A season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Inspector Gadget with closed captions,
and I started to kind of almost understand what everyone was saying.

The first and foremost if for our ears alone,
to find the divisions between words in the spoken language.

Exposure to the language shows the divisions,
cartoons especially bring context to what will soon become meaningful words.

The words that repeat the most are the glue,
then after that comes the meat which relies on the context of the scene being watched.

And then you go, move, grab your parents, or kids, get a ticket,
and go.

Word divisions and frequently used words is all it takes,
the next step is listening to news, looking over newspapers, and telling time.

You have to work hard at using the correct words,
if the person asking is nice, and you work hard, you may get a hug if you get it right.

My watch was showing seventeen or so,
and I wasn't sure how to say it, or if I should say five, and if I should add PM.

The person obviously knew it was the afternoon,
or did they?

If I said seventeen,
this question wouldn't come up - but now it did.

And as it did,
I forgot the other words that I may need.

Do I say Seventeen, "Ohh eight",
or zero eight.

And where do I put the PM,
after five where it belongs, or after minutes, which is weird.

And do I I just say the numbers?

Seventeen Ohh, Eight Pee Em,
No, Five PM, Ohh Eight.

"I don't speak English!"

"Let me look at your watch",
at which point I remembered that there were gangs and murders in New York subways.

Or were the gangs just in the 80's?
or just the movies?

I mumbled something,
and went away, leaving the poor person stranded in time, possibly in a murderous mood.

I wasn't scared of being murdered,
as I was so lost that there was no way in hell I could make it back home anyway.

I literally just moments ago traveled above ground,
in a freaking New York subway, I had no idea where I was.

I had my micro-cassette recorder with me,
I cleverly recorded all the station names that I was going to pass, so that I didn't even need to look at the map.

Except that my pronunciation was so different,
from the conductors PRONUNCIATION, I only somewhat recognized every third station...

...and I couldn't really be sure if it is the same name,
as it only sounded a little similar.

I figured I should just go to Manhattan,
to a station that I know, and then go back again, but this time on the right subway.

It worked like a charm,
I made it back to Greenpoint hours late.

And I got really excited, and counted off a dollar twenty five for a slice of real American pizza,
... "it is called a quarter" - I murmured while going though my pocket.

Then I stopped... is twenty five cents - the coin - a quarter,
or is it that two tens and a five make a quarter of a dollar, which is also called a quarter for short.

Then I stared at the coins,
it just blew my mind that five cents in America - my America - five cents is much bigger than ten cents - why do this? why?

I put dollar twenty five, on the cool metal counter in the pizza place,
and I knew they knew that meant a slice - so I didn't have to say anything...

I sprinkled paprika on it,
I was an American, and the pizza person thought that too.

I made a U-shape of the crust like in the movies, and took a bite,
my goodness, my goodness, my goodness...

To this day, though I forget in the morning,
I feel, I know, I still dream of that new taste of pizza with mozzarella cheese.

And the slice was so big - it was hard to hold - and so flat,
and that paprika, that burned, it burned, it was the real deal.

"Spicy", I said very quietly, repeating it couple more times,
my aunt just taught me to use the word spicy when the taste is hot.

On my way out the magically smelling pizza place,
without needing to conjure up courage, I quietly said.

Tenkju.