I got up around 9:00 AM and got ready quickly. I was meeting my friend Venus for brunch and had to meet her in midtown. It was a decently long subway ride and I wanted to give myself enough time to get to the restaurant.
I said goodbye to Danny and Mitchell and headed off. The brunch place was called Sarabeth’s and was on 59th right near Central Park. A twenty minute journey later, I got off at Columbus Circle and walked a few blocks. I beat Venus to the restaurant and went to get a table. It was a five minute wait, so it worked out perfectly.
A few minutes later, Venus arrived and ran to embrace me. I had not seen her since I was in Hong Kong for New Years Eve, so it had been a while. Our table was soon ready and we caught each other up on the last few months of our lives. We text a decent amount when I’m in France, but having a face-to-face conversation is much nicer.
This was my first time going out to breakfast since getting back from France and two things took me by surprise. One was how quickly the food came out. Life in France is much slower, which means it usually takes at least twenty minutes to get your food at restaurants. I was shocked when it came out in ten minutes. Also despite how obvious this may seem, I forgot how big American portion sizes were. I got apple cinnamon French toast and it was gigantic. There is some irony to this since it is called “French” toast.
My Breakfast
My friend Venus
My food delicious and it was super nice to see Venus again. After we finished eating, we walked through Central Park for a bit on the way back to the subway station. I said goodbye to Venus and now had to wait another few months before seeing her again.
I took the subway to Penn Station and took the first NJ Transit train I found home. On the way home, my family texted me saying they would pick me up from the train station and that we were going to the diner. This would be a daunting task after the big breakfast I just ate.
An hour later, I arrived in Summit and hopped in the car with my family. When we got to the diner, I figured I probably would just get a coffee. I had an epiphany and thought, “Goddamn it, this is my first diner trip in months and I’m going to get chocolate chip pancakes”. I cannot tell you how many times in France I would kill for diner food. Despite being full from brunch, I ate every pancake they gave me and they were delicious. Sometimes a man needs to step up and do what needs to get done.
My pancakes
I had a nice breakfast with my family, and in typical diner fashion, I ran into a bunch of people I know at the diner.
We headed home and all started to get ready to go to Staten Island for my grandma’s wake. Before the wake, we headed to my Aunt Michele’s house in Staten Island to eat with everyone. I don’t know if this is just an Italian thing or not, but a bunch of people sent or bought sympathy meals for my grandpa and extended family. Because of this, they were huge platters of sandwiches, tons of sweets, and a bunch of other food at my Aunt’s house. This has been a day of a lot of eating for me, or maybe this is just normal for America and I forgot.
My whole extended family was at my Aunt’s house and it was nice to catch up with a lot of them. Similar to the other night, people asked me a bunch of questions about how France was. A little bit later, we all headed to the funeral home.
I had been to a few funerals, but this really my first wake. I thought seeing my grandma might be strange, but the people at the funeral home really did a great job with making her look nice. She honestly looked much better than when I saw her two days ago.
Various people in my family had made nice photo boards with pictures of my grandma. There was a lot of pictures I hadn’t seen before. There was also an absurd amount of flowers that people had sent.
This was nice picture I found of my grandma, mom and I
Soon a bunch people started arriving and the room quickly became packed. The wake was about two hours long and was not too bad. At wakes you essentially have to make small talk the entire time with people, but I did have some surprisingly nice conversations. My grandma’s Italian neighbor came and I spoke Italian with her. This seemed very weird to my sister Julia who didn’t know who the woman was and why I was speaking to her in Italian.
Eventually people started to head out and the wake ended. Tomorrow there were two more wakes to go to. We said goodbye to everyone and I headed home with my family.
When I got back, I watched an episode of the Sopranos with my sisters. There are a lot of deaths in the Sopranos, and it is eerie how similar the wakes in the show are to the one for my grandma. I guess that’s how I know I am in a very Italian family.
I went to bed after the episode ended.
Foreign Tourist with No Grasp of the Local Language 
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