New York City Part I

Geez. Everything takes longer than you think. I've been working on this forever and this is only part 1 of who knows how many installments.

I've got the first round of photos up on Flickr. More to come.

Bob and I have a long list of places we'd like to visit and New York City comes up in every conversation. I can't believe it took us this long to make it there.

For his 50th birthday he wanted to see the Allman Brothers at the Beacon theater and their NYC run happens during Spring Break so we had the perfect excuse to make the trip.

On Wednesday (3/21) we hopped on a jetBlue red eye at midnight and tumbled off the plane at JFK a few hours later at 8:00am NYC time. The airfare was cheap and it sounds dreamy but I don't sleep well on planes so this isn't my favorite way to travel. But hey, it's vacation.

We took the Airtrain to Jamaica Station and then bought our $24 for the week Metrocards and headed into Manhattan.

We had no problem finding our hotel but our apartment wasn't ready yet so we dropped off our luggage and headed out into the NYC morning.

We found bagels and tea and fortified and then headed to Times Square. It was cold. Cold enough for coats which I didn't have. I was primed from our winter but my head and ears felt like they were going to fall off. There were still muddy piles of snow on the ground from the week before. We stopped at a souvenir shop and I picked out a hat. The guy knew what I wanted and cut the tag off for me. He said he had other customers doing the same thing. This is the best hat to cover my ears that I've ever had.

We got turned around several times. How can you not? What are the landmarks, tall buildings? I'm sure you get used to it but we weren't there long enough to do it without a lot of head scratching.

We headed to our first exhibit at the International Center of Photography. It's Martin Munkasci who more or less pioneered the idea of action in fashion photography. The photography center also featured a Henir Cartier Bresson exhibit.

Bob grew up with a professional photographer in the house and has a much better knowledge of photography than I do. I first learned of Bresson at an exhibit on one of our Europe trips and I got him right away and it was love at first sight. There is always something going on in his photos. I described it as movement. In the exhibit he says he learned from Munkasci that a photo could tell a story.

This particular exhibit came about because he was captured during WWII and presumed dead. A museum in NY prepared a memorial exhibit and when Bresson escaped and found out, he wanted to contribute to his retrospective. An amazing collection of photos.

At this point we could get into our room so we went back to get settled and I took an epic and completely life altering nap which made me feel 110% more human. When we left to go out again, it was at least 15 degrees warmer. It was crazy but we didn't complain.

We found a Japanese restaurant and ordered big. A family friend of Bob's lives in NYC and he met us for dinner. After dinner, we took a little walk in the theater district and found the Lyceum theater where we had tickets to see Inherit the Wind. I know squat about how theater works but apparently our show was a preview. It was fantastic. Brian Dennehy and Christopher Plummer. And it's a really great play.

After our show we walked around the theater district. It rained a bit but the city was more active than earlier. Lots of people. High energy. Cars. Cabs. People. Pedicabs. Horse carriages. Police on horseback.

Portland has police on horseback and I always thought it was a bit ridiculous but here I can almost see where it makes sense. A horse might get around where a car cannot. There was a big truck charging down the street honking. He pulled up right behind a woman police officer on horseback. She hollered at him to get the fuk off her ass.

I Love This Town!

Then she "pulled him over." I asked Bob to stop so I could watch. I asked him if it would be rude for me to walk over so I could watch more closely. I doubt anyone would care but I didn't do it. We ended up at the House of Brews where earlier we'd had a dispute because I wouldn't eat a hamburger and drink a beer before going to a play. The place was near our apartment. It was crowded and smelled like stale beer but we found a seat and our server was an adorable young woman. It was the kind of place I would have loved in my 20's. I still liked it on vacation. While we were in there I realized that at my current age, I've been legal to drink longer than I was not.

There's loud music and basketball on the TV. Cute boys. Good people watching. We try the Brooklyn Lager.