Photos

View from the apartment. The body of water is the Hudson and New Jersey is in the background. Below are two shots of the orchid and a blurred shot of Columbus Circle at dusk.

Weekend #3

Compared to the previous two weekends, this weekends meals could be described as 'cheap eats.' On Friday I grabbed the 'recession special' at Gray's Papaya which consisted of two hot dogs (some of the best I've ever had) and a drink. Saturday lunch was a wrap at Pax's (very bland) and dinner was a quesadilla (also bland) at Burritoville. Sunday 'main' meal was a slice of pizza (very good) at Penn Station.

As for keeping busy, I took a photography class at International Center of Photography during the day Saturday, met up with my friend Eliot and went to a Swing dance on Saturday evening and Sunday I met my friend Julie at the Met and took in the Robert Rauschenger exhibit as well as a African and Ancient American highlights tour.

The class I took, How to Use Your Digital SLR, lasted all day starting at 10 am and went till 5 pm and I found it very instructional. I really learned a lot about the camera I have had for over a year and already used some of the tips while I was walking home from the class and again on Sunday morning.

After going to the swing dance I have to say I am really excited about getting back into the swing scene. Except for a few dances I had on a recent cruise, I haven't gone swing dancing in almost two years. I was very happy when I realized I still remembered quite a few different moves. Next week I'm taking salsa class but hopefully the weekend after I'll get in a swing class and hopefully also attend more swing dances.

Again the day at the Met was an enjoyable one as well as educational. Plus it was good to catch up with my friend Julie. We started off with the Robert Rauschenberg exhibit of combines. At first I wasn't really appreciating his art but as I saw more pieces the work started to grow on me. In fact there were four pieces titled 'summer rental' that I could see hanging on the walls of the summer house I belong to on Fire Island! Not sure if Julie agreed.

After that we waited for a general highlights tour but the guide never showed so we caught the next tour which was of African and Ancient American art. The guide seemed a bit nervous, not as polished as last week's guide but was still very knowledgeable.

Another good weekend in NYC!

Weekend # 2: Presidents Day

Thanks to George and Abe, my second weekend in the city was a long one. It was a really good one too! I went to two jazz concerts at Lincoln Center, spent Sunday with my mother, met up with a new friend and had a great dinner on Saturday night and saw a French movie, Cache on Friday night. Before I get into the details, I just want to comment on how great a location my apartment is at. It's so easy to get around...the #66 bus is a block away which easily got me to the east side for drinks on Sunday night and the 1,2,3 lines are just two blocks away at Lincoln Center and being only 2 blocks from Lincoln Center is just perfect too!

This weekend I enjoyed two excellent meals. Saturday night my friend Maria and I wento to a restaurant called Brassiere 8 1/2 which is on 57th between 5th and 6th. I had been there about five years ago for a wine pairing dinner which was an excellent experience. Unfortunately Restaurant Associates, which owns this restaurant, does not hold these events anymore, at least not on a regular basis. The dinner was excellent. Both of us enjoyed our meals, the service and the atmosphere. Near the bar there is a lounge with very comfortable seats which we were hoping to sit on enjoying some after dinner drinks, but unfortunately they closed that area to set up for Sunday brunch. The waiter also shared with us that a scene from Sex and the City was filmed there.

The second excellent meal was enjoyed with my mother who came in from NJ to visit with me. After picking her up at the Port Authority bus terminal and showing her my apartment we walked, yes walked, from my apartment on 64th and West End to the Met. Usually not a big feat but considering the temperature was in the teens and my mother is in her 70s it was a minor accomplishment. More about the Met later, but after our visit there we walked to 3rd avenue and started looking for an Italian restaurant as my mother was in the mood for Italian. We stumbled upon a place called Tiramisu whose menu looked fine but we continued another block and found this place called Due. Due is 'two' in Italian and as this was the owner's second restaurant it was so named.

We couldn't have stumbled onto a better restaurant. My mother had a spinach stuffed ravioli dish and I had a wonderful braised chicken dish with sausage, onions and peppers. For dessert we both had the riccota cheese cake which was just delicious.

So back to the Met, it was amazing how crowded the place was. But it didn't stop us from enjoying our time there. We took the highlights tour which lasted about 90 minutes. The tour guide was extremely knowledgeable and I learned quite a bit not only about the art but also quite a bit about history too. I highly recommend the tour and plan on taking it again as there are many pieces to be highlighted and the tour guide told us there is very little overlap from one tour to the next.

The movie I saw was Cache. For those of you who have seen it please let me know. I want to talk to you about the ending!

Saving the best for last, I truly enjoyed the jazz concerts at Lincoln Center. Jazz at Lincoln Center is located at the Time Warner building at Columbus Circle. On Friday night I stayed up late and caught the after hours session at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola. Lincoln Center has three concert halls for Jazz and Dizzy's Club is set up more like a lounge night club. I was able to catch the last two songs of the previous set. The performers were Eric Reed and Cyrus Chestnut, a duet of pianists. Just excellent! The after hours performer was good but not as enjoyable as the duet.

On Saturday I attended the first performance of the Rhythm Road series. The Rhythm Road series is a government sponsored program where select bands are sent overseas to countries that have limited exposure to American jazz and uban music. The band was a latin jazz quartet call Jazzabroson and the performance was truly enjoyable.

Only four more days to next weekend. Can't wait.

Are New Yorkers Jaded?

Thanks everyone for your comments and words of encouragement! I found it interesting that two of you used the word 'jaded' to describe New Yorkers. So I thought I'd post the definition of jaded from Websters and ask all of you: Are New Yorkers jaded?

Main Entry: jaded
Function: adjective
1 : fatigued by overwork : EXHAUSTED
2 : dulled by experience or by surfeit

First Weekend

Even with the short notice the first weekend was a very good one. I left work a little early to catch the 4:46 train out of Ronkonkoma which is on Long Island. The trip takes about 80 minutes and goes direct to Penn Station. I recently bought an Ipod Nano and used it to listen to some pod casts, particularly Leonard Lopate's pod casts. For those of you not familiar with Leonard, he is an interviewer on WNYC, New York's public radio station.

The train pulled into Penn at about 6:10 and within 10 minutes I was on the number 1 subway line heading up to the Lincoln Center stop. Once above ground it took me about 10 minutes to make it to the apartment. There I met my 'roommate'. He is a molecular biologist who works at Columbia University. He spends most of his time about 10 blocks away at his significant others and decided to rent his place out for the weekends to make some extra cash. Once all the formalities were done, I was left alone to upack my things and get settled in.

Once settled in I received a call from my good friend Keri telling me that she and her friends were going to a place called Le Colonial on 57th between 3rd and Lex. Its a French Vietnamese restaurant. We sat upstairs at the bar / lounge and had drinks and basically appetizers. The food was fine but the company was what made it a good time. Afterwards we moved on to Rosa Mexicano on 1st at 58th for one last drink.

I had already planned to spend Saturday with my family in NJ. So I was off to the Port Authority bus terminal at 8 am walking down West End which became 11th Avenue. The trip only took 45 minutes once on the bus and I was able to catch another pod cast of the Leonard Lopate show. The interviewee was Frank Bruni, food critic for the New York Times. He recently spent a week as a waiter at a restauranct in Cambridge, MA and wrote about his experience in an article published in the Times on January 25.

The rest of the day was a fun one spending alot of time with my 2 and a half year old nephew as well as my mother, sister and brother in law. Lunch was at a place called Cheeburger Cheeburger. That's right, no 'se'. Interesting place, filled with lots of kids, but very good cheeseburgers. They don't sell hamburgers but will hold the cheese on a cheeseburger at not extra cost.

I then took the bus back arriving about 6 pm and headed downtown to meet my friend Eliot for drinks and dinner. We met at a restaurant called Agave on Seventh Avenue in the West Village. I liked the atmosphere of the bar area and the bartender was very helpful. I ordered a bottle of beer but before opening the bottle he informed me that it was happy hour and I could get a draught half price. I ordered an appetizer, guacamole and chips but I thought it was a bit bland.

Eliot is a good friend who is a tour guide living in Brooklyn. Eliot has alot of great life experiences a recent one being a 3 + week trip to Argentina. While showing me some of the photos, two women sitting next to us started to admire the photos and it turned out one of them was actually going there herself with friends in a few weeks. Small world!

Our next stop was the Miracle Grill on Bleeker St. A bit of a dive but a perfect place to catch up with my friend. We parted company at about midnite and I was in bed by 12:30. No long trip to Long Island!

When I awoke Sunday morning I looked out the window to see a blizzard. Actually, technically, I found out, it was a winter storm, not a blizzard as the wind speeds weren't high enough. However, this storm did set a new record for the number of inches of snow in Central Park, 26.5".

I eventually made it outside and to my amazement found how easy it was to get around. I walked up to Lincoln Center, got a coffee and spent some time looking at guide books at the Barnes and Noble on Broadway. This is one of my favorite book stores and I'm so glad its so close to my apartment. I then made my way to the Museum of Natural History where I became a member and then walked across Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art where I became a member too.

It was just so amazing to be walking though Manhattan and especially Central Park during the snow storm. There were so many kids having a great time sledding and making lots of noise!

I finally left the apartment to head back to Long Island at about 4:30. The trip ususally takes about two hours door to door but that day I didn't get home until after 11 pm. After waiting an hour at Penn Station I decided to get a bit closer to home and took the subway to Jamaica, Queens. After another two hours of waiting a train finally came!

It was a very good first weekend and I'm already thinking of ways to spend the next weekends!

The Search

For the last two months I've been searching for a place in Manhattan to stay for the weekends and last week I finally found it! My search basically consisted of searching Craigslist. I would find about five places that sounded like a fit, send emails and would either not get a response or the replies reeked of spam. I did finally make contact with one person who had a 'converted' two bedroom right at the opening to the Queens Midtown tunnel. After walking up 5 flights I found the apartment to be very dark and a bit dirty. So I continued my search.

A week later I placed an ad on Craigslist and a person responded with a place on 55th between 1st and 2nd. The man was a lawyer who worked in Manhattan during the week and flew to New Hampshire for the weekends which is where his family lived. This apartment was a studio which I saw but felt the place was a bit too crowded with furniture and wasn't kept up very well.

Then the new year came and went as did January without seeing another place. I finally decided to do one last Craigslist search a week ago Sunday and found an ad that sounded too good to be true. I sent an email, received a reply the next day, saw the place Wednesday and 'moved' in on Friday.

The place is a studio on the 12th floor of a large doorman apartment building overlooking the Hudson River. Its a new place with parque floors, full kitchen, bath and a decent size living space. The location is perfect, directly west of Lincoln Center on West End.

Its nice when a good thing falls right into your lap!