Skip to main content

Love in the Time of Swine Flu


It's raining in New York.   The restaurant I was planning to hit up for dinner had inexplicably vanished, so getting out of the rain, I ended up eating my last dinner in the city that never sleeps in a Tribeca deli.   Pretty good actually.

That's the thing about New York food, it's all pretty good.   In all the meals I've had since I came to the city, I haven't had a single one I would consider subpar.   A lot is made about New York pizza, and I guess I always assumed people were talking about those 3-5 little hole in the wall places that only real New Yorkers know about with the 90 year old Italian man who makes pizza in the woodburning oven he strapped to his back and brought with him from the old country.   But I've had pizza in delis, pizza in Times Square, Pizza in the freakin' Museum of Natural History.   I ate a lot of pizza is what I'm saying.   But the thing about it is, all of it was good.   Just the right consistency, texture, sauce, amount of cheese.   All were different but all were great.

I also ate the best calzone ever.   Some upscale deli-like place near the Paley Center.  It had a bunch of different kitchens with different ethnic foods.   A Korean guy running the Korean kitchen, an Italian guy running the Italian kitchen etc. (That's another thing, all the ethnic food I bought seemed to be from dudes of that particular ethnicity).  Well the calzone is made with entirely fresh mozzarella, and a dipping sauce that was just right.   Phenomenal.

Before I continue, lemme get back to my trip into New York (this one is for you Strydz).  My borrowed GPS is working like a charm and I've run into virtually no traffic since the border.   All of sudden I'm caught in the highway that runs through Syracuse and everything slows to a crawl.   A slow crawl.  Now, I decide to take the time to play with the GPS a bit, seeing as how I'm bored.   I mess with it a bit, and then we get past the accident causing all the slowdown, and I'm back on my merry way.  About 30 minutes or so later, I notice that the estimated time of arrival on my GPS has changed from 7:30 to 10:30.   Now I know something is wrong.  So I pull over into a McDonalds in small-town New York, since I'm not sure if I've been going the right way since Syracuse or not.  I figure I need to check the honest to goodness paper maps I got at CAA before I left.  And that's when I realized they were still at home.  Yes, I forgot my MAPS.  Who would need those on a road trip?  Anyways, I had to reset the gps, and turn data roaming on in my iphone so I could double-check with google maps to make sure I was heading the correct way.

I had some stuff written about my experience with the two New Yorks (ie the museum attitude vs the subway attitude) but I couldn't make it cohesive enough to make sense, so I dropped it.

And now: Random photos from my time here!


This is a map of the states I found at the Museum of Modern Art.  Maybe I'll hit them all.


Here's New York from a duck boat (Its a bus that goes in the water -- as tours go it was pretty good).This is a view of the Empire State Building from the top of 30 Rock.

Yes, B, I made it to Strawberry Fields.

Captain!  Thar be whales here!  

Thank goodness Superman was there to save me from that falling truck.   I blame the Transformers.

That's it for now.   Heading down to DC tomorrow.  Gonna say hi to my buddy Barack.   Barack Jones.  You don't know him.

*Top photo taken by yours truly

Comments

  1. Stryder WolfeMay 2, 2009 at 6:44 PM

    haha well at least maps are cheap and now you can relax about it!

    Great pics!! awesome!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In the Shadow of Honest Abe

The first thing you notice about Washington is that it's short.   None of the buildings are over 12 stories max -- something to do with making sure the Capitol Building isn't overshadowed.   Coming out of New York it certainly has a different vibe, giving a small city feel to what's a pretty big city. It rained all day today, but I was determined to get some shots of the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Washington Monument.   Mission accomplished.  Still, the way the rain was falling the front of my shirt was soaked through by the time I got to ol' Abe.  The Lincoln Memorial was,  for me, the real object of the trip.   Even in a cold wet spring day, the sight of the greatest American President carved out of several tons of white marble perched on his chair and literally larger than life still gives one the feeling of being in the presence of greatness.  His words etched on each side of the memorial are still as eloquent as the day he spoke them.   After I got
2 comments
Read more

Florida in the Key of West

Yesterday was not a pleasant day.   10 hours of driving only to end up at the Best Western in Jacksonville, just so I could stand around waiting for my laundry to finish because the hotel in Key West that I'm staying in for 4 nights had no laundry mentioned on their website.   So it's 10:30 at night and I'm sweating on the second floor between the world's loudest dryer and the local ice machine for an hour.  And that's following 30 minutes of washing.   I even had to hang dry some stuff because even after an hour it still wasn't dry yet. It's times like that that make me question whether or not this trip was even a good idea.  It usually happens in the waking moments before sleep when I'm lying in my rented bed in the middle of a town where I know no one.  Why am I here?  Am I learning anything?  Is this just a giant waste of time and money? And then there's times like the Wendy's.   I got in too late in Jacksonville and the hotel was far enough
3 comments
Read more

A long time coming but I'm finally here

So I made it to New York. That's the long story made short. Here's the story at longer length: I got out of the house and on the road about an hour later than I expected to, but judging by all the maps I was looking at I would still be able to make it within a reasonable amount of time. The thing about trips though is you always forget something. I knew that once it was too late I would realize I forgot something that I absolutely needed. That's just the way it goes. I was dreading the border most of all, it would have really sucked to have to go through a hassle just cause some border guard is having a bad day. As I was approaching the Queenston/Lewiston crossing I picked a spot with two cars in front of me. The first car got the point. As in please park over there sir so we can ransack your car . The second car also got the point, and now I'm thinking is this the designated point guy for the day?! Am I gonna cavity-searched cause it was his turn to search everybody?
2 comments
Read more