NYC, The Last Days

I'm a terrible blogger....this I know. Please forgive me and here is the end of that trip that JJ and I took to New York. Since it's been so long my memory is kinda fuzzy so I hope I don't leave anything out!

Back in New York after our trip out of town we proceeded to have a busy couple of days trying to fit in doing everything we thought needed to be done and seeing everything that needed to be seen. We started with the Cloisters. We got a bit overloaded with religious art, but it was a beautiful museum. I especially enjoyed the garden outside, even though a lot of the plants were still coming up.


We also visited the Frick Museum where we wandered around the various rooms. I love that museum because it's so much smaller and more intimate than, say, the MET. And it's fun exploring someone else's taste in art...to see what they thought were beautiful additions to their home and collection.

Other than museums, we managed to make it out to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. It's too bad we weren't visiting when more flowers were out but it was still a beautiful area to visit. And the greenhouse was phenomenal. We were trying to see an orchid exhibit that we had heard was in progress, but they hadn't finished installing all the orchids, so part of the greenhouse was closed to us. That was sad. However Janet and I managed to entertain ourselves quite well in the rest of the building.





And those are the major events from our last couple of days. Janet and I both got together with some friends as well and on our last day in New York we were so tired of walking around that we spent the day sleeping in, going out to see the Bank job and finally just sat in a Starbucks and people watched while resting our exhausted feet.

That sure was a great trip...it was so much fun hanging out with JJ and Beks again and seeing other friends along the east coast. Miss you guys! And now y'all will have to come visit me in Seattle :)

NYC, NY: Day 10

Damn, it's day 10 already!

Well, the day started with waking up at a reasonable time (9:00am) at Leah and Dan's to get ready for our trip to good ole Mount Holyoke. Oona and I were fed a wonderful breakfast of apple muffins, pumpkin bread, and biscuits. (Very delicious, Dan!) We said our goodbyes and followed Leah since she was going to show us the back way to the freeway. Since we were on the same stretch of road for a while, we waved and made faces at Leah. :)

Oona and I got to MHC just in time to meet up with Amy, my wonderful friend/adviser/professor. :D We chatted and caught up while wandering around the campus and marveling at the new sites such as the new track and soccer field with stadium lights (which I didn't learn about until today), the new Blanchard (our student center), the skating rink, and the new dorm (which has ugly slate shingle type things). The track is awesome and I'm so jealous that I can't run on it! There's 10 lanes on the straightaway and an awesome pole vault pit. Jealous! Amy had to go to lab so Oona and I walked around some more and looked at the differences and the sames. We also spent a bunch of money at the campus store buying MHC paraphernalia. Had to stock up until the next time we visit; 5 years from now. The same two ladies that worked there when we went to school are still working there. Cute.

JJ & Amy

the new track!

the new dorm

Mary Lyon is still there

The Village Commons has also changed a lot. Some new stores took over the old ones. We visited Tailgate, where we had the Banker and the Orchards. They were just as yummy as we remembered. And we spent time in the Odyssey and ended up wanting to buy all the books. (Always dangerous!) And finally to waste time until 5:00 when we were going to meet up with my friend Mike, we sat in the ThirstyMind and read (we were good and read books that we already had.) The place is just okay now; they got rid of all the comfy couches. :(

The Banker and the Orchards...yum

We headed out to Northampton to meet up with Mike for dinner. We went to Osaka, where the food was pretty good and fulfilled Oona's sushi craving. It was great catching up since the last time I saw Mike was 2 years ago for about 10 minutes. And of course, since we were in Northampton, we had to go to Herrell's. This has been a very ice cream filled trip! But as nice as it was to talk, we had to head back to NYC.

we're not in the city anymore

The drive was pretty uneventful except a few things: saw some police/fire -people putting out a car that was on fire on the other side of the freeway; refused to pay 3.39$ for gas and found a 3.33$ place; avoided swerving drunk/tired drivers (yes, there were multiple); and was confused by G-Pis (my GPS) a couple of times. Good times.

And for those that wondered what happened to my bday cupcake. Beks was able to retrieve it by telling one of the security people that it was in the cupboard. He said, yeah I heard about that, why did they take that from you? And I think Beks said (but I'm not sure I could be making this all up), I dunno, maybe they hoped that I would forget it and eat it themselves. Funny. :D

NYC, NY: Day 7, 8, 9

Day 7: NY to CT (photographs will be added at a later date, once we are back in NYC)

Saturday we drove out to Winstead Connecticut to attend a wedding for one of Janet's friends from MHC. Elisabeth Kittredge married Steven Murray in a traditional Irish Catholic wedding in a small church with reception afterwards at Crystal Peak. The wedding service itself was very beautiful, even though neither Janet nor myself are Catholic. I loved the green color that Elisabeth chose for her bridesmaid dresses.

The reception was great. We ate a lot of food. A lot. We were stuffed. So much so that we ended up not having any dinner that night (well aside from some left over Dunkin Donuts and popcorn). We sat next to another MHC alum from our class, Hannah Dul. It was great, we had a lot of fun chatting about dogs, dome homes, chickens, tree houses, fishing, shrimp and by the end Janet and I had invited ourselves to visit her in Maine. While we were attempting to roll ourselves away from the reception and say goodbye to the bride we got convinced to stay a bit longer with the promise of chocolate covered strawberries. And then once we had managed to stuff our faces with chocolate fruit we got stopped one last time to take part in that dreaded wedding tradition, the bouquet toss. Duh duh duh dum. My favorite wedding tradition (insert massive sarcasm here). Janet and I hid behind Hannah (cause she's taller than us) but thankfully the bouquet didn't get close to us and was caught by a little girl.


We finally left after the the bouquet toss and made our way to our hotel in the middle of nowhere. We got there around 4:30ish and proceeded to change into our pajamas, climb into bed and watch television all night. We started off with Iron Chef, moved on to the Strongest Man competition and then continued on and on. Janet and I excel at being lazy.


Day 8: CT to Cambridge, MA

We managed to wake up early and made our way from middle of nowhere Connecticut to Cambridge so that we could visit Boston, but mostly to stay and hang out with my friend Naomi who is doing her PHD at MIT. When we got to her dorm it was around noon and we were just in time for a free dorm brunch...although Janet and I had eaten breakfast for once on this trip and weren't hungry yet...but we got some snacks (including Nutella!!!!) and then we headed out into the drizzle and gray of a cold Boston day to visit the city. We crossed the Harvard Bridge where we learned all about Smoot measurement. Then we walked and did some shopping and eventually made our way to Harvard Square. After visiting a great toy store called Curious George & Friends we went to dinner, but not before wandering around trying to find a place to sit in a coffee show which was impossible since it seemed that everyone was out studying in Harvard Square that afternoon. In any case, we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Border Cafe where we started our drinking for the evening with two margaritas and then stuffed ourselves. After rolling out of the restaurant we made our way to Grendel's Den to continue the drinking. We had a great time meeting one of Naomi's friends...although all of her other friends didn't make it out because apparently they all had classes the next day and something called "homework" to do and "papers" to write. Lame. In any case, we still had a lot of fun.

rain

Smoots!

it is so not spring...look at all that brown surrounding Little Naomi.

Grendel...

...and his new monster friends!

Day 9: Cambridge to Bedford

And finally we come to today! Janet and I left Cambridge this morning and made our way to Bedford MA which is about a half hour from Cambridge. We're staying overnight with my friends Leah and Dan who have been very kind and opened their wonderful home to us. They even made us brunch and dinner! In fact, as soon as we got out of the car and stepped into their home we immediately sat down to an incredible spread of food for brunch. After eating we all piled into Leah's car (which brought back memories from the road trip Janet, Leah and I took after graduating college) and Dan gave us a history tour of Concord. We visited the North Bridge which was fun cause the river is flooding so we had fun trying to figure out where the water line should have been and Dan climbed up a tree. Then we wandered around downtown Concord but a lot of the shops were closed so we ended up spending more time in the old town cemeteries where we had fun looking for all the old headstones with skull designs and trying to trace the families and trying to come up with their family histories based on who died when. Yes, I realize this may sound morbid to some people but really it was a lot of fun and quite fascinating. It helps that all four of us love history.

Leah and Dan in the background climbing down from viewing the flooded river.

On our way back to the house we stopped to see Louisa May Alcott's house from the outside and we also stopped and walked around a part of the Minute Man Historical Park.

Minute Man Park

After filling up on New England and Revolutionary history we made our way back to the house for a delicious home cooked dinner of Pad Thai. And now we are currently swapping stories about weddings and house purchasing and blogging while we prepare to head out for ice cream (yes that's right, once again we'll be sampling more ice cream on this trip...poor us). Although, actually I think everyone is waiting for me to finish up this long blog entry. So I'll sign off for now so that we can get ice cream sooner. Tomorrow JJ and I will be heading out to Western Mass to visit Mount Holyoke, see a couple of her friends and then get back to the City.

Rascal, isn't he a cutie?

Leah's embroidered napkins

NYC, NY: Day 6

Today we didn't really do much...again. It's the theme of our trip. We woke up and did laundry because we felt that it was needed before our trip out of town. It's always nice to have clean clothing. Oona and I are apparently very bad at doing laundry not at home because first we chose a bigger washer than needed and then chose a dryer that had a bum door. We're smart like that.

After drying and before folding, we decided to find a place to eat our one of two meals of the day. We walked a while but found nothing appetizing so we went back to Garden Cafe where we ate the night before. It was excellent and very filling. As Oona and I were sitting, we were listening to two ladies that were talking about the merits of convection microwaves. It was funny.

We finally got everything done and headed out to the MOMA which is free on "Target" Fridays. It was interesting if you like that sort of thing. It was a good thing that Oona and I aren't terribly interested or we would have taken a million years to get through the 5 floors of craziness. Oona like the old photography and Rousseau paintings. I enjoyed the Seurats and huge Monet 3 paneled painting and the later Monet painting of the Japanese Bridge in red. The rest of it was all very strange, linear, monochrome, or abstract. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for the MOMA.

After that, we met up with Beks and did a little bit of shopping. It's nice in NYC since if you don't spend more than 100$ there's no sales tax. How cool is that? We walked around and saw the Saint Patrick's Cathedral which is surrounded by really tall buildings. Rockefeller square was a disappointment since it looks bigger in my imagination. We walked some more (and passed the Empire State Building) until we got to the subway and said goodbye to Beks, then Oona and I finally got on the L train to Brooklyn (aka the Hipster train according to Beks.)


We met up with SJ, Jay, Belma, and Paul. It was great since they were all happy drunk. We met them at this cute place called Spike Hill and got a drink. Belma and Paul had to call it an early night so the rest of the party went to Sea where the food was good and amazingly, reasonably priced. I didn't really care for the pomegranate mojito but Oona really liked her lychee cocktail. Overall a very good meal.

We finally said our goodbyes and headed back on the train to Manhattan. It took forever since we were on the local trains and then we had to take a shuttle from 168th. Not fun, especially since I had to use the facilities. We finally got back safe and sound. Off to Connecticut for the wedding!

NYC, Day 5

Today exhaustion prevailed. Once more we were not able to wake up early. But you know what? It's freakin' vacation! So we took some time to update the blog earlier today and then we finally made it out of the apartment in the early afternoon and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was great, we saw the Gustave Courbet exhibition which was partially put together by the Fabre Museum in Montpellier where I lived Junior year. It was fun seeing some of the paintings I remembered from that time in France. We also saw the Jasper Johns exhibit which was a bit boring....all the pieces were gray. Fascinating. And last we saw the Lee Friedlander photography exhibit of Olmsted parks which was excellent as well...there were some amazing tree images. And while we're mentioning Olmsted we have to inform the masses of the fact that he also designed the campus of Mount Holyoke College.

Afterwards we walked back up Central Park and wandered into the start of Harlem and took the subway back to the apartment, changed into nicer clothes, ran back onto the subway and headed down to Chelsea for the art opening of some prints my work made. For anyone interested it's the McDermott & McGough show at the Nicholas Robinson Gallery. The show looked fantastic! The gallery did an amazing job with the framing and hanging of the work. It was a real treat to see the prints we made looking so amazing and up on the walls of a gallery. Usually the last I see of our prints are the unframed versions being boxed up and shipped out. Unfortunately we arrived later than I had wanted to be there but we were still able to see everything and hang out for a while. It was also really nice to meet all the people who I have spoken to over the phone at the gallery and to finally have a visual of who they are instead of only hearing their voices.

In any case, after a while we left the opening at around the end to try and get some food because Janet and I were feeling in desperate need of food and sleep. I think that we finally reached maximum capacity of exhaustion on this trip. So now, after eating some delicious pasta for dinner we're all relaxing and getting ready to sleep. Ah, sleep. I love sleep. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to get going a bit quicker as we have to get ready for our trip out of the city starting on Saturday morning. I guess for the moment I will continue looking online as Bekah has fallen asleep on my side of the bed.

NYC, NY: Day 4

We're a little late on the posting of yesterday's events. We were all really stuffed and had food coma. We apologize. :)

So yesterday, we finally got out of the house around 12:30. Got sandwiches and Orangina for "lunch" at John's Doo Wop Deli where we got sandwiches the day before as well. I wanted to contribute but Oona was making arbitrary rules about what a person can or cannot do on their birthday. We then took the train to 59th which is a bit aways from the Met but we were on an express train so that's the closest one. So after walking through the park for a bit, Oona and I found a place to sit on "The Mall" and ate our lunches. There was also a band playing on another bench so we got music as we ate. It was nice but cold...I think my fingers were frozen by the end of it.

Live band on "The Mall"

Trees on "The Mall"

When we finally walked to the Met, we realized that it was 2:00 already. Not enough time to really see anything since we had to wait in line for the Daily Show by 3:00. So off we went again and backtracked. (Though not as much walking as we did days previous.) On our way to the Daily Show, we were waiting at a light at Columbus Circle and there was this woman that almost got hit by a car when she ran across the street. When she got to the other side where we were she said: I almost got hit! *giggle giggle*. So that became the theme of the day: *giggle giggle*.

It was 3:00 when we got to the Daily Show line: we were really early. We had to be top 30 or something. So we waited and waited and waited...Beks arrived around 3:45 though and she brought me a ginormous cupcake with a candle. But I was an idiot and dropped the fork. Oh well. But because we were so early the first 60 people were able to wait inside (in the warmth) for the last 30 minutes or so. That part was the best except we had to listen to some idiot college kids that were complaining about some chick that stole his books after they broke up and how she's pathetic blah blah blah. Yeah I wanted to strangle them. Also, my cupcake was confiscated and put in a cupboard by the security people. We were finally seated and the show began. It was the best thing ever but way too short. I think we should all petition Comedy Central to make the Daily Show an hour long. Jon Stewart is even dreamier in person :D.


Then for my birthday dinner we went to Say Cheese. They have all types of grilled cheese sandwiches. Awesome. We were joined by Suzanna, Derek, and Sophie. It was good times except there were moments in the night where 3 conversations were going on at the same time. That was a tad confusing. We all stuffed ourselves with appetizers: curly fries, mozzarella sticks, and jalapeño poppers (yummy deep fried unwholesomeness!) I could only eat half of my sandwich after that. :)

We then left and went to the subway where we all went our separate ways. It was a fun birthday. :)

NYC, NY: Day 3

*warning: we are all high on sugar at the moment after practically finishing off an entire bag of Ruffles, Reese's Pieces, jerky, chocolate cake, ginger ale and tea.

Janet and I woke up before noon today! Bekah, of course, had been up a lot longer cause she had to be at work. And apparently she did not have a good morning what with her dog, Guster, keeping her up half the night and then the subway stopping for no good reason making her late for work. But JJ and I fixed that when she got home after work. We fed her a yummy sandwich and Ruffles. Food usually works like a charm.

Anyway, once we finally made our way out of the apartment Janet and I wandered down to Chinatown to have lunch with our old HR from our dorm freshman year of college (yay Ham Hall...special yay for 3rd floor). We ate at Congee Village which reminded me slightly of being back in Hong Kong. The waitresses didn't really speak english (or actually they didn't want to so Janet and Helena got to speak to them while I just pointed to what I wanted on the menu and smiled...always works ;) ) I should really learn Cantonese. In any case, the food was really really good. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to find a place to eat in Chinatown. And for the rest of you who don't speak Cantonese the menu is translated in english.

After catching up on the past eight years since we had all seen each other Helena gave Janet and I directions to a great ice cream place in the old part of Chinatown: The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.


We had gobbled down some dan tat (egg custard) ice cream that tasted more like vanilla...but was still tasty. We wanted to try their lychee sorbet, but they were out. Which was not nice of them. Oh well. Next time.

Our next adventure was to walk from Chinatown up through the Village and into Chelsea where we managed to find the gallery that I will be going to Thursday for an opening (yay for working on ones vacation).

Street art in the Village

Then we were exhausted and got back on the subway and made our way back to Bekah's apartment where we got ready for our evening entertainment which was...

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra performing at Carnegie Hall. We got executive box seats for the show through Bekah, since she works there. The concert was great. We listened to Copland's "Three Latin American Sketches" then Chausson's "Poeme de l'amour et de la mer, Op. 19" then Tania Leon's "Acana" which was the premier performance and last but not least Bizet's "Symphony in C Major" which was written when Bizet was 16 years old (he died at the age of 36). I really enjoyed the Bizet symphony (especially the oboe). Janet also enjoyed the Bizet because she really liked watching the hands of the string musicians. Bekah liked the Bizet as well but she also liked the Tania Leon, "Acana". The composer was present for that performance and she talked a bit about the themes of the piece beforehand which we all found extremely helpful and helped us enjoy the piece more.

Afterwards we walked out of the Hall and it was pouring down rain...and I got to see some lightning! Janet missed it though, so she was upset...sorry JJ. Then it was a mad dash to the subway to get home. And now here we are at 1:30 in the morning typing up this blog as well as eating random food and chatting it up. Man, I wish the two gals lived in Seattle. *sigh*

Feeding Bekah on the way to the subway

Bored, waiting for the train.

NYC, NY: Day 2

Today was another lazy day...with lots of walking. We woke up around noon again, and then also didn't get out of the apartment until 2pm. But it was fun being lazy. We had plans to go ride the Stanton Island Ferry and go see the Strand Bookstore...we ended up only doing one of those things, the bookstore. It ended up being a bit drizzly and humid so it was good that we didn't go with the ferry idea. We wouldn't have been able to really see anything. We did end up meeting with my friend Derek, after walking by Washington Square Park (which is under construction so we didn't really see all that much). Derek accompanied Oona and I to the Strand where we looked at art history books and tooled around looking at various books that were too big to purchase and then fly home with. Though, 18 miles of books is pretty large and in charge.

After the Strand we went to Cafe Medina for a little snack and coffee. Then we started walking...and walking...and walking. We made our way up 8th avenue and saw quite a few interesting things such as: a stuffed animal shark being carried on a guys shoulder; a hot pink orangutan (also stuffed) in an empty store window; a chinese restaurant and said "Dinersty Restaurant"; the British correspondent from Access Hollywood, Tim Vincent (with quite a bit of makeup on); and I also saw Montell Williams getting his nails did in a salon.

We eventually found ourselves outside of Carnegie Hall where we picked Bekah up from work and then made our way first to visit Lee's Art Shop where there was a Timbuk2 laptop bag that looked the same as my own Timbuktu bag with the same color panels (slightly disturbing) which I did not end up buying. Oona got some spotted colored feathers as a gift for her friend Jonah and then we moved on towards dinner.

Dinner took place at Rosa Mexicano with Oona, Bekah and Derek. Fun times were had by all. It was awesome...especially when first walking in because they have an entire mosaic wall with water cascading down and rows of diving men. It was great! Then it got even better once we sat down and started getting our food. We all had a frozen pomegranate margarita and ordered guacamole that they make in front of you (very cool and delicious). Yummy food was eaten and then Oona started feeling very sleepy. All the walking and food caught up to her. zzzzzzzzzzzzz. We left Derek at the subway and us girls made our way back to the apartment.

That's all. Day over. Buh-bye.

Prequel: NYC, NY: Day 1/2

I guess it's up to me to report on the half day that I spent here when Oonams was still flying to the east coast. I started out at 4:15am when I woke up and got to the airport via dad transport around 5:00am. The announcer person that checked us in was way too awake for my tastes so I put my headphones in to block out his chipperness. (By the way, Virgin is a pretty good airline to fly.) When we were seated, the guy that sitting in the window seat, all of a sudden got up and rushed out. Then came back to get his newspaper but left his bag. The woman next to me and I were like, is he coming back?? Then we saw him seated in the emergency exit row. We flagged him down and was like, um, are you coming back? He's like probably not. We're like, um, do you want your bag then? He's like, oh, yes. So weird. But the flight itself was really good, shortest flight to the east coast over at 4hrs 35mins. I was impressed.

After that, Beks picked me up and we had dinner with her parents at a restaurant on Arthur called Roberto in the Bronx's version of Little Italy. Yummy food! And their bread was *so* great but I refrained from eating too much since I wanted to finish my pasta. Oh, Oona, we counted 2 potential mafiosos. :)

After dinner, we came back to Beks' apartment and had coffee and cake. Also very yummy. Then went to pick up Oona. Continued below in NYC, NY: Day 1.

NYC, NY: Day 1

Today we walked a lot. A ton actually. And Janet didn't complain even once. She asked me to help her train so that she can hike up half dome this summer so there will be a lot more walking during this trip. mwahahah. I love it when she gives me permission to torment her!

The day started late since we went to bed pretty late...well late east coast time. JJ and I were still stuck on west coast time while Bekah got sleepy fast. We had a good time catching up though. At least once an hour one of us would comment on how strange it was that we were all three in the same room! The last time this was the case was five years ago at MHC. Much fun was had all around. Even Bekah's dog, Guster, got into the action.

lapdog...laptop

Bekah's neighborhood has many charms.

JJ and I woke up around noon, feeling like we were total lazy bums. Then we realized that we had the excuse of still being on west coast time...so it wasn't REALLY noon. *wink* *wink* But that's what vacation is all about. We finally made our way out of the apartment a couple of hours later after eating H&H bagels for breakfast (the best bagels in the world according to Bekah's mom). We made our way downtown in an attempt to find a flea market that was unfindable...at least on the street. We wandered around and had fun looking at the city. Finally we got on the subway and made our way to Brooklyn to eat ice cream and walk back across the Brooklyn Bridge aka the Golden Gate Bridge (thanks to some kids on my plane who were quite confused as to what state they were flying into apparently). We tried to find some welding graffiti art near the bridge in DUMBO but it could not be found...which was sad. I love graffiti. Instead we had fun with some monster finger puppets...although JJ forgot hers and failed her assignment for the day. But she took some nice pictures so we'll forgive her (for now). Oh! and we had ice cream at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory (only the finest, purest, natural ingredients). Which was crazy cause it was cold...too cold for ice cream as far as I'm concerned. But it was good ice cream :)









(when I get home I'll be posting some pictures I took in France by the same graffiti artist as this guy...or at least a copy cat...whoever started first. I have one from Montpellier and from Paris as well. Mosaic tile graffiti...love it!)

Addendum: while on the subway to Brooklyn there was a gentleman sitting across from us who was confused by our shopping bags,"Banana Republic?!? I ain't heard of no republic named Banana!!! Where's dat? White people are weird, I don't understand white people."