Video: Someone Familiar in a Strange New Place

Video by Kiana Doyle

I spent my summer in New York City, and the entire time I was thinking, “There’s so much to write about.”

I didn’t write a single thing.

For one reason or another, I never got one word down about my experience aside from a couple cringey notes app entries. I felt it was impossible to encapsulate what it was like to fully immerse myself in the Big Apple doing a big-girl editing internship at The Associated Press.

I only knew one person from Washington who was in New York at the same time I was. He was actually in the journalism department at Western, too, and we had become friends working for Klipsun this time last year. He moved to Brooklyn with his sibling shortly after I moved to Manhattan, and I went to hang out with him the first weekend he was there. This is the story of that day

Transcript

Gather ‘round, y’all, cuz I’m going to tell you a story.

Last summer, I moved to New York City for a 12-week internship at The Associated Press. By myself. I didn’t know anyone in the city prior to moving there. No one, that is, until my friend Garrett moved to Brooklyn a few weeks after I got to New York.

So I go to visit him one day shortly after he gets there.

I take the subway to his AirBnb in Bed-Stuy and we decide to go thrifting in a different neighborhood, where I immediately point out a CBD coffee plant shop that I think Garrett would like.

So we go in and it’s cute and the smoothies are of course expensive and have ingredients like Lion’s mane in them. You can pay extra for CBD in the smoothie, but Garrett and I just order regular ones from this server who’s looking at us a little funny. Like maybe in a flirty way? It’s kind of hard to tell.

We sit and chat while we wait, and the server disappears into the back and then reappears maybe 20 minutes later with our smoothies.

And we’re like, “huh, that took a long time”

And it’s not even like it’s a busy shop or anything, we’re like the only people in there.

So we leave and come across a park where it looks like some sort of outdoor theater production is going on. And so we stand by and watch, and it’s weird and cheesy and we’re both getting a little confused and starting to feel a little … weird.

“Uh… I think they put CBD in the smoothies”

Even though neither of us thought we ordered the special sauce, we’re definitely feeling pretty floaty and CBD-y. Garrett has already downed half of his smoothie.

And I freak out, because I don’t consume weed that often and when I do I get all weird and I don’t know where I am and I think I’m going to tweak out on this random street in Brooklyn. And Garrett has to explain to me that THC and CBD are different but I’m still like, “I need water. I gotta flush this out now”

We make our way to a Rite-Aid and get my water, and by that point the sun has started to set and we haven’t done any thrifting but we decide it’s time to make our way back to Bed-stuy.

Except we get on the wrong subway and ride a few stops in the wrong direction before we realize we messed up.

We finally make it back to the Airbnb and the CBD is wearing off and Garrett’s sibling Wilson is there and they’re like, “Yo, I’m going to a secret warehouse rave and y’all should come with”

And I’m like, “yes” [finger guns with sunglasses]

And so we all take an Uber to a different neighborhood of Brooklyn and the uber drops us off in this desolate construction-y area. And we have no idea where the party is.

All we can hear is a faint “unz unz” sound coming from one of the buildings, and it isn’t until two party-goers come out of a door nearby that we figure it out.

We get a couple beers from the little bar they have and we rave for a while, which in my case just means swinging my arms and legs around basically completely sober, and I have a good time. [thumbs up]

Garrett and I stay for about an hour before we head back to his AirBnb for some noodles and nutritional yeast.

And Garrett would be disappointed if I didn’t mention that these weren’t just any noodles — they’re Cascatelli, which were thought up by this food podcast guy who wanted to make the best pasta shape for holding sauce, or nutritional yeast in our case

And later as I’m drifting off to sleep I think about how that day I had tried so many new things and visited new places and got lost and then figured it out and that it was just nice to have a friend to do all of it with.

Being independent is cool, and I had come to New York determined to fly super solo, but that day I realized it’s also nice to be able to experience new things and get lost in new places with someone familiar.

And that’s really it, that’s the takeaway I have from this story. That and if you’re going to order a smoothie from a CBD shop, it’s probably going to have CBD in it.