THE CALIFORNIA GIRL

Author: Meghan Michelson

I spent last weekend in New York City, a place that is as foreign to me as a physics textbook is to an English major. Being that this week marks six months since the tragic terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, I thought now was a better time than ever to reflect on my perception and fears of the city that has survived one of the United States' worst attacks in history.

New York epitomizes an East Coast city, with its innumerable taxicabs, structured subway system and less than friendly customer service.

In my rather minimal experience of city life, I found New York to be more daunting and overpowering than any other city I have ever visited. I spent the entire weekend in fear of either getting lost or getting run over by a rapidly approaching vehicle.

At one point, I had a momentary lapse of memory and, forgetting that Vermont pedestrian law does not exist in all East Coast states, was nearly flattened by a speeding car driven by a woman on her cell phone.

I was supposed to meet my father for the weekend and had made plans to go directly from the airport to a specific restaurant upon my arrival. I loaded my luggage into a yellow cab and requested to be taken to my desired location. The driver, who appeared to speak relatively limited English, proceeded to ask me which route I wished to take. I responded with a blank stare and a dumbfounded answer which came out like something along the lines of "the fastest way, please."

I couldn't tell if he was laughing at me or just automatically dismissing me as yet another ignorant visitor to his city. Upon arriving at the restaurant, I was so in awe of the fact that diners and bar-goers were actually able to smoke cigarettes, a phenomenon prohibited by law in California, that I quickly forgot my traumatic and humiliating cab ride.

Taxis on the West Coast simply do not exist to the same extent as in big East Coast cities, and therefore those of us who live near cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, where such transportation is eons behind in development, lack the knowledge of proper taxi etiquette.

At one point during the weekend, I was required to hail a cab on my own. After standing awkwardly at a street corner for several minutes, I finally got up enough the nerve to lift my hand as if I was asking a question in class.

Shortly, I gave up on struggling to tackle the art of taxi riding, which for me was an ongoing battle between trying to flag one down, suffering to make conversation and coming up short on knowing how much to tip.

On my last night in the city, I decided to undertake the ultimate mission — navigating my way on the New York subway system.

I set out on a journey, which ideally should have taken less than half an hour, but resulted in a lengthy process that had me frantically trying to differentiate between local trains and express trains, incorrectly swiping my Metro Card through those complicated little gates and not realizing the importance of those sturdy handrails on board until it was too late.

The following morning, my dad and I decided to have a cup of coffee at a coffee shop that was distinguished by its lack of the word Starbucks in the title.

It was obviously a popular choice for other early morning caffeine addicts, apparent from the increasingly long line of fashionably attired New Yorkers antsy for their cups of joe.

By the time we reached the front of the line, the man behind the counter, who was topping off cappuccinos in one hand and dousing bagels with cream cheese with the other, was so brief with our order, failing even to mention a simple "good morning," that I deemed him unfriendly.

In California, even the grumpiest of food service employees still manage to murmur a "hello."

Despite my shortcomings and often incorrect assumptions regarding the natives of the seemingly foreign city, there was one aspect of New York that, even as an outsider, I was able to correctly identify.

New Yorkers have come together and prevailed in a time of national disturbance and overcome a tragedy unlike any the city had ever seen.

Six months after Sept. 11 it appears, even to me, to be a city of remarkable determination and an unmatched sense of unity.

Note: For any loyal readers of this column, if they should exist, I hereby announce a significant change to the face of "The California Girl." This column will now run biweekly in the Local News Section, as opposed to the Features Section, and will offer a running dialogue between a native Vermonter, in the new "Townie Talk" column, and me, a native Californian.