I learned my alphabet today

Rasanah (middle) and I shuffled down to the Lower East Side this morning to meet up with my friend Katherine (left), in town from Dallas, and her friend Sharon (right). We had an excellent Mexican brunch in what I believe was Alphabet City, and then had further alphabeticalistic adventures when trying to get back home. I'll go ahead and share that story, even though I realize it's not very interesting, just in case anyone's curious about weekend subway mishaps:

To get to the Lower East Side, we took the 7 train from Queens to 5th Ave. and caught the F/V down to the Lower East Side/2nd Avenue stop. Unfortunately, though, the F/V was not running uptown, which is to say we couldn't come back the way we came. So instead we had to take the A in the opposite direction, far enough that we could transfer to an uptown train. This was far -- all the way to the Jay Street station in Brooklyn, in fact. There, we hopped off to catch the F back uptown, which was actually running on the A track. After a couple stops, we transferred to an uptown 6 express, which got us to Grand Central, where Rasanah and I parted ways. Then it was an uneventful 7 back to Queens for me.

The iPhone app that's saved me in my subway and pedestrian pursuits is called CityTransit. I really advise anyone in New York with an iPhone to get it because it not only has the famous subway map, but you can look up routes and stops by line, and find the nearest stop using nutty GPS technology. There's also a feed with the latest transit warnings and updates. So it's been very useful. And, of course, the Google Map app has been useful too, although as most people are quick to point out, the numbered street system does make it pretty easy to get around.