First night with native showing me lots of fun things

Online dating is great for socializing, whether or not it is for anything else I've always found. I have many times wondered how there could be a 'friends' equivalent, but I guess it doesn't have the same massive evolutionary force behind it. Anyway it seems like folks in US, or NYC anyway, are quite keen to meet daters fairly soon after making contact. So I have met one lady who has certainly shown me some good times. And I'm not in the market for other than good company just now, when everything sparkles so much that I can't think of focusing on one sparkly person, and therefore the good times I speak of, can be spoken of in detail here! If you get my drift...

So Mona, we'll call her, told me she liked me after about 3 minutes like this "I like you!" Funny how you do know pretty quickly. Even funnier when people say what they think, especially if it's good news. I think another lady I met could have said the opposite equally quickly. I met Mona at an intriguing spot in NYC, actually a very well known one which she named and which I had never heard of.

She was sitting on the grass next to her very flowery very hippy bike, wearing a pink dress, shoes off, having just been woken up by a very cute little boy which brought tears to her eyes. We were inbetween the glory of 2 bridges: Manhattan and Brooklyn, which spoke off over the river in their spectacular paths. There is a park area underneath the overpass (flyover) which leads up and around to the bridges. Infact we were down under the manhattan bridge overpass aka DUMBO. There was a Jewish wedding going on next to the beautifully restored old carousel there and the sun was setting - the best of which I caught on the ferry over the river from 35th street. I chatted to an English woman whose hair shone and blew in the wind next to her lacy white dress on her way out for the night with her fellow holiday-making friends. We established that folks are not friendly in New York. Nice, helpful, yes. But not friendly. A curious thing to feel more and more resident, accentuated by talking to a fellow Brit as tourist.

But my talking to strangers has got absolutely nothing on Mona's - she demonstrates unwittingly throughout the whole evening. She plays with fierce looking dogs out with their tattoed muscley owner, chatting to him who stands their coyly proud of his dogs. She asks a group of girls on the grass if they know the song 'Call your girlfriend' - as she is trying to win a competition with me about song lyrics. She asks as if she was their sister. They reply as if she was their sister. 

She asks the people next to us at a gorgeous little bar in Red Hook in Brooklyn what they ordered, covetting their dishes. This we cycled to - first on cycle path and then through the very quiet residential but funky streets. There are cool warehouses turned artist studios around, like at Hackney Downs and lots of sunbleached young folks literally hanging outside bars in the heat with flip flops, looking gorgeous and young. And they are more friendly - especially because of Mona though I think, who has the open to connection vibe a bout her, despite being many years older than most of them, and a good few more than me.

I particarly enjoyed how she says to the barman in one breath: "what's your name? Oh I love that name" (Zak his name). She flirts with him and then speaks across to the guys around the corner of the bar, who are finishing up their delicious plate of mushroom-stuffed chicken breast with kale (big in USA is kale - you can get it dried as a snack, shredded raw as salad, fried with meat, steamed with garlic dressing - it's everwhere) and roasted polenta steak. I know it is delish as we order the same to share with a cocktail that I don't recall, but it has whipped eggwhite on top dotted with orange bitters. All very exciting and tasty to me. 3 cocktails and one main (entree in US parlance) = $60 = £40 ish.

When she speaks to the guys she asks if they know the black lady next to them who has just left. They say she's local which interests her. She then asks them where the girls are. They dutifully excuse their partners and she teases one of them about not going to the wedding with the girl in question, who has gone to the wedding. He responds saying it's early on in the relationship.

So you can see what good value a date Mona is. I get to hang out with locals and watch her at work, and eat at fabulous little places that do thoughtfully cooked food.

It gets better twice though. First we head off to Sonny's, owned by Sonny who Mona knows, a music bar nearby which features a fantastic blue-grass jam every saturday night. The great things about it were:

- 10+ musicians taking part on the low stage, rotating

- some musicians were girls

- banjos and guitars and passionate vocals everywhere

- beards everywhere (the sudden appearence of beards as you cross from Manahattan to Brooklyn is I expect a well-used source of standup humour)

- guy on harmonica *very* animated with his long swingy curly hair bob and short beard - plays it mean

- house double bass! - this I have no problem picking up and playing along to a few - love the way the next singer approaches me to teach me the chords in 20s to the next song. The harmonica guy says later on to me "you don't have to slap it  - your are putting other musicians off". So I 'walk' the next 2 numbers before joining the audience who are very attentive and into the music. Great atmosphere and they play til very late.

Secondly we go back via the famous Brooklyn Heights. There is a cycle path which leads up to a silent benched lookout. And boy does it lookout. It's tremendous and I now learn is famously so at night. For a few hundred metres across the black water is the statue of liberty, very small and lit up all green and splendid in the distance, tourists subsided for the day. To her left the low bright lights of New Jersey and a couple of islands. And then to her right Manhattan rises up out of the black like a stretched up space city of lights. Breathtaking.

We cycle back over Brooklyn bridge at gone 2am and I am in bed by gone 3am. I suffer terribly from the exhaustion of it all the next day with a class A migraine. Cocktails with not enough water probably didn't help. Mona apparently is fine. She is a casting director for commercials and she is up and bright-eyed for work. Some people's constitutions, my oh my.

Shot is Brooklyn bridge from DUMBO.