Phew! Another very busy weekend! Just got back from mom's. She's looking a lot better and says she feels a little stronger every day. Unfortuantely, though, there was a big rain storm last night and she had water in her room and they had to move her upstairs at about 1:30 in the morning, oxygen and all... Unbelievable. This is about the 5th time that has happened and the owners/administrator will be hearing from me on Monday morning. She was lucky that one of the women upstairs was in the hospital she she was able to use her room. I'm not sure where they would have put her otherwise. In any case, she's back in her own room now - till the next time there is a heavy rain!
Finishing up our NYC adventure, we had a terrific meal at
Intermezzo on Saturday evening. It's a great little Italian spot in Chelsea. And as you can see from the link in the previous post, they have a great prix fixe dinner on weekdays. This time, we both started with salads, mine a ceasar and Brad's a garden salad, I believe. He then had the red snapper and I had the penne Putanesca. I'm pretty sure we had dessert, but I can't think of what it was right now... After dinner, we rode the subway up to Columbus Circle and walked from there to The Met. We found our seats and settled in for a great performance. We thououghly enjoyed
La Sonnambula. Juan Diego Florez was phenomenal and Natalie Dessay was terrific, too. The entire cast was excellent in fact, and there were several very long ovations, both during the performance and at the end. Incidentally, we took a tour of The Met the next day, part of which included a quick visit to the lead's dressing rooms. Our guide told us that Mr. Florez had been in the building and and we just missed him by about 20 minutes :( In any case, we ended up in his dressing room, (we knew it was his because the humidifier had his name on it)... There was a tee-shirt on the dresser table and for an instant, I thought that I might linger just a few seconds after everyone else had left and slip it into my hoody pocket, but alas, I am not a thief... I did give the tee-shirt a quick squeeze on my way out, however! (I've told you before that I think Juan Diego Florez is da bomb, right?) :)
After the opera, we went back to our room for a while and then made our was to Barracuda, a gay bar very close by. It was jam packed with, for the most part, hot guys. It seemed, though, that everyone knew everyone else - except us. We stayed for a couple of beers and then headed back to our room.
Sunday, we slept in a bit, till about 10:00 or so, I think, then had some breakfast and showered and went down to Soho where we made a pilgrimage back to
Dean and Delucca, a fantastic food emporium. We picked up some cheese (an English Stilton and a slab of Mobay, which is half goat milk and half cow milk cheese with a layer of ash in between - it is, in fact, very good, and I am nibbling on the remains as I type this. I also bought a small bottle of grilled peanut oil. It sounded yummy, and I am hoping that Brad can eat it instead of seasme oil, which he does not tolerate.
By this time, my morning coffees were having their usual effect on my bladder, and I was hoping there would be a restroom at
Dean and Delucca, but no such luck... We made out way up the street to
Crate and Barrel, and there there was a washroom on the second floor - Remember that, if you are ever in the neighbourhood and in a similar predicament. We continued on, and I picked up a Sunday Times ($4 in NYC, $12 at home the next day!). We also dropped into a
Sabon store, which of course sold soap, candles and other related items. The gal had our number in no time and, I walked out with a jar of vanilla/coconut body scrub costing a little over $30. (It contains salt from the Dead Sea, mind!)
Then it was time for brunch, and we'd dedided on
Marquet Pâtisserie at 15 E 12th Street. It was a good choice. Very nice atmosphere and delectible food. I had an omlette with garlic fries and Brad had a salmon Niçoisse salad. We then rushed back up to The Met for our tour. After that, we went back to the room and had a quick nibble of the cheese I had purchasd and a glass of wine before making our way to
Aroma at 36 E 4th Street between Bowery and Lafayette Streets. Once again, the service, food, and atmosphere exceeded expectations. They have a prix fixe dinner on Sunday nights for $29, so that's what we opted for. I had the soup, which was a tasty zucchine and bread concoction, the spinach and riccota ravoli, and cinammon apple bread pudding for dessert. We had a wonderful bottle of wine with dinner and a delighful sweet Italian white wine with dessert. A major thunder storm passed over while were eating and we were thing of taking a cab back to our room, but it had let up by the time we finished, so we walked the 10 minutes or so back to the subway and caught a train.
For our last evening, we went out to Club 20 (which is located at 20 W 20th Street). It's sort of a strip club, I guess, though the performers never get down to the bare essentials :( Six nights of the week, female strippers occupy the stage, but Sunday nights, it's the boyz! Quite a few (25 in fact) very handsome guys strutting their stuff... We (okay - I) dropped a few dollars there... We stayed up way too late and had a fairly early morning the next day, but what the heck...
Indeed, the following morning we checked out around 8:00 a.m. and made out way out to Newark airport. After a somewhat turbulent flight back to Bangor, we slogged through the 3-hour drive home. The gal at the border didn't even ask to see our passports, and after a few quick questions, we were back on the road on the Canadian side of North America. It was drizzling and spitting snow. Ugh... If it weren't for the dogs and our gall darn jobs, I think we both could have stayed in NYC for another month or at least until the snow was all gone at home! Thankfully, it is disappearing quite quickly now, and I have heard robins singing the last two mornings...
Here are a few more trip pics and then the boyz. Have a great weekend all!
The bar and front half of Marquet Pâtisserie
The table beside ours at Aroma
The bottle of wine we had with dinner at Aroma - I'll give you the full name later on when I find it!
