new york

ya new york! this was a fantastic trip. it's great when you know someone who lives in manhattan and will let you crash on their floor for a few days. the weather was great the first day we were there and then decidedly against us for the rest. it was warm, but rainy. ugh. oh well - you know what? it was new york! so i didn't give a rat's ass. speaking of rats, i saw several. greeeeeat. i didn't manage to capture any on film though.

ok - so here are a few pics.....this one of course i took from the plane (ok so i took about 10 from the plane, but who cares!)

one thing i love about new york is how every time you turn around some famous building is jutting out......

and so many streets are a lesson in perspective (and i love how this old guy got in my shot!)

the first day we were there we just walked and walked. we did both sides of the village, soho, gramercy, and a bunch of other crap in between. it was great - my feet were sore but i got a cute dress and top in some shop in soho that was having a killer sale. vernon is good at waiting patiently - a quality i admire in a man. he is also good at saying "i think that's enough" and i'm good at saying "oh right, well i only wanted to try it on". :)
we were staying a few blocks from vernon's old building so of course i wanted to go by and check it out. here's the street sign with the building behind. interesting eh?

that night we met up with a couple of vernon's friends who took us to this great noodle bar momofuku. it apparently is a very popular place since a couple of people told us about it (and of course we were cool enough to be able to say "oh ya, we're going there already"). anyway, it WAS fantastic and not that expensive. unfortunately it only seats about 20 people so you gotta get there early. after dinner we went to a wine bar around the corner (evan is a wine dealer) and drank wine and talked and talked and talked. and after the wine we went to a bakery where they all ate cannoli's and i gnawed on some biscotti. when i asked if there was dairy or eggs in the biscotti the girl replied "um...it doesn't make people sick. whatever you have it won't make you sick". good enough for me! and you know she was right - it didn't make me sick. :)
the next day we ended up down in the bottom of manhattan again so we went over to ground zero and stared in the construction hole. it was weird. then we walked over to the river since it's right there and i got my shot of the way-far-off statue of liberty and ellis island.

we went to the Frick collection that morning and it was amazing. not only a great collection, but a great building. and a good size - not too big. later that afternoon we met our friend Naho (who we were staying with) at MOMA. it was fantastic. i loved it. we did the 5th floor, the 4th and then the photography on the 3rd. i absolutely loved it - and because we went on Free Friday i didn't feel guilty if i sailed passed a picasso and thought "what the hell was that guy on?" instead of "wow..ooo....aahhhh". not that i don't like picasso, i actually really love some of his pieces, but some of it is just weird. anyhoo. anyway, i think that might have been my favourite gallery. i'm also glad that we did the photo exhibit. naho and vernon had never gone through it before and they really enjoyed it. plus there was one photo by some guy who i had just read about in the new york times. so of course i felt very worldly and "in the know". of course, i can't remember his name but i liked his stuff. there was a canadian guy who had taken a shot of some garden in vancouver and you could just barely see a bit of the city in the background and the north shore mountains. it was neat.
i also really liked taking pics out the window of the gallery.....

here's a little matisse that i liked for you....

vernon and naho chill out while i run around trying to soak up as much as i can....

here's vernon staring out at the ant hill like maze of the gallery....

and after all that we were so exhausted that we went home and drank monty python's holy grail ale (tempered over burning witches).

and then we went out for dinner with some more of vernon's friends! they were fun - a greek couple who took us to a greek restaurant in hell's kitchen (one more neighbourhood to cross off my list). we closed the place down, which sounds exotic but they closed early. we were exhausted and basically stumbled back to the subway, crawled home and passed out.

and oh look - it's a new day and we're at another gallery! it was raining so rather than go to the botanical garden we went to the MET. i'm really really glad we did but i need another 5 day trip to new york to see the rest of it....here's vernon looking at a rembrandt (rembrandt? maybe....i can't remember.....oh ya it is...i still have mush brain from too much art...)...

this little woman is about 5000 years old and japanese.....

this is super cool (although not as cool as the egyptian temple that they actually have here that the egyptian government had to excavate and move when they built a big dam) - this is from an assyrian king's throne room. lots of wall carvings and then those two big statue things at the end. they are a set of monumental stone lammasu, or guardian figures, from the Northwest Palace of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II. (yes i looked that up on wikipedia because i couldn't remember).


and this, my friends, is a tablet describing the building activities of king nebechadnezzar II of babylonia. it was really cool. they had tablet showing how to make beer, letters between people on pieces of clay 2 inches square in little boxes to protect them, contracts for grain. really amazing stuff. i was sorry to leave!

but leave we did! we walked across central park......


and went down to columbus circle......

where vernon took this embarrassing photo of me with this giant statue's ass.....

then we hit the mac store - there is a HUGE mac toy store that is brand new. so we went and i was bored and it was crowded. we liked the entrance though - they totally copied the louvre, but instead of the pyramid they have a cube with a giant apple. then you go in and go down underground.

and THEN we took naho out and got her wasted for her 30th birthday which she just had. it was great - dinner at a japanese/italian pasta joint (very interesting and really good) and then belgian beer. how can you go wrong?



our last day in the city and we decided to go down to chinatown and little italy (the one street that is left of little italy anyway). actually i decided to - and vernon had never been down there! he lived here for 6 years and never went to chinatown. he had also never been though the asian exhibits at the MET or the dawn of civilization part which was so cool. anyhoo.
so here i am on mulberry street - the last street in little italy. we wandered the street markets, vernon bought me a ring (alina and elga, put your hats back on - not THAT kind of ring), and had coffee at a bar while our bartender/actor (or is it actor/bartender) told us stories.

and then we went back to the cello man's shop and picked up the cello. it took two hours of adjustments for vernon to be happy with it. i was so bored. i went pee at one point just to have something to do. but i'm glad he got the work done - and i'm sure the cello is happier too. and really, without it - i wouldn't have made it to new york!

on our final night we took the midtown new jersey transit train out to maplewood and had dinner with some friends of ours who just bought a house there. it was really nice and lots of fun. it was nice to be out of the city and eating home cooking!
anyhoo. that's it. then we flew home and now i'm in newfoundland. did i mention that i live here now? yup. it's official....