The light at the end of the tunnel

The final piece of my half bath renovation was installed this weekend.  I present to you – the new light!

It was a pain to install (just ask hubby) but it looks fantastic and I love it.

Trip to NY - Part 3

Monday -
After a quick breakfast at a deli somewhere on 10th Ave and West 50-something St (I'm kicking myself for not remembering the name of it cause they had awesome cannolis there!) we spent our last day in NY on the west side near the Hudson River.  Fleet Week had been going on all week in the city and we had yet to see any of the festivities, so what better way to honor our servicemen and women on Memorial Day than to immerse ourselves in the military and take a FREE tour of the ships that were docked right next to the USS Intrepid.  Our first stop was the USS Iwo Jima.  We toured the interior which contained quite the assortment of tanks and other armored vehicles.  Up on deck, we walked amongst the helicopters, an osprey (tilt-rotor aircraft) and a fighter jet.  Every single one of these aircraft were open to public so people could walk in and explore.

Oh and did I mention there were sailors...everywhere!!!  Sigh...

Next to the USS Iwo Jima was a naval destroyer, the USS Roosevelt.  The tour on board this ship was fascinating.  They even took us into the control room.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures there, but the amount of information they divulged was amazing. 

After visiting the ships, we hopped in the car and headed back to Queens for my cousin's flight back to Canada.  In all it was a fabulous weekend, but like all vacations, they end much too quickly!  Rest assured though, I'm already looking forward to my next foray in the Big Apple. 

Trip to NY - Part 2

Saturday -
A very brisk, windy day met us on Saturday morning.  After stopping at a pastry shop in Times Square for a quick bite for breakfast, we headed our way south to start what I'm going to call Park Day.  Our first stop was Bryant Park to eat said breakfast.  From there we walked our way down 6th Ave to Madison Square Park with a quick detour to Madison Square Garden.  I also captured some dramatic shots of the flatiron building. 

Continuing south along Broadway, we walked through a farmer's market that was being held in Union Square Park.  Before leaving that park, I was diverted by some wonderful music and found that it was someone playing a hammered dulcimer.  If you’ve never heard it, it's a beautiful instrument - take a look...

Our last park stop was at Washington Square Park where I satisfied my craving for a pretzel from a street vendor and sat in the shade of the tall trees to rest our feet.  The park was pretty crowded that day, but there was not a cloud in the sky and the breeze was wonderful.  I think it was a combination of the tranquility (so quiet!) and the proximity to NYU (plenty so see!) that made it by far my favorite park. 

It was still early in the afternoon, so we decided to continue south and hopped on a subway to Little Italy and Chinatown.  While in Little Italy, we witnessed a wedding procession that literally stopped traffic in a very busy intersection.  In Chinatown, I purchased a South Korean beverage (yeah figure that one out) called OKF Aloe Vera Juice.  It's quite pulpy, but not too sweet and very refreshing.  It gave me the boost I needed that late in the day. 

The beauty of New York may be food for some and shows and museums for others, but for me it's the ability to hop on a subway at Canal Street and within 10 minutes, find yourself all the way on 42nd Street.  After spending an entire day on my feet and walking about 40 blocks, I was praising the NY subway system! 

Back at the hotel, we got all dolled up for our fancy dinner at the revolving restaurant The View atop our hotel.  Here's me with my cousin E.  We clean up pretty well if I do say so myself.

We had yet another wonderful meal and by this point I was getting quite spoiled with all the good food and impeccable service.  We finished off the evening with a few drinks in the revolving lounge which was located directly beneath the restaurant.

Sunday -
If Saturday was park day, I'm calling Sunday Museum Day.  Our first stop was on the Upper East Side at The Museum of the City of New York.  This was more on my list of things to see than my cousin's, but I convinced him that it would be worth the trip.  The Mannahatta Project exhibit debuted earlier that week and after reading about it in the paper, I was determined to check it out.  The exhibit was quite the eye-opener.  And be sure to click on the link because the site itself is very interesting. 

Since that museum was pretty much at the northern end of Central Park, we walked down the museum mile along 5th Ave.  We stopped at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reservoir which gave dramatic views of the Upper West Side. 

We also passed in front of the Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Along our way, I was busy taking photos of some of the striking architecture on the Upper East Side. 

We stopped for some ice cream in front of the Met, then continued across Central Park and headed towards the Museum of Natural History.  We spent the rest of the day touring the 4 floors of that museum, much to the protest of my poor aching feet.  We were absolutely starving by the time we were back at Times Square, so we stopped at a corner pizza shop a block up from the hotel and did a little people-watching while munching.

For dinner that evening, I had made reservations at one of my favorite restaurants in NYC - Perilla in Greenwich Village. 

It's a little hole in the wall, but it's a very nice hole in the wall and the food is simply spectacular.  At this point I was trying to convince my cousin to move down to New York.  It would give me yet another reason to travel down here more frequently!

To be continued...

Trip to NY - Part 1

It's taken me a long time to put together this blog post - partly because hubby came home yesterday and I spent some time unpacking his muddy camping gear.  But mostly because I've been wrestling with the way in which to post all the fun stuff we saw over the weekend.  At first I thought I could just divide it into 2 posts with one being mainly about food (cause we sure hit quite a few restaurants while we were there) and the other about the attractions and sights rather than your usual this is what we did on day 1, day 2, etc.  But some of the attractions go hand-in-hand with the food, so I think I'm going to stick with the latter.  So without further ado...

Thursday -
The morning started off smoothly, that is until I was about 30 minutes into my drive down to LaGuardia and I hit bumper to bumper traffic for a solid mile because of an accident.  That pretty much ate into the fluff time I had factored into the drive, so you can imagine how perturbed I was when the damn GPS sent me into Manhattan (not Queens) because I opted to avoid the toll roads when I initially set up the route.  So the money I would have saved on tolls got eaten up in gas cause it sent me way out of my way.  Oh and the Willis Street bridge was closed for repairs.  So we had a little white-knuckle driving going on there until Mr. GPS could recalculate and tell me which way I needed to go.  I ended up arriving at the airport a good 20 minutes after my cousin's plane had landed (which was really 40 minutes after I had originally planned to be there) and what did we do when we got back to the car?  Hopped in and went for a drive. 

There were no toll roads where we were headed, so the drive was thankfully uneventful.  We were headed south, through Brooklyn and down to Coney Island.  It was a bright sunny day with a brisk wind and the timing was perfect for lunch at Nathan's Famous hot dog stand 

followed by a walk along the boardwalk.

And I forgot to put on sunscreen that morning, so by the time we left my arms and neck were glowing red.  After baking in the sun, we decided it would be a good time to head into Manhattan and check into the hotel - The Marriott Marquis in Times Square.  And what a view we had from the 37th floor!

For dinner that evening, we mulled over going to an Irish Pub and finally decided on St. Mark's Ale House in the East Village.

Getting back to the hotel after dinner, I took a few shots of the view.

Friday -
After a buffet breakfast at the hotel, we set off Friday morning for Battery Park.  Unfortunately, the line for the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands must have been a mile long, so instead we opted to take a water taxi tour that would take us close to the islands and around the southern tip of Manhattan.  This was an awesome adventure and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to learn some history and gain a few tidbits of trivia about the landmarks around this end of Manhattan.  And you really do get a good view of the statue of liberty.

After the water taxi landed back at Battery Park, we took the subway to Brooklyn for a late lunch at Grimaldi's Pizzeria for some pizza from their coal-fired oven.  I have to say, this was undoubtedly the best pizza I have ever had. 

Thin crust, real mozzarella, a handful of fresh basil...  The place was crowded and noisy, but the food made up for it in every way.  If you're ever in Brooklyn, you HAVE to go to this place.  There may be a bit of a wait, but it's well worth it.

And what could possibly top off a fabulous pizza than something equally fabulous?  Just down the road is another must-stop, the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory.  And may I recommend the butter pecan.

By this point we were stuffed, but needed to get back to Manhattan, so we braved the crowds and crazy bikers and trekked back across the Brooklyn Bridge.  What better way to burn off all those calories! 

At about 8pm that evening, we headed out to dinner at the elegant Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse in Midtown at the bottom floor of the McGraw-Hill building (sj, have you ever been there?  lol.)  It was quite the swanky joint so the first thing I did was order a cosmo.  And so did my cousin.  My very male, beer-drinking cousin.  I was shocked, but I think he was more shocked when he realized, upon seeing the bartender pour it into a glass, that the drink was pink.  I was banned from taking pictures of him holding his pink martini glass upon pain of death.  Otherwise I'd insert it here....

After dinner we made our way to a rather nice bar and lounge called Faces and Names on 54th Street.  A few more cosmos followed (for me anyway) and we stopped in Times Square for a few pictures before calling it a night. 

To be continued...

Back from NYC

Well I'm back from a very busy and fun-filled trip to NYC and of course, having a tough time getting back to the usual routine here. Like every vacation I've taken, going back to work the day after coming back home is just downright yucky. Couple that with the fact that I'm single-mommying it until hubby comes back from his camping trip and the end result is I'm having a hard time staying awake at my desk. I need a day off to recoup from my days off. Anyhoo, I have lots of tidbits to share and a bunch of pictures to organize so check back real soon to get a detailed description of my 5-day jaunt with my cousin E in the Big Apple.

I'm in a New York state of mind...

In anticipation of my upcoming trip to the New York City this weekend, I figured I'd get a jump start on this week's Friday Favorites. Or I guess you could call this a make-up Favorites since I didn't get a chance to post any last week.

My Favorite things about New York

Fantastic Food - I think my absolute favorite restaurant in New York is Perilla down in Greenwich Village (and not just because the chef is also my favorite Top Chef from the first season of the Bravo reality show.) Oh no. He just happens to make some awesomely scrumptous food! But it's not just the fancy stuff that tickles my taste buds. Little holes in the wall like Queen of Sheba Ethiopian restaurant on 10th Ave also have a special place in my heart. In my opinion, the smaller place, the fewer the people that can be served at any given time which usually means more care and attention can be made to every dish prepared. And that results in some yummy food!

Fantastic Nightlife - Whether it's strolling through Times Square at midnight or having a cocktail and enjoying the view from the AVA lounge on the roof the Dream Hotel, there is always something to see and do in the city.

Fantastic Transportation - I must admit, I have never used the bus system in New York, but you just can't beat the 10 minute subway ride from Midtown to Greenwich Village.

Fantastic Wildlife - Well I guess this can be interpreted in more than one way, but I was really referring to such spots as the Central Park Zoo and the Bronx Zoo.

Fantastic Shopping - Need I say more?? Although most of my city shopping is of the "window" variety.

Strange things are afoot...

There's got to be a term for this sort of stuff. When you hear something, say, on the radio, and it sparks some far distant memory of a long-forgotten and probably not even very popular TV show. No? Ok, guess it's just me then. But what do you call when said memory comes back to haunt me more than once? As in, I thought of it this morning and this afternoon I'm reading about it in a blog? Wow, now I've totally confused you. Maybe I can clear things up if I provide you with a bit more detail...

This morning on my drive in I was listening to some radio show (actually you might not be able to call it listening as I'm usually barely awake to drive, nevermind pay attention to those stupid radio shows. Thank god for my iPod filled with ear-splitting music to wake me up!) and someone on the show blurted out something to the effect of "But I'm not cho mamma!" (spelled as it sounded.) For some reason, my mind thought I heard the phrase "Not the mamma!" I have no idea how or why, but I hope you're following me here. My poor tired brain then made a correlation between what I thought I heard and the old primetime puppet sitcom Dinosaurs that starred a baby dinosaur who loved to hit his daddy on the head with a frying pan while yelling out....you guessed it...."Not the mamma!"

So that was strange, but I didn't think anything of it. My mind is constantly bringing back old memories and I happily smiled as I thought back to that funny show. I even remember taping many of the episodes on VHS cause of course this was the 90s and TiVo had yet to be invented. And that show was so darn funny!

The day goes on and I gradually forget my strange recollection until after lunch when I find THIS BLOGPOST. It was posted today and although I'm not really a child of the 90s (I prefer to think of myself as a child of the 80s and a young adult of the 90s) I was still young enough to relate to just about everything posted on that blog. And no, I do not know the owner, nor did I disclose my strange TV show recollection to anyone today.

So what say you? I stumble upon a blog post about a TV show that gave birth to a popular phrase that my brain misconstrued was said on a radio broadcast. Coincidence? I think not.