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Published: January 6th 2011
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On Boxing Day was the 6th biggest snowstorm that New York has ever seen. The biggest ever happened in February 2010- hello global warming!! Seeing as it was snowing prettily heavily we decided to have an indoor day, which meant catching a taxi to the Whitney museum. The Whitney was great- while I wasn't so much into the Edward Hopper stuff, I loved their concept on the top 2 floors of devoting an entire room to each artwork, allowing you to engage with it more thoroughly. There was also an exhibition detailing the life of an artist who I hadn't heard of before (and can't remember the name of now), and his stuff was very interesting- for example in his last exhibition (before he died of AIDS) all the artworks were in turquoise blue and hung low to the ground to give the audience the feeling of being in a swimming pool. He also created casts of himself, and when they got really famous he purposely refused to sign their delivery so that they are now floating wherever unclaimed parcels go (probably a tip). That night it was pretty impossible to get a cab, but luckily we got one, because it
was snowing very hard. We got home, had some dinner, then met some friends for a snow fight in Central Park. Very fun!
The next day a couples of us went to Harlem in search of some soul food. There wasn't really much to see there, though we did go past the Apollo Theatre. We found a buffet soul food place in the end. It was interesting, partly delicious, partly a little sickening. After that I went back to Macys (NYC Macys is the biggest department store in the world by the way- 9 levels!) and bought a jumper I had been looking at last time I was there but couldn't decide whether to buy.
Morning came and finally it was time to find the hipsters of Williamsburg. Unfortunately, thanks to Brooklyn having an 11th St and a N 11th St, we ended up in some industrial part of Brooklyn. I guess we got to check out Park Prospect at least, good pizza with salesman that barely spoke English and a bakery with half decent canoli. We finally made it to Williamsburg and spent the rest of the day op-shopping. I bought some great stuff, but sadly saw
very few outrageous hipsters. We did get to eat some amazing 'Brooklyn clam chowder', which is basically normal clam chowder with bits of bacon in it. That night we went to Chelsea for Tapas dinner and drinks, which was nice and trendy, but pretty much the opposite of value for money e.g. $7 for a bottle of Coors Light, $10 for a Mojito that just tasted like lime juice.
Next morning we hit up the Museum of Natural History which was good, but not really as amazing as I thought it would be (and full of screaming children!) The Planetarium was pretty good, but I was a bit puzzled by the choice of Whoopi Goldberg for commentary, and as always the surround style image made me a bit motion sick. It put Jonathan to sleep. So not exactly the most riveting documentary of all time. Still, I really enjoyed the stuffed animals (so fabulously kitsch!) and the dinosaurs. All in all it was pretty fun. That was the day Jonathan found Tim Tams at a local grocery store, and I had a great night in eating those and watching Juno on TV. True New York decadence if I ever
saw it!
The next day we went ice-skating in Central Park which was pretty cool, though they let a ludicrous amount of people on the ice, and within 5 minutes it got ripped to shreds in a way I had never experienced even at the end of a 2 hour session back home. There were also a lot of little kids putting me to shame, but their darting around everyone made me almost fall over a couple of times. That said, it was great being able to watch the sunset over Central Park while participating in such an iconic holiday activity. Zoe also got a bit sick of skating after about 20 minutes so we went and got a pretzels and just sat and watched people for a while. That part of Central Park is pretty beautiful, I must say as we were walking towards the rink it was kind of like being in some sort of picturesque Narnia.
That night we went to Life Cafe (from RENT- very exciting!) and checked out some of the bars on the lower east side. One we went to was a sushi bar with cocktails. Very reasonably priced and very cool.
After that we met up with Steve, his friend from Sydney and some of her friends to check out some bars downtown. They were a bit more expensive and you could see some of the patrons flashing their money around with $20 tips for a drink etc. The layout of the places was pretty cool though, and amusingly, the music very similar to some of the trashier places in Austin which I found amusing.
The next night was New Year's Eve. A few of us made the group decision that, given the door charges most places were charging on NYE, it would be cheaper just to pay extra money for a place with an open bar and stay there all night. It worked out pretty well. On the roof they had set up a tent that was heated with deck chairs all around. Most people didn't think to venture up there so we had the place to ourself for quite a while sipping on our free drinks. After the roof started to get bombarded by people we headed downstairs where there was free (pretty good!) food, and met a few New Yorkers. It was a good night.
The New Year started with a trip to Hungarian Pastry Cafe, a popular cafe near Columbia university, pretty close to the apartment. I spent the early afternoon writing postcards, reading a book, eating a mediocre hazelnut slice and drinking TERRIBLE hot chocolate. Not sure I'd recommend that cafe to others, but it was nice to have a quiet reading sort of day.
A whole bunch of the co-opers had taken a roadtrip from Austin to New York and had arrived on New Years Eve day. That night I met up with them and we all went to check out the lower east side. It was great meeting up with that crazy bunch again. I was missing Austin already. It was so great that I hung out with them the next night as well (my last proper night in New York ). The last proper day I had in New York was spent having a Sunday brunch New York style- with mimosas, dessert and a full on meal for $10. Oh, and served sometime after midday of course. Anyway I loved my time in New York, but eventually the party was over and it was time to head to Philadelphia...
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