Our Friday morning in Washington DC began with an early rise to make a 9:45 tour appointment at the National Archives. We arrived on time and the tour started promptly.  This group was a bit smaller than the previous tour — only about 10 people in this bunch led by  a friendly, older lady.

That tour starts with the goods…the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights.  The exhibit wasn’t quite as I’d imagined. I guess I thought those documents would be in a hall, or a room, but no, they were featured in a rotunda with other related artifacts and artwork on the walls.  It was an impressive display, it just took me a bit by surprise.  From the very start of the tour, the No Photography rule was stressed and especially at this point.  I asked a guard if he’d ever seen anyone snap a photo.  He said yes, and that it meant prison time.  Harsh. I wonder if that’s entirely accurate, but not enough to test it out.  The DoI is quite faded, but still barely readable.  The Constitution is in better shape.  We learned quite a bit of he backstory and history of the documents here thanks to the tour guide.  I felt satisfied I knew a good portion of it already, but was also happy to learn new details.

The rest of the National Archives tour was much more interesting that expected.  There are famous letters to presidents, historical photographs of American cities, declassified military documents, and many other bits of American history.  The tour whizzed us through the place and left us wanting to take a deeper look. The problem was we were both hungry and it was lunch called.

We had a fantastic lunch at Founding Farmers (best cornbread I’ve ever had, btw) and decided it’d be best to grab a quick nap.  Yes, we were both running on very little sleep and we just need to rest up. After the nap, we made it back to the Archives shorly after 4:30, a time we figured would allow us entry before the 4:45pm cutoff for the 5:30pm closing.  Yes, the nap ran long.  Well that didn’t quite work out, we were denied entry.  But you know what? That may have been a little blessing. As a result of some sudden free time and our location, we went exploring.

We walked to the Mall and found crews preparing for the big rally the next day.  Barriers were erected, the stage was up and first-aids/bathrooms were all in place. None of this was particularly surprising, but it was nice getting a preview of the scene and a chance to see it without thousands of people crowding in. After a few photos there, we walked over to the capitol.  The sun was about to set, but there were still many people out and about around there and we got our share of photos in like the rest of them. Two interesting things happened on the lawn at the back of the capitol (the side facing the Mall): 1) a couple played frisbee on that lawn, and that’s something I’d like to do next time, just cause….and 2) We saw a wild fox scamper across the lawn.  Just out of nowhere, a fox runs into view, runs around  a bit, then runs off.

We then walked along the National Mall, past the adjacent museums, to the Washington  Monument. For some reason, I wanted to not only see the Washington Monument, but also touch it.  Maybe I’d heard something about the stone of which it’s constructed. Anyway, yep…it’s stone.  And not soft. And very tall.  And appears to have robot eyes at the top of it at night. After the requisite photos (and wacky photo), we continued our way west to the WW2 monument, the Reflecting Pool, and the Lincoln Monument. There’s more to the Lincoln  Monument than I expected, including the inscribed speech on the wall, the gift shop, and the fancy ceiling. There were many other tourists there at the time, but thankfully not an uncomfortable amount.  Protip: check out these monuments at night to  beat the crowds. Jennifer and i sat on a ledge on the north side of the Lincoln Monumen for a few minutes and that was nice to just take a breather and enjoy the scenery. The historic scenery we’d known for all our lives only through pictures and video.  After a while, we caught a cab back the house.

We  hung out around Dupont Circle that night and ate dinner at a recommended restaurant, Luna Diner and Grill. It was okay. We met up with the Redditors in town at their Rally pre-party at a nearby bar. Our host Sean was there, as well as other guests staying at his place, and we met some other friendly people.  So many redditors, so much internet, so much nerdery in one place. We hung out till about 11pm.  Sure we could have stayed out later, but we had plans to rise early the next day to  make it out to the Rally before the big crowds.  But on the way back we stopped by CVS to pick up sign-making materials. We weren’t the only ones doing so.  We got back, made a sign, and were out by around 1am.

Our train arrived to Washington DC’s Union Station right on time at 9:45am and we had to get right over to the White House.  The rules are strict for entering the President’s estate you’re barred from carrying just about everything short of the clothes on your back and a cell phone. We didn’t have time to drop off our travel backpacks at the place we were staying, so we had to stow them at Union Station’s bag storage.

We could have taken the metro over to the meeting spot for the tour, but in an effort to save time on our rushed itinerary, we took a taxi.  We arrived with a few minutes to spare.  Once there, we were sorted into lines based on our scheduled appointment time and ushered through security.  The appointment times don’t seem to be too strict, but rather a means of controlling the flow of tourists.  I suppose I was expecting a guided tour as I was a bit surprised it’s a self-guided tour. There were a good number of other people there for the same reason, but not to the point of discomfort.  The tour path is very clearly delineated by roped off rooms and secret service personnel at every corner. They also can provide a background and further information to any aspect of the tour. Who is depicted in that painting over there in that room? The secret service agent can answer that.

I was slightly disappointed at the limited scope of the tour, even if that wasn’t surprising.  And maybe I was slightly bummed President Obama didn’t peek around a corner and silently motion for Jennifer and I to take a secret tour of the west wing. At first I thought the tour was just so…sterile and detached from the real White House.  It felt like these were rooms that may be in the White House, but are never used.  Nope.  I was happy to learn that after tours end for the day in the early afternoon, the tour ropes and signage is quickly removed and the rooms are open for full and frequent use.  The tour lasted the better part of an hour, and afterward you’re free to take photos on the outside

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We were both hungry and it was lunch time.  A couple friends recommended a place nearby, Old Ebbit Grill. Nearby as in a block away from the White House. I’ve been told it’s a pretty popular spot, and one might even catch a senator/representative in there.  I sure didn’t, but the food was great.  Also, while waiting at the bar for a table, I think I was served the coldest beer I’ve ever had.

After lunch, we had some time to kill before our tour of the Capitol.  We walked over toward that next tour location, taking our time to just enjoy the scenery.  Oh, let me tell you about the squirrels.  DC squirrels are fearless.  Usually, this is how it works: human approaches squirrel, squirrel runs away.  The squirrel may let you get within 10 feet, but anything close to 5 feet is really pushing it.  That’s not how things work in DC.  You can pretty much get within arms length and those critters will stay put.  Strange! I dared not get any closer. Who knows what could happen.  “How did Charles lose his face? A squirrel mauled him.” No sireee, I won’t be chancing that.  I’m mostly joking.

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Anyway, after walking around a  bit, it was time to tour the United States Capitol. I felt like the scheduled time was the same deal as with the White House; it’s just a way of sorting people into manageable groups rather than a strict deadline.  Who knows, maybe I’m wrong on that. But we were there on time, and were soon standing in the tour line, being issued headphones.  The Capitol is a busy, loud place so those complimentary headphones are simply so you can hear your tour guide’s voice clearly.  Unfortunately, Congress was not in session while we were there, and we didn’t even get to check out either chamber.  But other than that, it seems like a fairly decent tour and the tour guide sure did know his Capitol.  The tour group of a bout 20 that he led made it through at a good pace, stopping every few minutes for a further explanation of the immediate area. Toward the end of the tour, we got distracted checking out some of the impressive art there (you’ll recognize some of that art from our currency) and we lost the tour group.  Oh well, it was nearly the end of the tour anyway.

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After that, we were both exhausted and were ready relax for a bit.  We walked back to Union Station, picked up our bags, subway’d over to Dupont Circle, and made the 10-minute walk to Sean’s.  Sean is the buddy Jennifer found who was so gracious to host us for three nights of couchsurfing.  We didn’t even find him on couchsurfing.org, but instead on Reddit.  Oh, that close-knit community of nerds, I love it. Sean is a nice guy and had a nice condo with a  great location.  We lucked out there.

After a good hour-long nap, we were ready to grab some dinner.  Sean took us to the Dupont Circle area and we ate at a pretty busy place, Bistro Du Coin.  The place is known for the mussels, and the food was a-okay too.  After a nice dinner, we went to Russia.  Well, I should clarify that.  We went across the street to Russia House, a bar that just might have had authentic Russian mobsters in it. Or at the very least, a whole lotta Vodka/strong drinks. Had one that was enough for me.  Yeah yeah, I guess Vodka isn’t my thing so much.  We finished up there, headed back to his place and soon called it a night.  Of course, we had a big day of being tourists ahead of us.

When I found out about the Rally to Restore Sanity being held on October 30, I immediately thought of extending my trip.  It was only a couple days after my scheduled return home, and just down the street coast.

So how card could it be to just get a few hours down from NYC to DC? Well, not very hard.  There are many bus and train options, even flights.  Buses are cheap at around $25 one-way, and we found a decent train fare at around $75.

But the tough part of it is making a 6am departure after going out the night before!

So we had the third and final Bad Religion show of the trip on Wednesday night and got home a little before midnight.  Had to clean up after being a sweatball from the show, then packed and finally fell asleep around 2am.  Only to hear the alarm at 4:30am.  Aye.

We were out the door by 5 and taxi’d over to Penn Station.  Once there things are pretty straight-forward, and I was even fairly alert despite running on a lack of sleep from the past few days.  We hopped on board and that began the 3 hour 45 minute journey (with stops) to our nation’s capital.

Bad Religion

This was show 3 of 3 in the special era-themed shows.  The 2000s were covered this night, focusing on albums The New America through the new The Dissent of Man.

I might have been looking forward to this show most.  Of course I liked the previous two shows, but maybe I just wanted to hear the newer stuff the most this time around.  The setlist did not fail to deliver the newer goods. I especially liked the opening segment: Supersonic, Prove It, Can’t Stop It.  Those three songs in a row, as they are an The Process of Belief album, are always a fast, punk rock good time.

As Jennifer and I had a 6am train to Washington DC to catch the next day, we left at the encore intermission.  Bad Religion reliably closes with the same few songs, so one less performance of Along The Way/Sorrow/Fuck Armageddon won’t kill me.

I’m glad we caught the shows.  I can’t say we traveled to New York exclusively for the concerts, but they were a factor in the trip’s timing and location and they were completely worth it.  Thanks Bad Religion.

This was our last full day in NYC. We’d pushed back grabbing a nice breakfast, so this was the day to do it. We managed to get up early (out the door by 8:30!) and went to a favorite of mine, Bubby’s in Tribeca. Last time I ate there, Mike Myers was seated a couple tables over. And word is a bunch of celebrities live around the area. No famous folks this time, but that’s okay — the “food alone is worth the trip”. On that note. the steel-cut oatmeal with bananas and apples….love it. Fun fact: they also sell pumpkin cookies.

We then subway’d back over to the AMNH to complete our visit that began the previous day. 20 minutes with the space exhibit is simply not enough. We checked that out to our heart’s content, and a couple other interesting areas, and then that was that for the museum. A while back we had researched where the best chocolate chip in NYC is located…and how about that, just a few blocks from the museum. How could I NOT go check that out? We walked over to Levian bakery. No, let me rephrase that: we walked over to the place that dishes out cookie bliss. It was one honkin’ baked confection of deliciousness. Small place, friendly service. I sound like I’m writing the eventual Yelp review.

I wanted to get a photo-op near the side entrance of the AMNH as that’s the image I first associated and have long connected with since my first visit there so long ago. So we walked back and got that, but not before we came across a place that had be recommended to us: Shake Shack. That’s a burger joint. I had eaten breakfast recently, a large cookie just minutes prior, but…well, here was another only-in-New-York institution. So we tried it! Now I can say Shake Shack makes one of my top 5 fast-food burgers. It’s not a place like McDonalds; it more resembles a Corner Bakery in relative urbanity and ambiance. And I like their marketing’s graphic design.

Okay, after the museum, cookie, burger, and the museum photo, there was one last thing to check out in the area. Central Park. More specifically, the rocks at the north end of The Lake at Central Park. It’s just a great spot to sit and relax quietly, as well as take in the scenic vista. After a bit of that and playing around the park, we had a couple more places to visit before leaving New York.

A friend recommended Highline Park, and that was next on the to-do list. Highline Park is bulit upon an old elevated railway platform stretching several blocks in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. It’s not the top tourist attraction in the city, but it is a nice, modern stretch of park in an usual setting. We saw several people running along it’s concrete pathways or lounging on the reclining benches.

After that, we headed back to the house. I had promised John we’d play baseball on Wednesday afternoon and that’s what we did. The building’s playroom worked well until management kicked us out for creating a potentially unsafe situation. Who know some kids playing around with a soft plushy baseball in an empty room could be so perilous. Anyway, it was fun hanging out with him and Madison a bit longer before we had to leave town. We savored one more pizza from the restaurant downstairs and just hung out at the house before taking off the our third, and final, Bad Religion show of the trip.

We said our thank yous and goodbyes to my sister and her family.  They were great hosts and really helped make this a great trip.  After the show, we were up late packing and cleaning up after ourselves.  We left flowers and a card as a little thank you to our gracious hosts.

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This was the 2nd of 3 BR shows for our trip in NYC.  The theme of this nights show was the 90s…that means focusing on material from albums Against The Grain through No Substance.  It was also the night for the VIP ticketholders to get a little something special.

That little something special began with lining up at the venue at 5:45.  As VIPs, we get a special poster plus the album.  And a group photo with the band.  So we stood in the only line there at the time once we arrived, it was already a few dozen people deep and quickly grew longer.  I had wondered just how many “VIP” people there were, looks like maybe a hundred or so.  After about a half hour in line, we made it to the front, picked up our swag, and then stood in another line for the group photo.

I had imagined it’d be sort of like a factory line; the band would be posted and each person would move in, the photographer would take the shot, and then call for the next VIP in line. Nope.  It really was a group photo.  We went to the stage floor, the band sat up on stage, and the entire VIP group was moved in as we all faced the rear of the venue toward a photographer.  Well, I could gripe about that, but eh…not a big deal.  But it is cool that after that photo was taken, the band members (except the singer) hung out to meet and greet the fans.  Most of the VIPs left, but the few that remained had a chance to schmooze and get in photos with the legendary punk rockers.

Jennifer and I chatted with Jay, and got in a photo. I’ve met him a few times before, he’s always cool.  Greg Hetson, a notorous LA Kings fan, totally called out Jennifer for her Sharks shirt.  Me: “Can you believe it, I’m dating a Sharks fan.” Hetson: “Yeah, but at least she’s into hockey.” We took a photo with him and joked around with more friendly jab at the San Jose team.  He immediately offered another “nice” photo and even found us later and made sure we weren’t upset about the middle finger photo, haha.  Then Hetson scurried off onto the New  York streets with a backpack and alacrity.

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So then we had a few hours to kill, because we sure didn’t want to hang out until BR went on.  Sorry opening bands, it’s nothing personal, we just want to go experience the city.  And we had plans to meet Jennifer’s friend Pavla.  We spent a little while in the amazing bookstore Strand while waiting for her friend to meet us after work and once she arrived began the discussion with the local on where to eat around there.  She named a couple options and the organic place about a 10 minute walk away east on 14th sounded good.  If I were to give it a name, it’d be Northern Spy.  That restaurant easily made it to my top 5 of the trip, the food was great!  I had pumpkin ravioli, veggie couscous and the apple pie….loved it. Even the Oktoberfest beer was pretty good.

After dinner, it was time to get back to Irving Plaza for BR’s set at 10pm.  As always, they rocked out a fun show.  The setlist was enjoyable, and even included some rare gems like Sowing the Seeds of Utopia and Hear It.  Jennifer and I both had a great time.  I even recognized a couple people from thebrpage.net at the show,  but unfortunately didn’t get a chance to meet them.

New York’s Metro Mix posted some shots from the show: http://newyork.metromix.com/music/essay_photo_gallery/bad-religion-irving-plaza/2268039/content

The plan for Tuesday was to hit the Museum of Natural History for the first part of the day, then Brooklyn for some real New York pizza.  Well we didn’t really have a destination in Brooklyn for the “best” pizza, and other than checking out Williamsburg, that trip might have just been too much wandering. So we scrapped Brooklyn (gotta save something for next time, right?) and focused on the museum.

I like the American Museum of Natural History.  I’ll go ahead and say I really like it.  Tuesday marked my third or fourth visit and I could have easily spend the entire day there just learning about the exhibits.  Jennifer and I agreed we both wanted to first cheek out the Dinosaurs.  There are three main areas I definitely wanted to see on this visit: Dinosaurs, Humans, and Space.  If there were an exhibit on humans riding dinosaurs in space, well that’d just blow my mind. But we scored tickets to the IMAX presentation on the Hubble Telescope at Noon, so that took priority.  That was actually pretty interesting, and who knew the Hubble was born in Sunnyvale, California.

Next up was the section on human evolution, thanks to its proximity to the IMAX theatre exit.  That stuff is fascinating! The theory of evolution makes sense to me, but seeing the evidence, and details, just makes the picture that much more complete.  The displays are really interesting and will likely raise questions you never had before about human evolution and development.  When one video mentioned the relationship of evolution and spirituality, I couldn’t help but think of Greg Graffin’s recently published book Anaarchy Evolution.  Oh and how about that, I was seeing his band later that night.

Next up was were the dinosaurs.  I was excited to see my favorite dinosaur, Stegosaurus.  Of course, they were all interesting.  Oh and while I was in there a saw Neil deGrasse Tyson pass by.  Yeah, that’s right, the famous astophysisist you’ve probably seen on the Today show or the Daily show, or even on a Youtube clip. Yeah, I geeked out over that one and took a photo with him.  I find his lectures and stories fascinating, and it was nice to meet the nice guy in person.

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We briefly passed through sections about minerals and gems, the planet Earth, the Hall of Biodiversity, ocean life, and a couple others before reaching the material about space.  But as time flies when you’re having fun, we had less than half an hour to check it out before needing to leave for the house and get ready for the concert.  So we agreed to return the next day.

The second Bad Religion concert of our trip happened that night and I’ll write about that in another post.

Monday, October 25 will go down as the day things just didn’t go according to plan.  I can’t call it a bad day, it’s just that it didn’t meet expectations.

The plan was this: view a taping of The Daily Show.  The show films in the city, we’re fans, how could we not go? Tickets are outrageously hard to come by, but we were on a mission to grab some standby tickets.  The original idea for the day was to visit the American Museum of Natural History, then jet over to The Daily show by 2pm to improve our chances of getting in.  Well when we didn’t even get out of the house until the museum’s opening time of 10am, we thought maybe we’d like longer than 3 hours to, you know, see the natural history of the planet.  Okay, so that plan was scalped.  What to do with a few hours?

One of thing things we had on our to-see list was the FAO Schwarz toy store.  Well, what a perfect time to knock that out.  I had been a couple times previous and it’s always impressive.  We got off at the 51st street subway exist and walked along Park Avenue, past all the fancy shops, to the corner of 59th Street and Park Avenue.   Oh, how about that, a big Apple store.  Well, it can’t hurt just to peek inside.  Yeah, we’re both Apple nerds. The store isn’t huge, but it sure is crowded.  The most impressive part is the entrance, once you’re inside it’s the usual well-designed Apple retail store.  One more thing….the new MacBook air would be oh-so perfect for travel.

Okay, back to the mission at hand….toys! Well, right next door is FAO Schwarz.  In case you miss the sign, the funny toy-soldier dressed guy in front should give it away. We had fun checking out the giant plush dog toys, the big step-on piano, the action figures, shoot, even the Barbies.  I must say, though, that the shop wasa bit more impressive last time.  No giant lego Superman and Batman? Come on, Mr. Schwarz.

At this point it’s around 1pm and time to get over to 51st and 11th for The Daily Show.  We had read numerous accounts online of what it’s like to get tickets, the process of claiming standby tickets, the whole deal.  Things seemed pretty clear: get there no later than 2pm and if you’re lucky, you’ve got a shot at seeing the show. We made it there around 1:30pm.  No one was in front.  Okay, well ticketholders don’t need to be here yet, so why would they be.  But I was curious where the standbys line up.  We took to our smartphones and researched that very question at Clinton Park across the street. The result? Apparently it’s around the corner on 51st street near the stables.  2pm came and went, no fellow TDS enthusiasts or even word from their crew on where to line up? WTF? Same deal at 2:30pm.  Now things were fishy; people should have been there by that time. I found a door near those stables with the same studio logo I saw a the front.  I popped in and to my surprise there was some guy just standing there in a booth.  He had some very matter-of-fact answers for me.  There was no TDS taping that day, even even if there were, there’s no chance of getting stand-by tickets.  Well then.   What a big fat bummer.  But hey, it was totally our fault for assuming there was a taping that day. We should have checked.

But there was a consolation prize! We had tickets to the Colbert Report, which taped just a couple blocks away and later in the day. So now with some more time to kill, we went out for lunch.  I’d wanted to check out that clothing store, Uniqlo, that my friend Aldis mentioned is around Soho, so that’s where we went first.  It’s a nice enough store.  Think along the lines of H&M and you’ll have an idea of what it’s like.  I looked on my trusty Google Map and found that one of the places I’d marked to try was right around the corner.  Hellooo Cafe Gitane.  And props to Mara once again for another recommendation.  It’s a small place filled with what seemed like a eclectic locals, and based on the maps at the adjacent table, some out-of-towners. Turns out the cuisine is mix of French and Middle Eastern.  It also turned out the food was quite tasty.  After a relaxing  lunch, we had little time to spare to get to the Colbert Report studio at the recommended time so we took a taxi uptown.  Have you been in NYC taxis lately? Oh man, faaaaancy. Touch-screen TV entertainment/news systems in the back, credit card payment machine right there….I like it.

Oh, on the way over we got one really crappy email.  Our tickets to the day’s Colbert Report had been cancelled.  That happens when you forget to reply to the email from their staff confirming that you’ll make it.  FFFFFFUUUUUUU! We both thought we had confirmed those tickets.  We were both wrong.  Well we were already on the way over, so we continued on in hopes that stand-by tickets would work for this show.  I’d read that tapings for The Colbert Report are a much more friendly, forgiving experience.  Their staff outside directed us where to stand (we were positions 2 and 3 in the stand-by line) and over the next half-hour ticketholders kept lining up.  Stupid, stupid ticketholders, taking out potential seats that we were so close to calling our own.  Actually, even having a ticket doesn’t guarantee you a seat as they do overbook the audience . To sum this up: we waited a good 30-45 minutes before the bad news arrived: the crowd was looking pretty full that day and there just wouldn’t be room for standbys.  Booooo.  I was bummed, but was prepared for that and really…while it would have been fun,  the guest that night wasn’t particularly intriguing and it’s The Daily Show that I really wanted to see.  Oh well.

We headed back to the house for some downtime before dinner.  I’d been texting back and forth with Aldis about possible dinner plans that night and we decided on Hummus Place in East Village.  He was there with Art Center friend Claire and we sat down to some pretty good Mediterranean food. After the meal, Claire  had to take off, but Aldis, Jennifer and I started talking as we moseyed on down the street.  We ended up stopping at the corner of St. Mark’s Place and Avenue A and just talked there at that spot for the better part of an hour.  The conversation went from music to religion and all over the place.  There were agreements and disagreements, but it was an enjoyable, civil discussion.  That was pretty cool for me — just hanging out on an NYC street corner and talking….no rushing to get somewhere, no hectic crowds with which to content, just enjoying the moment.  Shortly after midnight, we had to call it a night as we had a day of musueming ahead of us.

Sunday morning shaped up to be a nice-weather day (t-shirt weather in late October NYC, I love it) and we were happy to spend the sunshine in Central Park.  Jennifer and I got to the park around 11AM, after briefly checking out the  surprisingly-large-and-clean Grand Cental Station, and visited Loeb Boathouse to rent rowboats for a Sunday row around The Lake. The park certainly was crowded, but not too crowded thankfully. At $12/first hour, $3/ each additional hour, the rowboats are a fair deal for such a nice experience.  It took me a couple minutes to get into a groove in rowing, but after that it’s easy to propel your vessel around the water. There are bends, brances, and bridges to navigate on the way to open expanses of water with incredible views.  I’ll never get over the beautiful dichotomous juxtaposition of nature and city found in Central Park. We got some good pictures in, rowed around the lake, and called it a boat ride after an hour and a half.

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We then walked around Central Park for a while.   I’ve only seen a small slice of the park but even after that it’s easy to be impressed with its magnitude and variety. I thoroughly enjoyed the park in the warm sunshine, but would also like to check it out in the Winter snow.

The time for bagels had returned (okay, it never really leaves, but you know) so we headed to my friend Mara’s suggestion, the nearby Ess-A-Bagel. Yelpers love it, locals love it, and we loved it.  They have a nice menu, and despite lacking blueberry and egg bagels, still offered a nice selection.  The stories we heard of NY bagels being denser than the standard West Coast bagels are true.  They’re not bricks, but just some substantial batches of delicious carbohydrates.

Then after lunch we moved from Midtown West to Midtown East to the MoMA.  The idea was a quick trip in to see the Starry Night and get out.  We know, of course, there would be distractions along the way….beautiful, masterpiece distractions…but that’s okay. The museum itself is setup nicely and a breeze to tour.  My highlights of the visit were Van Gogh’s Starry Night (my favorite), Piet Mondrian’s Compositions, and the works of Diego Rivera.

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At 5:30 we headed back to the house to make faces with the kids.  Yes, that’s right, carve jack-o-lanterns with John and  Madison.  Halloween is a few days away and the kids were excited about this.  Jennifer helped Madison carve one of her favorite penguin cartoon characters, and I helped John carve Spongebob Squarepants Patrick. Then each of them designed and carved a face on the other side of his/her pumpkin.

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A lazy morning finally snuck up on us. I like saying “I didn’t go to _______ to sleep.”, but I also understand you can’t run non-stop everyday. So we slept in on Saturday morning and just relaxed around the house until about noon. The morning wasn’t completely squandered, however; I did get to spend time time playing baseball with my nephew John. Well, Wii baseball. That kid gets so excited by all things baseball. Our first game ended with a mercy rule when he was up 5-0, but by the second game I was at least getting some hits in. Note to self: in Wii Sports baseball, swing lower and some decent hits will happen. Anyway, I was slightly bummed we got a late start to the morning and missed out on exploring Battery Park before the day’s adventures, but oh well.

My buddy Aldis is living in NYC while interning at a West Village design firm. He’s a snowboarding friend/old Akira Graphics coworker of mine and we had made some tentative plans to meet up while I’m out here. We decided to meet for lunch at Katz Delicatessen. Jennifer and I had heard so much about this place so it became a must-see. I’m all for Jewish delis. San Francisco kinda lacks in that department, and of course NYC even beats LA here. Once I stepped in the Lower East Side restaurant, I noticed a few things: 1) it’s nice and crowded (must be good), 2) I’m completely unfamiliar with the ticket tab system, and 3) the famous When Harry Met Sally restaurant scene was filmed there. I ordered the most prototypical, decent-sounding meal I could find: a pastrami sandwich on rye. Right before the guy at the counter makes a sandwich, he’ll give you two samples of the meat. I guess that’s to make sure you’re liking the cut of meat that day? Well I was satisfied. He made the sandwich, marked the price on my tab, and I was on my way to pick up a drink. These guys aren’t messing around when it comes to deli sandwiches. That thing was the size of a cadillac. I don’t normally eat much red meat, but I’m okay with it every once in a while. The sandwich was no frills — tender pastrami piled high, mustard, and bread. Jennifer picked up a Rueben sandwich, and Aldis a turkey variety. We all dug the food; and the lemonades were good too. It felt like a classic deli experience.

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After lunch, Aldis suggested we try a nearby place for some real New York cheesecake. Sounds like a winning plan to me. We made the short walk to our destination, which in itself was nice for the experience of seeing a less touristy corner of the city. We found the Eileen’s Special Cheesecake in Nolita to be an inviting little shop full of all sorts of sweets. For a few bucks, you can pick up a mini cheese cake with or without a fruit topping. I’ll tell ya — the strawberry cheesecake is delicious. So good! We ate our treats at a little park plaza across the street and for a minute I even felt like a local there. We walked around the area a bit more and soon it was time to head uptown to meet my family for dinner.

But first we had some time to explore peripatetically around in our own a bit. West Village reminded me of the parts of San Francisco: lots of little boutiques shops and specialty restaurants with neighborhoody-feel. We sat down for a while at Father Demo Square to people-watch and at 20 minutes to 8pm, took the subway to the Upper East Side.

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We met my sister and family at California Pizza Kitchen. I know, eat at CPK in New York City? Well, to be fair it is a family-friendly restaurant, and our real destinations were nearby. That said, factoring in the long wait times, we put our name in to Serendipity 3 before our meal.  That’s the place for dessert, more on that in a minute.  We had a nice enough dinner at CPK, but finished short of our expected call time for dessert. So we did what anyone would do in this situation…we went to Dylan’s Candy Bar.  That’s right,  a ridiculously large sized store devoted to all things candy.  That place was pretty awesome, and, well, sweet.  You know they’re not fooling around when they even have Hershey Kiss pillows and three different pack-sizes of Smarties.  I picked up a house-made chocolate bar set for my coworkers, some gummy Jets for myself.  The kids were just bouncing-off-the-wall excited and that was cute to watch t hem wander around the store.

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Now, if Serendipity 3 sounds familiar, that’s because you may have seen it featured on a episode of the Colbert Report.  The place is ostensibly known for its desserts more than any main-course dishes, and Colbert tried the infamous $1000+ gold-flaked ice cream sundae there.  We didn’t roll that big, but did order a round of “frozen hot chocolates” and those were pretty good all on their own. We got a bunch of silly photos in there and at around 11pm it was time to call it a night.  What a day of just indulging in our the city’s epicurean delights.

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