A nest of pirates

Baltimore is old. Ergo, very historical. Although not everything that is old is necessarily historical. I once had a very old French teacher with a large grey bun and she would peer at the class over the top of her glasses down her thin, beak-like nose, and tell us that she was watching us like "a big blue fly". I don't even know what that means. But it certainly wasn't historical.

Baltimore, on the other hand, is.

What's so historical about Baltimore, you ask. Well let me tell you. 

The town of Baltimore was founded in 1729, although the Port of Baltimore was established much earlier in 1706 for tobacco trade reasons, which, from what I hear, is always going to be a compelling reason. 

Tobacco and sugar. That's what empires are built on. And Baltimore was no stranger to the perks of sugar. The port and town grew swiftly in the 18th century as a granary for sugar producing colonies in the Caribbean and the profit from sugar encouraged the cultivation of cane and the importation of food.

Baltimore played a pivotal role in the events surrounding the American Revolution. City leaders encouraged the city to join the resistance to British taxes and merchants refused to trade with Britain. The Second Continental Congress met in Baltimore from December 1776 until February 1777, so Baltimore was actually the capital of the United States for those three months.

It was the activity which happened in the early part of the 19th century around Fells Point, the waterfront port area, which earned the city the intriguing name, 'a nest of pirates'. Baltimore was famous for its fast schooners which moved cargo quickly around the bay and allowed international trade to flourish. But when America stood up to Britain in the War of 1812, many Baltimore schooners began seizing cargo instead of delivering it. 

Now, you have to understand, the British Navy was a superpower. It was the largest navy in the world, with several hundred warships. As opposed to the American Navy which had about 20. The government used the schooners to interrupt the supply line by attacking the British merchant fleet. Strictly speaking, it was privateering, but the line between privateering and piracy is often a blurry one. When the British attacked Baltimore in 1814, they were after the privateers, their schooners and their shipyards. The British were unsuccessful in their attempts when the United States forces in some sort of cinematic underdog move valiantly defended the harbour.

And in particularly pivotal historical-ness, Francis Scott Key, a Maryland lawyer, was on board one of the British ships negotiating the release of an American prisoner at the time of the battle. When he saw the American flag dancing in the breeze on the morning after the battle, he was moved to write a poem recounting the attack, which he named The Star-Spangled Banner. This poem was set to a tune by a British composer, funnily enough, and in 1931 became the national anthem of the United States.

I said I'd tell you.

 

Angry Wade's

I'm not much of a tourist. While I did have a New York list and I wanted ticks next to the items I had decided were things to see, or do, or eat, what I like about going somewhere I have never been before is getting behind the face of a city or area and just feeling it doing its thing. I like just walking around and being surprised. I like talking to people.

Enter Angry Wade's. Angry Wade's is in Brooklyn. It's an unassuming pub on the corner, a warm place for a drink when your hands, feet and cheeks have once again got too cold to continue walking in the Polar Vortex.

On arrival, the popcorn-scented bar was practically empty. And then the locals started arriving. And the locals play pool. Very seriously. I'm talking APA pool here. So the Pool Rules board is not to be taken lightly. But that didn't stop them from being friendly and welcoming and the perfect place to be that afternoon.

Lost in Translation

I FAILED the translation accreditation exam I sat in November. Ergo, I am a loser.

I have valiantly taken on board the internet posts about the 20% pass rate and the near impossibility of passing the first time round despite people having worked overseas in translation work blah blah blah. But the fact remains. I failed.

On a brighter note, I have discovered that Rittey is a popular first name in the Maldives.

Yes. A constructive afternoon in the purest sense of the term. 

I am sitting in my living room with the fan on and the curtains drawn. Because it is forty three crazy degrees outside. Which, when I WAS outside, made me think of when you open the oven door and there is a whoosh (brilliant onomatopoeic command of the English language) of hot air which makes you think your eyebrows or perhaps more startlingly, one eyebrow has been singed and there is an oppressive feeling of breathlessness. I have exchanged Polar Vortex for Solar Vortex.

My dinner guests luckily don't arrive until 7pm. Because, in my depressive loser state, I have drunk 2 beers and procrastinated.

I'm not depressed really. I've just been to New York living life like it's golden. So I can't be depressed. Just bruised ego.

I have had two beers though. Because it's the holidays and they were really cold and other very legitimate reasons for sitting around alone drinking beer.

And I have poached chicken and made Vietnamese dressing. Oh, and cooked prawns. So it's not all sitting round looking my name up on Google.

Good grief.

I AM a loser.

Lucky I have a day job.

the lights

The Empire State Building is tall. And other understatements.

Oh wait, I have more.

New York is massive. And the lights of a massive city from the 86th floor of a tall building...breathtaking.

The suggestion to go up at night was inspired and perfect. 

district X

aka. Mutant town aka Alphabet City 

Mutant Town is a fictional location in Marvel Comics, a neighbourhood based on Alphabet City in a post-apocryphal New York primarily inhabited by mutants. There is some sort of link to X-men in there. I'm no comic expert. Clearly.

But I saw no sign of mutants in the real Alphabet City. Although it was eerily quiet the day we walked around there. Alphabet City is an area in the East Village. It gets its name for Avenues A, B, C and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single letter names. 

Alphabet City has had a few names, and Mutant City has not been one of them. Klein Deutschland, Loisaida, Nu Yorica all reflect the immigrant populations who have lived and worked there and tried to make their way in their desire to live the American Dream.

Until the early 19th century, Alphabet City was marshland. The riverbed was drained by developers, reclaimed and built on. The first wave of immigrants to pass through were German. By the 1880s, Eastern Europeans replaced Germans as the dominant group, jostling for space with Eastern European Jewish arrivals, Irish and Italian immigrants. And when I say jostling, that was absolutely the case. By the turn of the 20th century, Alphabet City was among the most densely populated areas of New York City. The inhabitants lived in tenements, most of which did not have running water, and many of them worked in the garment factories located in the area. With the advent of the subway system, the population decreased significantly as workers were able to live in other (cleaner and safer) areas and take the train to work.

As the calendars turned over and the turn of the twentieth century kicked in, a new wave of immigrants poured into the area. Thousands of Puerto Ricans began to settle around the A-D avenues and the Spanglish word for Lower East Side, Loisaida, was being bandied around. In the sixties, seventies and eighties, Alphabet City was the scene of a strong movement to develop the cultural identity of the Puerto Rican people. This Nuyorican movement was largely led by intellectuals, poets and artists.

In the eighties, Alphabet City epitomised all that is bohemian. It was home to many of the first graffiti writers and b-boys, rappers and DJs. It was also pretty well known for drugs and crime. Law and Order: SVU would still have you believe it's dodgy.

The latest incarnation of Alphabet City is a gentrified, more hipster one. Shabby-chic and still sporting the colourful murals that belie its bohemian past, Alphabet City is now all tidy streets, nice looking restaurants and bars and quiet neighbourhood parks.

Walking around the streets, azure sky above, snow crunching underfoot was the perfect way to digest a pastrami sandwich.
 

I'll have what she's having

When I think of New York, I think pastrami sandwich. Well, of course I think a lot of things, and moreso now, but pastrami sandwich is definitely one of the images I had in my head when I imagined New York. 

Now Katz's Deli is the place to go if you want to really know about pastrami in New York. Katz's Deli on the Lower East Side has been slapping a lot of pastrami between slices of bread and sticking hot dogs in buns since 1888 and has achieved iconic status for their very fine efforts. In fact, Katz's is so popular that each week they serve 10,000 pounds of pastrami, 5,000 pounds of corned beef, 2,000 pounds of salami and 12, 000 hot dogs. That's a lot of meat.

And when you're that popular, why change anything. So they don't. It's old school diner. And the food is simple. And good. 

The pastrami sandwich is exactly that. Pastrami...but better than I have ever tasted: smokey, moist, thick...between two slices of sour dough or rye with mustard and a plate of sour pickle on the side. Perfect.

Popularity also allows for quirky rules around paying. When you enter Katz's, a door attendant gives you a printed, numbered ticket. As you order food from the various stations - sandwiches, drinks, hotdogs etc. - your server writes a running total of the bill which you pay at the cashier's counter on the way out. If the bill is all on one ticket, but each person in your party has been given a ticket, the empty tickets must be handed in also. There is a $50 lost ticket fee to prevent customers from conveniently losing tickets which may have had items on them and failing to pay.

The "send a salami to your boy in the army" catch phrase which came about during World War II when Katz's encouraged families to send a taste of home to the soldiers overseas is still in place today. Katz's has an arrangement with the US postal system to send gift packages to troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Nice.

the polar vortex

I will never complain about being cold again. I come from Christchurch. That's in the South Island of New Zealand. It's the gateway to Antarctica. We get a lot of frosts in Winter. I thought it was pretty cold some mornings in Christchurch. How wrong could I be?

I think a fairly good indicator that it's cold is if the Niagara Falls freeze. Which they did. And the Chicago Zoo put their polar bears indoors, as did the National Aviary with their penguins in Pittsburgh. That's pretty cold.

Polar Vortex is an evocative term. It sounds a bit like something from Star Wars. You can say it aloud with Darth Vader's voice if you like. Go on. 

Anyway, Polar Vortex is the name for the jet stream of Arctic air responsible for plunging much of the United States—by one estimate, 187 million were affected—into a kind of temporary deep freeze over the time that I was there.

Apparently, temperatures have been the coldest in almost 20 years. And everyone was talking about it in that collective way people do when brought together over polar vortices, heat waves and AFL scandal. In elevators, restaurants, stores, the word on the street was: this is COLD. 

The snow was pretty. Particularly in Central Park. And the good thing about walking around in a polar vortex and feeling as though your feet and hands and face might actually drop off, is that it is absolutely legitimate, in fact vital, to make frequent stops to thaw out in diners, cafes, bars. And wine is very warming. And medicinal. It is. Really.