Life in the city

In the way of news: Steven has been accepted to Medical School at Virginia Commonwealth University! We are very excited. We are still waiting to hear from some other schools where he is on the waitlist, but we are very happy to know we are moving on. I feel like it has been a really good experience for us here, and there are things that I have really liked, but I am definitely excited to move on.
Speaking of being ready to move on, I had a scary experience the other day. I guess I really can’t say I’ve lived in New York City without having the experience of being in the sketchy part of town, lost and alone. I was in Harlem today going to a grocery store that is big and has the best quality, variety, and prices (which sure beats our funny little neighborhood stores). Anyways I have been there before, but someone gave me a ride in their car, this was my first time trying to go on my own, by bus and subway. So I get off the subway right in the middle of Harlem, I've been there before and it isn't too scary because there are large stores and a lot going on. But then I get on the bus going the wrong direction, which in my mind was the right direction, so I don't realize it until I am way off course and this old guy tells me I have to get off and get on the bus going the other direction. It had already been a long day and I had Mariah in the front pack (which she is too big for) and she was hungry and crying and the buses were packed. I had packed food but there wasn't anywhere to sit down and eat, so I hadn't had lunch yet. I just wanted to go back home. Oh, and needless to mention it was 90 degrees outside which is even worse with the humidity out here. And I keep calling Steven over and over again and he doesn't answer (when I got home I found out his phone had ran out of battery, but I called him, at the very least, 20 times). I wanted him to tell me the best way to get home. But I get back on the bus thinking that I could at least go back the way I came, but it is hard to find the right place to get off on the bus because it is hard to hear when they call out the stops. So anyway, I'm on the bus and see what I think is a bridge thing where the subway goes across, because I know there is a train that does that somewhere around there. So I get off right into a street full of homeless people, with their little carts holding all of their belongings, everywhere. I wait to cross the street in front of what looks like a homeless shelter under the bridge where it is dark, and needless to say quite scary, and it just really smells bad. I hear that it is in places like this where mugging and stuff is most likely to happen. I cross as quickly as I can and go up on the bridge thing only to find out that it is the actual trains, not the subway system. I ask a guy there and he tells me I still have a ways to go. I know that I have already wasted money traveling and I didn't want to waste more and I wasn't sure where I needed to get off anyway. I didn't want to have to wait for the bus standing in the very hot sun, especially because I hadn't put sunblock on Mariah (I hadn't thought we would be out in the sun much, we would just be in the store, or so I thought). So I decided to walk for a while and see if I could find where I needed to go. But as soon as I walk down off the bridge thing I am again surrounded by homeless people, tons of them, for a couple of blocks, and tons of people trying to sell me things. And throughout this whole time I am the only white person as far as the eye can see. I stick out like a sore thumb, not only am I Caucasian, young, female, and carrying a baby, but I am scared out of my mind and I am sure it shows on my face. I tried to walk confidently, but very quickly through all the homeless people. ( I hear this type of place is the worse for pickpocketing etc. so I really shouldn't have been walking there alone anyway) And still Steven won't answer his phone and I am so mad at him. I am so hot and all I can do is try to keep the sun out of Mariah's eyes and hope she won't get really sunburned. There's all sorts of stands all along the side of the road and funny little stores, which I am usually used to because that is what it is like where we live, but this area is unknown and more populated, and frankly I have never seen so many black people in all of my life! (I am honestly not racist, it is just scary when you are such a minority) Finally Mariah was asleep and we had found the subway station we had come out of and we were alive! We didn't have to wait long for the train to come, thank goodness because that subway station stinks worse than the rest. It has a terrible stench, the rest just have an unpleasant smell, but that one is terrible! On the train home Mariah woke up and smiled and waved at everybody around her as if she were having the best day of her life. Thank goodness for cute, sweet, wonderful babies who can just change your perspective. We made it and were probably the better for it. I now knew which way to go to get to the store, areas of Harlem I wanted to avoid, and exactly where the subway stations weren't, and that I could make it through a scary situation like that.
It really hasn’t been bad living here, though. I have had other classic New York experiences that aren’t nearly so bad. I’ve walked through central park on a beautiful sunny days when all of the flowering trees are in bloom and the trees are getting green, and the sun is reflecting off the pond and Mariah is crawling in the grass and smiling at everyone going by. I’ve eaten really interesting but very good Turkish, Dominican, Indian, and Chinese cuisine. I’ve also found really great deals on cute clothes at the downtown shops and seen the incredible view from the top of the empire state building. I’ve seen the sun set on the George Washington Bridge. I’ve walked across the Brooklyn bridge in the rain singing and joking with Mariah and Steven under the umbrella. So, it’s actually mostly really good . Oh, and one of the best things is to leave the loud busy Manhattan streets and go into the temple for an endowment session and feel of the incredible peace that is there, such a contrast to the streets! We love our ward here, they are so varied, such different people. I went home teaching with Steven to a man from India who cooked us lamb, it was very good.