NYC part 3: Bobby Flay and strange art.

One of the "must-do"s on our list was to dine at one of Bobby Flay's restaurants. There are two in Manhattan: Mesa Grill and Bar Americain. Though we'd heard nothing but rave reviews of Mesa Grill, Bar Americain was about three blocks away from our hotel and Tuesday night's show: fate meets Drew.



We walked over in the rain, and our wet jackets and umbrella were whisked away to the coat check room without our ever having to take a step.

We were quickly seated, and the waitress was kind enough to take our picture.



I started with a Brandy Crusta, a ridiculously strong drink with a lovely sugared rim.



For dinner, I ordered smoked chicken with Hatch green chile spoon bread set atop a black pepper vinegar sauce, plus a side of cauliflower and goat cheese gratin to share. Drew had a grilled pizza with double smoked bacon and carmelized onions. Although the au gratin was a little salty for my taste, everything else was delicious (and Drew liked the cauliflower just as it was!) and the servings were far larger than we could eat.





But that didn't stop us from ordering dessert! Drew chose the deep dish chocolate cream pie for us to share, and I readily agreed.



It was not very pie-like, with a layer of rich, pudding-like filling topped with a large, thin cookie crisp, but it was mighty tasty. We managed to eat every bite!

After we retrieved our coats, we headed to New York City Center - again in the rain - to see The Cotton Club Parade.



Unlike the Majetsic, where we waited outside for a long time, City Center staff were hurrying us inside the doors, into the lobby and, thankfully, out of the rain. The show was wonderful! Wynton Marsalis (and Warren Carlyle, whoever he is) outdid himself with this production. I wish I could see it again!

New York City Center was recently renovated and had just had its grand re-opening about a month before we arrived. They clearly have made great efforts to restore a grand theatre, even cleaning the brass accents the day after the rains.



After the show (where we again were seated next to natives), we raced the rain back to our room for a good night's sleep and expected a rainy morning on Wednesday. Fortunately, it wasn't too bad.

After sleeping in a bit, we walked about 3 - 4 blocks to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and found breakfast nearby. After we ate, we looked out and the line to enter the museum was down the block! Fortunately, some nice fellow told us that that was the line to buy tickets ... and we didn't have to stand in it since we had ours already!



Next up: the coat check room. The line was quite long, but we were able to leave our jackets and my backpack, but no electronics, like a phone or a camera. Conveniently, photos were allowed in all the galleries we visited.

We started on the 4th floor, with Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol and lots of others! The 4th floor lobby was probably the most peaceful area.





Drew was amazed that he has studied so many of the artists exhibited at this museum in his Fine Art Survey class at school: Jackson Pollock, Vincent van Gogh, Edward Munich, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and so many others!

This Michelangelo Pistoletto ("Man with Yellow Pants") was one of my favorites: try taking a straight-on picture without capturing yourself, too!



This Joseph Beuys mixed media was interesting, too!



Drew was happy when we finally made it to the 5th floor, where Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night" is on display. So were a lot of other people ... it drew quite a crowd!





Of course, my favorite painting on the 5th floor was the puppies. Gauguin captured them quite nicely!



A print of this Monet graced my wall throughout college and after. I never thought I'd see it in person ... or that it would be so huge!



As we were leaving the 5th floor, we peeked over the railing to see the activity below:



And, of course, I looked out the windows, too!



And the next strange thing we did? The Addams Family Musical! Stay tuned ...

NYC part 2: Phantoms and Ghosts

After a nearly non-stop first 24 hours in New York, Drew and I continued at nearly the same rapid pace.

After the hop-on, hop-off tour Monday, we got back to our hotel (the nearest stop was about a block away: convenient!), changed clothes, and headed back to Times Square for the CSI: the Experience at Discovery. There, we got to figure out who killed the victim in Crime # 3 with conjecture, speculation, and insufficient information.

When we picked up our jackets at the coat check (yes, coat checks really do exist!), we asked for recommendations for area restaurants. The young lady suggested Junior's, the back entrance of which was right across the street.



The food was fine, but the company was better. Again, we sat next to native, born-and-raised Manhattanites. The lady had a young daughter, maybe age 7 or 8, and was meeting her husband, who worked in the area. We talked about what our plans were, which shows we were seeing, which museums we were visiting -- you know, all the things locals ask tourists visiting NYC. She liked our choices and didn't have many suggestions, except for the African American Burial Ground Memorial, which was on our list already (though we didn't have time to visit this trip).

She had ordered an "egg cream" for her daughter, which I'd never heard of, so I asked if that was something "very New York." She said, yes, it's a treat! So Drew ordered one. It was kind of like carbonated chocolate milk ... not a favorite of either of us.



From there, we walked half a block to the Majestic Theatre, where we were going to see The Phantom of the Opera.



Silly us: that line down the block? All in line, waiting to enter the theatre! We were so far away that we couldn't even see the theatre!



The show was fantastic! But the seats were so close together that even my knees were touching the seat in front of me. I don't know how any tall person could manage to get comfortable there.

After the show, we made a donation to some charity that many of the Broadway theatres were supporting, and in return, we got a CD of Christmas carols sung by various actors in various shows. I also got a picture with Raoul, played by Kyle Barisich, and - perhaps even better - a picture with the phantom himself!



The next day, we continued touring the city on the Gray Line hop-on, hop-off tour, but this time, we headed north. We drove (roughly) along Central Park, saw where John Lennon lived and was shot, and eventually hopped off at St. John the Divine, an Episcopalean cathedral.



It was so huge that it was impossible for me to capture the entire church in one picture! We walked into the church, which was beautiful, but "voluntary" donations were being accepted just inside the door, before the main part of the church, so we headed on our way.

Next door, on the cathedral grounds, there was an interesting garden featuring this very interesting scuplture:



From there, we walked north to Columbia University. Like NYU, this was another nice college campus in Manhattan.



We visited the book store, where I was able to pick up a local interest book of some sort. Outside the bookstore, between the campuses of Columbia and Barnard College, was a fantastic farmers' market! I love to purchase local honey when I travel, and I was lucky to find a vendor who kept bees in a nearby town. I was sorely tempted by the veggies, but good sense got the best of me, and I managed to walk away.



From there, we walked to another gigantic place of worship: Riverside Church. It was an amazing sight to see! The church was like a skyscraper, which was quite shocking, but the chapel inside was quite nice and very sedate.



Next up: Grant's Tomb. What a ridiculous, over-sized grave! There's something to be said for subtlety, but it was sorely missing here. See Drew standing next to the column? He's that little black line, just to give you an idea of scale:



We somehow managed to find a tour bus to pick us up again. We headed north to Harlem, past the Apollo Theatre and then south on 5th Avenue. We saw a statue of Duke Ellington, who eventually led the band at the famous Cotton Club in Harlem. (Later, we would see "The Cotton Club Parade," a show at New York City Center based on the Cotton Club!)



We hopped off the bus for the last time at The Frick Collection and walked south through Central Park, which was vibrantly colored with red and golden leaves.



Since there was no where immediately available to eat, and since we were starving, we ate hot dogs from a street vendor. They were quite tasty, I must admit! And then we got a bag of hot, sugary-sweet cashews for dessert. Yumola!



The weather was ominous, so we walked a little more quickly. Our next destination was FAO Schwarz!



Stay tuned for NYC part 3: TOYS!

NYC part 1: the first 24.

Drew and I flew to New York City the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I'm a nervous flyer anyway, but imagine my, errrrrrr, joy when I landed on a prop-plane. This was my view for the first leg of the trip:

(Okay, so it only looks stationary through the camera's eye, but still.)

Next time, I'm taking JetBlue: a direct flight and NO visible propellers!

Since our flight left Houston at about 11:30 a.m. and didn't arrive till nearly 4:00 p.m. local time, we missed lunch and were quite hungry by the time we arrived at LaGuardia Airport. We grabbed a shuttle to our hotel, the Wellington Hotel ...



... dropped our bags in the room ...



... and then headed across the street to Carnegie Deli.



Unlike restaurants back home, we were seated at a table with other parties. The table had eight seats: the two of us, a guy from Japan, a couple with a teenager from Tennessee, and a couple from Manhattan. Of course we chatted with the people from Tennesee: we all love SEC football and talked about our respective prospects for the year, plus with kids the same age, it was fun to hear what they were planning to do while in NYC, too! The guy from Japan spoke little English, but we were able to communicate with him as well; poor guy was stuck between two friendly Southern ladies!

And the couple from Manhattan: NATIVES!! They were only dating, but both had been born and raised in Manhattan. We talked to them about what we were planning, which shows we were going to see (that'll be covered in NYC part something else), which were must-see sites. The guy was friends with one of the performers in The Cotton Club Parade, one of the shows we would see, so we made sure to get his name and look for him later that week! The couple was so friendly that I thought we'd gotten lucky, meeting native New Yorkers who didn't meet the stereotype.

Then the food came. Drew and I split a Reuben with corned beef. It was delicious! But even with splitting the sandwich, there was at least enough left for three more servings!



My half:


After dinner, we decided to walk to Times Square, the heart of which was about 15 minutes and 12 short blocks away. (Yes, there are short blocks running north to south and long blocks running east to west; I don't know the ratio, but I'd bet a long block is about 2.5 - 3 times as long as a short block.)

Times Square is simply too much. There are ridiculous amounts of advertisements on the buildings (a later tour guide reported that that's required by law, but who knows), vast numbers of people, and more things to do in a few blocks than in some small cities.

Drew had enough insight to get a picture on first view:


We walked around a little, then rode the Ferris wheel inside Toys'R'Us. Yes, there is a four-story Ferris wheel INSIDE the store!



You don't get to pick which car you ride in, and of course we were lucky enough to get the My Little Pony car. Uh huh. No Scooby Doo or Mr. Potato Head for us: pink ponies only!



The next day, we did a Hop-On, Hop-Off tour through Gray Line Tours. The bus was a double-decker, and it was just barely warm enough to sit on the open top deck.





Of course, being so high, you couldn't stand up. Look how close we were to the traffic lights!



We passed Madison Square Gardens, the Flat Iron Building, and of course Macy's on 34th. It's Christmas time in the city, and Santa is still in need of some believers.



Next up: the Empire State Building. We went to the very tippy top!



From the 86th floor, where most people stop - remember the observation deck in Sleepless in Seattle? that's the 86th floor - you can see the city. It goes on forever, it seems!





But Drew is an adventurous sort, so we went to the 102nd floor observation deck, too. We couldn't go outside that high up, but it was a pretty amazing view, though nearly identical to the 86th floor. (In other words, if I were making a recommendation, I would say just go to the 86th floor, unless you just really, really like heights.)

Of course, if you go to the top, you do have the opportunity to ride with an elevator dude who has to close the outer elevator door and then the inner cage door, which was kind of cool. You don't see that very often these days.



After the Empire State Building, we hopped back on the bus. Onward: to NYU, the Scholastic Store, and China Town!

NYU has quite a nice campus. I was expecting something different, since it's in the middle of Manhattan, but I can see how the students there love it! Although it's in the heart of the city, it has a vibrancy that only a college campus can have.

We also went to the Scholastic Store. Remember all those Scholstic book orders from school? Yep, we went there. We found a great selection of Harry Potter paraphernalia, and I got to try the sorting hat for myself:



Of course, it told me that I was too old for Hogwarts and sent me on my way. Drew, on the other hand, got the house of his choice:



Then it was on to China town. The shopping was completely overwhelming (keep in mind that I also find Sam's Club overwhelming, but this even moreso than that), but the food in China Town was delicious!



After China Town, we continued on to Battery Park, where we caught the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty is closed for renovations, so we could not go inside to the pedastal or - remember that Drew is the adventurous sort! - to the crown, so we opted for the free ferry ride with a great view of our favorite freedom girl:



In the distance, we could see the new Freedom Tower, which is under construction where the destroyed World Trade Center formerly stood and will stand as "a beacon of freedom" in the face terrorism.



The Staten Island Ferry ride was quick and pleasant. A lot of New Yorkers take the ferry back and forth, but I suspect that - considering the number of cameras - most of the people standing outside with us were tourists.





Again, like on the double-decker bus, it was just warm enough to ride outside on the top deck with the wind in our faces and the sun shining brightly.



We exited the ferry and then hurried to the loading site for the next ferry heading back to Manhattan. We opted for the middle deck this time, sitting on a bench, enjoying the ride and the lovely view.



By the time we got back to Manhattan, we'd been in the city for a full 24 hours. Yep, this was just the first 24 hours of a week in the city.

(Stay tuned for NYC part 2 and see what else we saw and did!)

I am the 0.001%,

I have a cat, River Kitty, who was bitten by a rattlesnake who evacuated a nearby sugar cane field during the harvest.

Surely not more than 0.001% of the population can say that. Right??

And the good news is that River Kitty has lived four years since then, bringing his average cost per year to about $1,000. Considering that 1/8 of his skin sloughed off - to the muscle even - it's pretty amazing that he's even alive!

(This was some pricey outfit! Good thing he is so forward-thinking in his style.)



And does he appreciate it? Nope. Not a bit. When the river (see how he got his name?) was flooded earlier in the year, what did he do? Play with the snakes evacuating from the flood.

Yep, that's my River Kitty.