Burrito Box, USA

I came back to New York for Burrito Box.

I started giggling uncontrollably when I got out of Port Authority last night. After having seen cities that earned superlative titles in beauty or cleanliness or liberal drug policy, my city offered the sense of familiarity and home that no other city could offer. London did elicit a sense of comfort, but I felt lost amidst the hush that fell upon the city after midnight, unsettled by the drivers on the lefthand side of the road, and perpetually hungry for Mexican food.

The theater district was as obnoxious and crude as usual, swamped with foreigners ("Y'all hungry? There's an Applebees.") With an expertise only the damn Yankees can hope to possess, I maneuvered through the crowds, and finally made it to Fordham, all the while talking to my mother on the phone as an excuse for my freakishly large grin.

Fordham ResLife decided to stop issuing guest passes for the next week, so I was initially supposed to be carted in as luggage. As if to celebrate my homecoming, McMahon Hall was also shutting off electricity and water the following morning (today), and all residents, and their illegal guests, were to evacuate the building by 8 am.

And then, more embracing than Fordham ResLife or a tourist enamored of Times Square, was seeing my friends. Bianca and I shrieked when we saw each other, our tuneless and incredulous yells piercing the harmony of the warm night. We decided we still loved each other and despite all the adventures we had apart, we still had the rest of our lives to live together.

We went to the art event in Chelsea that Amy had helped to produce, the Slideluck Potshow. Amy looked like a quintessential extra in Sex and the City, "immaculately polished" but with the spirit of a New Yorker. We heaped our plates with hummus and salsa and pita chips, and then got some fresh air on the balcony, from which we could see the entire city illuminated, and on which Bianca stole 8 beef franks. (She doesn't like hot dogs).

Leslie's cacaphonous voice over the loud speaker the next morning warned us of the exodus, and half asleep, half wishing we had our own Zion with no arbitrary McMahon oppression and free flowing milk and honey (and pinkberry), we filed mechanically out of the building.

We took refuge in the Flame, for about two hours, until a party of 15 trendy Koreans and 2 white men, one middle aged and the other a teenager like the Koreans, sat down for brunch right next to us. Failing to figure out the thread connecting everyone at that table, we got our 10% student discount and walked to the Hudson. We sat on the deck admiring the eclectic furniture, randomly placed among a 7-foot tall watering can, several yellow ceramic vases, and a short bed in the center of everything. Tourists staying at the hotel began posing with the watering can, at which point we left to pick up burritos for Manu and me to eat later. It was the first Mexican place in which I had set foot in over two months. Without pause, I ordered the burritos, with brown rice, brown tortillas, and no sour cream; it was a sense of control I had not felt in London, sifting through the various fried fish and meat dishes to get to a remotely flavorful and ambiguous vegetarian dish.

I held those burritos in my hand for the rest of the day, as I finished errands and met my friend Daniyal downtown on Macdougal St., where I got Mamoun's for my parents. He drove me home, and the entire ride I could think of nothing but the I heart NY plastic bag I had been holding for the past 4 hours. Manu had hardly opened the front door before I ran into the kitchen. She spread out the burritos and salsas, while I washed my hands.

And then I took the first bite. It was my first bite of New York City, my first bite of home, my first bite of a black bean burrito doused in salsa fresca and a hot sauce that burned my chapped lips. It was my first bite of America, a taste pure and simple, a taste of freedom, just like the pilgrims sought.

There were probably tacos at Plymouth Rock.