen From The Dead Poet ..." along with an advertisement! It was neat. Whatever was in this secret drink tasted amazing and knocked me on my ass. Good job, Alyx. Get drunk, meet the family.

Raina brought her friend Jen along from Philly, who'd never to NYC. She works with Raina, she was really sweet. We went to a pizza place called Uno's and once we were somewhere quieter, the conversations kicked up. It was really nice to hang out with people Rodney knew, and hearing all the stories about their parents and when they were kids.

Too bad we had the worst waiter ever. This guy was a douche. He made a big deal about the fact that we waited too long "by his standards" which was all of maybe 5-10 minutes, but then proceeds to forget our drinks... I didn't get my diet coke until like almost half an hour after we ordered! My salmon was okay (I wasn't in the mood for pizza) but Rodney thought he got the wrong stuff on his pizza, the guy talked to him like he was an idiot. I didn't like that at all. But he kept talking to us and making jokes like we were all buddies... which is sometimes okay, but this guy just oozed asshole. THEN he tells us that a guy who looks *just like the waiters* is stealing checks off the tables, acting like he's taking the bill up... so we're all like "Should we give it to your manager then?"... this guy set himself up for that one. I dunno, it was just weird and I didn't like him. But, I also think that my idea of good waitstaff and what is "good waitstaff" in NY are two entirely different things. I'm used to hospitality over speedy service. I guess the aim here is get in, get out. That's cool in its own right, just have to get used to it. But the dude @ Uno's fails in both.

So we took the train back to Time Square, bid farewell to Raina & Jen, got back into Astoria, I got coffee, and we called it a night. I don't know if it was something I ate, or the Dead Poet drink, or the coffee... but I woke up around 3 am and just puked my guts out. Fan-fucking-tastic. I barely made it to the bathroom, haha.

Now I'm sitting here "writing a novel" according to Rodney, as he's playing Dragon Warrior IV. In a little bit I'm going to pounce him, then we're going to go explore more of Astoria and go to the park. It's a sunny day again! It's been sitting around the mid-40's, high-30's this weekend, which is nice and comfy for me but a nightmare for Rod. I keep telling him he doesn't really know what winter is, but, you know, Rodney knows it all... lol. Around 6 we're meeting his parents on 19th street to have dinner at some Greek place. Yay Greek food!

Random other updates: Saw The Watchmen - AWESOME movie, barely seemed like it was 3 hours long, and IMAX remains amazing. I'm finally learning how to work the subway map and transport successfully. Rodney is part of the Facebook community now. We have our first plant - an Orchid!!! My favorite flower! And I'm all set to start research tomorrow for my English paper. There's a library very close by. This place has everything!!!

Here's a photo-album of Astoria pics. Enjoy!

(MOM! - CALL ME WHEN YOU ARE NOT WORKING! I don't mean to interrupt, sorry. Love you.)