Learning A New Language: Star-"Bucks"

Title: Learning a new language: Star- “Bucks”
Name of Place Visited: Starbucks
Street Address: 10 North Pearl Street
Date: 28 January 2008 at 2PM

I am in Starbucks in downtown Albany. I nick name this place “Bucks”; they make so much money here. Nothing is next door but a big glass window, but there is an ATM; how convenient. Across the street are a few banks and many busy business people. The neighborhood seems nice. It’s the prime part of Albany, the place to be. However, I feel uncomfortable and as this hour goes on I am not any more comfortable. It’s not the location of “Bucks” that makes me feel uncomfortable, but more the idea. There are so many faces coming and going; the energy I get from these customers seems uneasy. It seems like there having bad days; maybe they have a severe case of the Mondays. Hey, what better way to fix that than with a coffee? There lives are so hectic, why not just sit down and really enjoy that coffee?

These surroundings remind me of my old apartment. I used to live about two (maybe three) blocks up from this coffee store, and my fiancé and I would walk down here and get coffee a lot. The neither area nor “Bucks” has changed that much; but that still does not help with my comfort level.

I am alone and no one is really near me. There are not too many places to sit down in here; most of the people are just standing in line. Most of these people are customers if not workers. I can see pedestrians walking the streets; maybe going to there job or running from it. No one has talked to me, but than again, no one really talks to anyone. A few people have looked at me, maybe wondering what I am doing sitting here by myself on a Monday afternoon looking around at everyone. One male customer is tall, maybe mid-fiftes, brown coat, balding, glasses. There are two workers, both women. One is a little on the chunky side, black tee-shirt, black hair, nice complexion; personally I think there uniforms are not that bad, they look kind of comfy. The other is a skinny girl, brown hair, tall, black tee-shirt. None of these people remind me of myself. They are too busy and I would never work at a Starbucks. How do these employees remember all of this? It sounds like another language. “Can I have a non-fat grande mocha macchiato skip the wip extra splenda…oh no wait, make it caramel.” It sound say on all applications for this job: “Are you prepared to learn another language?”

I see a lot of dark colors, brown, and black mainly; earth tone. Besides these colors, all I see are starbucks coffee cups. Some big, some small, some see through, some white, some red. Some have green straws, some have white. There is a piece of a wrapper on the ground; it’s from a straw and it’s white.

I’m sitting by a window, that makes it bright, but the lightens is a little dim. I’m fairly warm. All I smell is coffee; however I do see some food. Mmmm, that makes me hungry. There potions for there desserts are really big. Why would you get a tall coffee with a extra giant sized brownie? I hope you plain to attend the gym later. All I hear is music, relaxing music at the moment; but nothing I’ve ever heard. This reminds me of the Starbucks at The College of St. Rose; but then again I guess most “Bucks” look the same. They speak another language at St. Rose’s Starbucks too.