New York, New York, part 1

One of my goals for this summer was to get out of town. I've never really cared for traveling during summer. There's usually too many tourists and I live to see places as they really are, without a massive swell of humans clutching cameras and maps. And invariably when I travel during summer I pick the most oppressive heat wave possible. So it was a little surprising to me when I chose to go to NYC for a long weekend. In the middle of summer/tourist season!

I love the idea of NYC. I love the idea of a million busy intense New Yorkers bustling here and there, working on interesting projects, participating in cool cultural events. For the longest time I wanted to live in NYC when I grew up. For the longest time I was also obsessed with living in Montana so I am not sure if the NYC dream was something real and something desired or just something that I felt every 20-something pined for. The reality of NYC is that it simultaneously makes me very quite invisible but also like anything is possible. I'd have to figure out a way to reconcile these two sides before I gave up my life for a 200 sq foot closet in the Lower East Side. For now I am content to visit. My last visit to NYC was last April. I realized I never posted pictures which is too bad because not only is the battery situation in my camera becoming a big problem but the pictures themselves are looking pretty grim. I assure you that while NYC was slightly overcast/cloudy while I was there, it did not have the weird murky haze that the pictures show. NYC is a much sharper study of contrasts.

I took Mega Bus to NYC. This is really an ingenious way to travel. For $9 each way (that's no typo), Mega Bus picks you up in South Station in Boston and drops you off near Penn Station in NYC. It's about a 4 1/2 hour ride (with no stops!). Priceless to not have to worry about driving in the city, stopping for gas, locating parking and paying for parking. One note - Mega Bus is a double decker bus and if you are even remotely prone to motion sickness do not sit on the upper level!! I sat on the upper level both ways and really thought I was going to die. Penn Station was about 20 blocks from my hotel which is about how long it took me to get my land legs back and not feel like I was going to vomit all over 7th avenue.

I stayed in The Pod Hotel which was a really good choice. There are lots of pod hotels in Japan and they were just large enough for someone to get in and lie down and sit up (but not stand), kind of like a larger version of the cadaver drawers you'd find at the morgue. The Pod Hotel in NYC had a variety of rooms. Mine was a tiny single - I could touch both walls at the same time! - with a shared bathroom. Nice hotels are nice but when I go to places like NYC I don't tend to do much in hotel rooms but sleep so though tiny, it was perfect for me. What the room lacked in size it more than made up for in views from the hotel roof!

My first stop after checking in at the hotel was a visit to MOMA (Museum of Modern Art). We didn't have a chance to visit MOMA when I was in NYC last April so I knew that I would make a visit during this trip. It's been ages since I've been to a museum; an embarrassing amount of time has passed since I visited my last one so I really enjoyed just wandering around from room to room and from floor to floor. I always get a kick out of seeing famous paintings and wondering how they ended up in that museum. I spent a lot of time checking out the impressionists and seeing an exhibit on design and furniture.

Before my trip I spent a lot of time investigating good gluten-free/dairy free restaurants where I could have dinner. Quite stupidly it never occurred to me that maybe I'd want to eat lunch or possibly a snack. It was really really hard to be in the middle of NYC, surrounded by bagel shops and pretzel stands and not being about to have one bite. Good thing I brought almonds and dried cranberries but it just wasn't the same as having a fluffy yummy bagel. On Friday night I ate at a restaurant in the East Village that had gluten-free/dairy-free pizza. Ah pizza, how I miss you. It was pretty good and I was starved and I think I kind of surprised the waiter by eating all of it. After dinner I wandered around the East Village, checking out shops, people watching and fantasizing about living there. I also stopped at a relatively famous bakery that makes vegan/gluten-free treats. I was pretty pumped to find the bakery because I'd heard so much about it and who doesn't fantasize about going into a bakery and being able to eat nearly everything they sell? The cupcakes were hands down the worst cupcakes I have ever eaten. Their being gluten-free didn't make them bad, they were just gross. The frosting tasted like glycerin and the cake was try and tasteless and chemically. I paid $4.25 each for two cupcakes that I could barely even take a bite of. The cupcake experiments I've been concocting in my kitchen were much better and I am even more inspired to come up with a even better tasting cupcake.

. . . to be continued . . .