New York! (again)

I am back from New York! Unfortunately, I was lazy and didn't take any pictures, with the small exception of a picture phone shot of Cake Shop, a weird and awesome cafe/bakery/record shop/bar. However, you are hopefully still interested in hearing about my trip even without visual aid.

Tuesday: We took the bus down to Boston, arriving at about 8. The bus trip was relatively uneventful, except that they were playing an unusually bizarre movie, even for the bus. It appeared to be a heartwarming story about a family (maybe a single mom?) meeting Jesus and takin' a ride on a modern-day Noah's ark, complete with dancing monkeys and police officers falling down in piles. Hmmm. We ate a quick dinner of delicious, moist cassoulet with Mana and Pop, and got to sleep relatively early.

Wednesday: We took a 10:00 bus to the city, which felt long, but was otherwise nice. I read A Wind in the Door and played an extreme 2 hour-long game of tetris (I got to level 24, and as a result, my phone was out of batteries for the remainder of the day.) After the bus ride, we met Lawrence at Home On 8th (an ol' favourite) and then went back to his apartment to get rid of our suitcases; he has moved out of the most awesome apartment ever (with a leaky roof and downstairs neighbors who blast Latin music all day) and now lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, another lovely neighborhood. After that, we went to Soho to attempt to find both Ezra and my dad a pair of jeans (we were successful,) and stopped by KIOSK, which currently has a collection of Finnish things, including a couple of sauna buckets, mustard, ceramic roosters, and licorice. For dinner, we had dosas at Hampton Chutney Co, one of my absolute favourite places to go in New York. On our way back to the subway, we stopped at world-famous Other Music!

Thursday: We started the day at our fave, 9th Street Espresso, only to find that the 13th street location has been sold, and is now Everyman's Espresso. Oh, well. The coffee was still good. We then went to the Whitney, mainly to see the Kara Walker exhibit My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love, which was absolutely incredible. It was extremely stirring and disturbing, and I find it amazing that such simple images can do that to you emotionally. I also enjoyed seeing a wonderful Jenny Holzer bench. (I was looking for an image of it, but alas, I cannot find one.) For lunch I had a tofu hot dog at F&B with onions, tomatoes, relish, sauerkraut, ketchup, and mustard, and afterwards I sat next to a celebrity whom I'd never heard of (Lili Taylor) on the subway. We went to the Lower East Side and walked around a bit, before stopping at Cake Shop, an awesome cafe/bakery/record shop/bar. I had a huge slice of vegan peanut butter cake - yum! We went back to Soho to continue the search for Isaac's jeans, and then had bubble tea at Saint's Alp Teahouse, my favourite bubble tea in New York. I had another celebrity sighting on the L train - Daniel V!

Friday: We had coffee at the cafe where Lawrence works (the place where all the white guys that look like Lawrence are, like, headin' towards) and then went for a quick walk in the West Village before taking the bus back to Boston. We then took another bus to Portland, arriving at about 7:30.

I know no one cares what I had for lunch, but thanks for reading this endless blog post about my lovely trip to New York!