skyline

Here is a picture I took of the city when Stacy was here. It was taken very near where I lived before in Long Island City. I took Stacy over there to see the beautiful skyline at night. She thought the park at the river was nice and romantic. I think she would have preferred someone else being there with her besides me, but I did the best I could. :)

A Treat for the Tastebuds

I am getting in trouble for not posting often enough on this blog, so I am going to try to do better! I do have a billion pictures and they all have a story, so I should just go with that. I may have breaks in my posting, but at least I have stuck with it for this long. I would definitely have made it past "B" in my alphabet! :)
On to more serious matters... cake. Cheesecake. When Stacy was here we tried to do all things "New York" and she said she could not leave before we had some of that world-famous New York Cheesecake. It was her last night here and we had not managed to get any, so we made a special trip into midtown in search of the perfect slice.
We had gone to the Stage Deli on 7th Avenue for a pastrami sandwich one afternoon. I work in this area and it was easy for us to meet there. The sandwiches are piled high and served with a pickle on the side. We eyeballed the mountainous cheesecakes that day, but decided the mile-high pastrami was filling enough for that day. I digress... we are talking about cheesecake, not pastrami....
So... this trip back into midtown... we went into several delis in the area looking for the perfect cake and we were drawn back into the Stage Deli.
The other places looked wonderful, but there was something about that place that pulled us back in. We settled on the strawberry - split three ways. Three ways, you ask??? Yes. This is a serious slice - enough to satisfy three. Actually, more than just satisfy. It was enough to STUFF three. Just look at it!
It was so rich and creamy. I'd call it a "quintessential" ending to a New York trip...whatever that means. Yes, we finished the whole thing, and we were a few very happy people. No, we did not lick the plate. Not that we didn't think about it...

Random and the City

Unfortunately, Stacy had to leave a few days ago, but we had so much fun while she was here. We almost ran ourselves to death, but we saw a LOT of the sites around the city and had a blast doing so. We saw lots of random things. That's what you get in NYC: random things. You NEVER know what you are going to see.

On our first full day, we went to Rockefeller Center and saw that area, including the NBC studios and the plaza where they always report the weather on the Today Show. It looked pretty bare during the day - lacking the wall to wall tourists proclaiming their birthdays and greetings to their mothers back in their home states on colorful signs. Anyway, Stacy and I slipped into the magnificent Saint Patrick's Cathedral to admire the architecture and then slipped into several stores to dodge some raindrops. We ended up in Bergdorf Goodman by Central Park trying on shoes that cost more than my monthly rent. By the way, these Manolo Blahniks were in the clearance section! I was afraid I was going to be kicked out of the store just for trying them on! Especially when Stacy pulled out her camera and started taking pictures of the price tags!!! After seeing a $4,000 dress I didn't feel so bad buying a new dress at Old Navy later on.

We needed a break after all this excitement, so we relaxed for a bit in the park. The park is always a good place to see something random. We started our park adventure with a statue of Lady Liberty. People like to dress up and pretend they are statues in this city. Some stand perfectly still, others, like this one, want to be a photo op, while other (as we saw later) pretend the are mechanical and move slowly - like those mechanical dolls in shop windows at Christmas. Needless to say, they all want money. Actually - we saw TWO lady liberties. Memorial Day was earlier that week, so maybe we were still celebrating...

We had too many adventures for one blog post, so I will have to continue our exciting story some other day. I will leave you with the knowledge that even the animals are strange in New York. For example, why exactly did these ducks prefer to be in the water like this??? Bottoms up!!

Visitor!

Stacy is here! After her exciting bus trip from DC and a slow moving F train from Carnegie, we were able to meet up and get her on the subway! What a day! I'm sure lots of fun will be had this week - I'll be sure to update!

cookie monster

Shame on me.... I got sucked back into Levain's. After a quick lunch uptown at the Hummus Place, we saw that we just happened to be within a block of this legendary basement bakery. After the amazing experience we had just a few days prior, we could not wait to try out another cookie. This time we indulged ourselves with the Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip cookie. Oh my... delicious. Once again my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Only two more varieties to try: Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Raisin. Which next??? PLUS they serve Illy coffee. Heavenly.

precipitation

Okay - enough is enough. Whoever said "New York" and "springtime" in the same sentence was a liar. Yes, there was a day or so of spring, just enough to tease me, but COME ON! It has been raining off and on for over a week! This is getting a bit ridiculous. Not only is it rainy, but it is cold! I didn't expect this back when I was packing my suitcases. I have been sloshing around in cute spring and summer shoes all week and wearing the same small selection of long sleeved shirts over and over. I try not to complain too much on this blog, but give me a break! Did I get confused and move to Seattle without knowing it?

Im Wunderschonen Monat Mai????

After a week of cold, rainy, disgusting weather I was finally awarded a nice day. The sun came out and warmed things up to a more reasonable mid-May temperature. I needed a nice day as I was feeling pretty miserable this week trying to run around the city with my umbrella turning inside out and rain seeming to come at me from all directions. I didn't think May was supposed to be so cold and rainy!

Anyway - today I ventured into the city, fighting the weekend train closures and detours to meet Ronen and explore Ninth Avenue and it's International Food Festival. For about twenty blocks the street was closed to traffic and lined with booths of food, arts and crafts, and other random junk. Amidst a lot (too much) of typical street vendors and greasy festival-type foods were a few interesting finds. That area of Ninth Ave. has many restaurants and several of those restaurants set up a booth that featured their food. I think the best bang for the buck was my Asian Chicken Salad from The Eatery. It was fresh, tasty, filling, and a nice sample of what I would get in the restaurant. We also sampled some Polish Pierogi, which is kind of like a dumpling. They were new to me and were pretty good. Also a random Thai curry puff made me pretty happy. I've been into curry and Thai food lately. Here is a picture of some Pierogis (is that the correct plural?) waiting to be eaten up.
After a bit of walking we, of course, had to stop in a cafe for a cup of coffee and a little relaxation. Once we cleared our heads and let the caffeine kick in we remembered this Bakery uptown that we kept hearing about. We figured it was a food day anyway, so why not catch a train uptown and check it out? Ronen's roomate had been going on for days about the cookies at Levain's Bakery. Supposedly they make one of the best, if not the best cookie in New York. Sounded like something I needed to take for a test-drive! Once we got there, we found that they have four varieties of cookies and after some deliberation and guidance we decided to share a Chocolate Chip Walnut cookie. Let me tell you, these are serious cookies. They are thick - reminded me of a biscuit. Still warm, it was like a rich, sweet, melt-in-your mouth biscuit. Mmmmm.....


My mouth is watering now just looking at that gooey chocolate. The website tells visitors that these are not just cookies, but they are indulgent experiences. I would have to agree.

city life

Wow - it has been a crazy week or so since I have posted! I am back in New York and have been going ten billion miles a minute. It feels like I have been here much longer than one week. I guess it is good to be busy, but I am having quite a time getting adjusted! As soon as I got back here I had a week of rehearsals, performances, apartment hunts and job searches! Crazy! Everything worked out fine and I am ready to take on the new week. The reward for this week is that I get to go to Carnegie Hall on Friday night for an amazing concert. The Chicago Symphony will be playing Shostakovich's 4th symphony! I can't wait! I love being in a city where I can be so involved in the arts. There is SO much going on at any given moment. I have been able to play quite a bit - doing some pretty random gigs here and there. Ah, a musician's life...

Finally!

Once upon a time, a girl named Megan bought a pattern and some fabric. Megan thought the fabric was so nice and pretty and could not wait to turn it into a beautiful dress. Unfortunately, the project was pushed to the side in order for Megan to make gifts for everyone for Christmas. Once the holidays past, she was finally able to cut out her fabric and start working diligently on the dress. She thought she might reach her goal sooner, but many obstacles, states, months, gas prices, etc., came between her and the final product. Until...

TODAY.


It is finished!!!!

where the sidewalk ends

One thing about being home in West Virginia is that there is always some random project going on or something to keep Dad busy in the garage, yard, etc. My dad is one of those handymen who can do what seems like anything. For example, once our waterline busted and I came home to find Dad headfirst in a hole he had dug in the mud while coming up with some kind of thing to fix the leak.

This time I came home to the sidewalk in front of the house being destroyed. I guess some kind of thing needs to go in front of the house so it doesn't collect water every time it rains. When they tried to pull out the sidewalk, they found out it was much thicker than a sidewalk really needs to be. For a few days they tried different methods of tearing out the sidewalk. Jared even got into the action. It seemed like the most effective, but very tedious, way was hitting it with a sledgehammer a million times until a chunk fell off. Good exercise, but come on....

Then Dad got the idea to just pull the whole thing up with his vehicle. This not only provided a quick result for the sidewalk dilemma, but entertainment for the whole family!
How thrilling to look out the garage and watch the sidewalk get pulled into the air! And oh, the suspense - wondering if the concrete slab would go flying backwards, through the front door and into the house! Or possibly the metal pole would shoot out and break a window. The possibilities were endless.
The new, experimental sidewalk removal method was successful. Now that it is broken off, does anyone want to come lift the hunk and move it out of the way? Will be a great way to build muscles!

I've been everywhere, man.

I love to travel. I love to see new places and how people in those places live. I like to try the local food. I like to take in the landscapes. I haven't been very far out of the country, but I have done a lot of traveling within the country. Going to Alaska (which I did twice) is as far as going out of the country, so that should count for something, right? This country is so amazing because it is humongous and has such a wide variety of things to see. From the Florida Keys to the Alaska Mountains - there is so much to see!
Anyway, I decided to look on a map at how many states I have been to.

create your own visited states map

There are definitely more states that I have been to than haven't. 36 out of 50, 70% is not bad! I did not include states that I have only used for their airports, because that doesn't count! If I did, I could have included Washington and Colorado.
I can't remember for sure if I have been to Kansas or Wisconsin. I guess I need to go back if I can't remember. It really seems like I have been to Wisconsin, but I can't think of when it would have been and surely I would have had some memorable cheese there, so I guess it never happened. I really need to hit up New Hampshire and Maine. That would finish off the Eastern U.S. and that would be pretty cool. Of course, having an entirely colored map would be nice too. Maybe I'll put that on my bucket list.

spring forward

This past winter was the longest winter that I have had in years. After being in school in Indiana, where I "enjoyed" the longest winters of my LIFE, I headed south to sunny Florida. After leaving Florida, I spent half of a winter in the north, then went back south for the next winter in Georgia. This year I got the full thing. I loved the fall and some winter was nice, but around February I was ready for things to warm up already! Well, I had another thing coming, because I went to New York, which takes longer to heat up than West Virginia. I was wearing my winter coat and scarf much longer than I had hoped. Just when hints of heat hit the city, I went even more north to Vermont! I guess I wanted to make up for those years in the south! Luckily, we had several beautiful days in Vermont and when I headed south I saw spring quickly come in to bloom. New York had exploded into color in the one week I had been gone.

As I drove south to West Virginia, the scenery got greener and greener. I rolled down the windows and let the warmth come in. At times I could even smell the trees blooming by the interstate - so refreshing. Luckily for me, I can enjoy those smells and not be tormented by allergies like a lot of people have.

Today I got sip a cup of coffee out in the sun with the green trees all around. I am glad to welcome spring and I have to say "it's about time". Maybe I will enjoy it even more since I had to wait so long! I think early spring is especially nice because of the flowering trees. In New York I was able to see the cherry trees and today I saw Dogwood and Lilac. As I was taking in the Lilac in our yard, a couple of butterflies came by to get some dinner. Luckily they didn't mind me taking a few pictures of them.