Home again, home again, jiggity-jig!

Hey gang! Long time no see! Feels like it anyway. Last week seems like a lifetime ago right now. Mom in the hospital... Her hasty discharge... And all of my worries in that regard... are all subdued by the great time we had in New York. What a city! Each time we go back, I love it more.

After an exhausting day at the hospital with mom last Thursday, I finally managed to get packed and ready to go for Friday morning. I woke up around 3:00 a.m. (as is my wont), but never really got back to sleep thinking of all the things I should have done for mom and all of the things we'd be doing on the weekend... Morning eventually came and I walked Kaiser and grabbed a bit of breakfast and then we hopped in the car and drove to Bangor, Maine. Very uneventful drive, even the border crossing. The cute U.S. border officer scanned our passports, asked us a few quick questions, and bid us a good journey.

We grabbed a quick bite in Bangor before heading to the airport, where we checked in no problem and had a very smooth flight to NYC. We were about 25 minutes late leaving Bangor, but we made up the time in the air and landed basically on time. Our bags came right out and we jumped on the air train to the connection with N.J. Transit for our short train ride into The City. When we arrived at Penn Station, I relied on Bradley's spydi sense and he quickly had us on the correct metro train to Chelsea, where we were staying. I tell you, Brad has a sense of direction unlike anyone I have ever seen (present company excluded, Marlene! ;) I've learned to just shut up and follow along, which is hard for me, but it works out best in most cases.

Once in Chelsea, we realized we didn't have the street address of our hotel! (Can you imagine! Bradley!! How could you not know the address!!!) I mean, we knew which street it was on, just not the No. Brad knew that it was between 8th and 9th Avenues and closer to 8th. In any case, after a few futile minutes searching, we asked someone on the other side of the street (Brad shouted across to him) and he pulled out his trusty Apple and gave us the No. in under a minute. New Yorkers, even in Chelsea, are a very friendly and helpful lot!

Once at the Lodge, we checked in and she took us down to the room, which was down the street in another building. About a minute after the gal left, we realized that there was still someone else's luggage in the room, so Brad went to catch up with her. In the meantime, I had to pee (as is my wont), so I went into the WC and there I realized that there was someone else's things there too (toothbrush, and whatnot). Ugh. Long story short. The gal came back and put us in another room on the first floor (the first one had been in a half-basement). And that room was clean and unoccupied. Good stuff.

We then had to immediately make our way to Dirt Candy. We arrived 5 minutes late for our 5:45 reservation. Pretty darn good! We had an excellent meal there, and I highly recommend the restaurant to vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike. It's small, but the meal was extraordinary and the service top-notch, our server was an ex-pat Canadian, btw. We started with the Jalapeno hush puppies with maple butter, which were very yummy. Basically a deep-fried, jalapeno studded corn bread with whipped maple butter. I then had the Portobello Mousse as an ap and Brad had Greek Salad. For mains, I had the Golden Beet Papardelle and Brad had the Stone Ground Grits. Everything was great... We had a bottle of the Orzada Carignan with our meal, and I had a glass of the Kanonkop Pinotage from South Africa with dessert. Both wines were excellent and we later found the Kanonkop at a wine store and brought several bottles home with us!

To be continued... And I'll leave you with a few photos:

Posters outside the Met

The big poster close up

From a distance (no leaves yet, but check out that green grass!)

The Time Warner Centre at Columbus Circle

Horse-drawn Calèche at Columbus Circle