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!