Still at the Office...

Now the adventure really starts, I'm at the train-station in Tuckahoe waiting for the 3:23 train to get me to Grand Central Station in Manhattan. I paid 32 dollars for the roundtrip fare for the Metro North and a 20 dollar Metro Card that gives me 12 rides on the New York City Subway. I's a 40 minute ride to get to the hart of NYC, coming up the stairs to get in to the main concourse is just one of the greatest feelings...

Waiting for the train at Tuckahoe Station...

Coming out from the underground into this grand hall...

Grand Central Station in Manhattan is the hub for the trains of the Metro North!!!

I have any particular plans, walk around aimlessly wait until Piper Deardorf calls me to make a plan to meet and later tonight go over to Brooklyn to go to Nock Adamski's house to hang out together.

Not many words needed to see what I was seeing...

Almost inadvertently I stumbled onto the restaurant where my new hero is the "chef at large", his name is Anthony Bourdain and he wrote the book "Kitchen Confidential" the one I just finished reading a couple of weeks ago. Here I am right in from of the "Les Halles" Restaurant the same window the book-cover was made at. What fun, I look at the menu and think that I'd like to come back to that place, the greatest would be to meet Toni there.

Stopping by at my new hero's place of employment... remember that I was reading Kitchen Confidential???

Look at the cover of the book and see for yourself!!!

In the South-East corner of the Madison Square Garden, Sake Shacks famous Shack, a long line just to get burgers, fries, and a shake...

For hours I walk through the streets of Manhattan, I love it, everything. So much energy, buildings, nature, people, traffic, noise, sirens, horns, the rumble of the subway passing underneath, endless 24 hours, nonstop every day! I wouldn't mind to have a job here in this city where I could bike and walk to places, like as an electrical consultant, interior lighting designer, something without shlepping tools around, a few is o.k. but you know what I mean if you ever seen me work, my van is full of everything, from tools to materials and to do the smallest job you still need a whole assortment of hand and power-tools, and I go in and out of the damn van a hundred times to get the job done. Instead I could have a labtop, a few instruments and a few hand-tools and go around, design, trouble-shoot, and consult on electrical systems, load-calculations and then hire an electricians executing the work, once in a while a great escape out of the madness, like going to stay at The Cutler Farm in Western Massachusetts. But I could do that anywhere.



Now I'm walking past the Sarah D Roosevelt Park, here is where you see all kinds of sports activities, basketball, soccer, racket-ball without a racket, these kids using their hands and it is amazing how fast they play, and my favorite was bicycle-polo. Lots of people are watching or just hanging out. I'm talking with Piper Deardorf on the phone to see where we meet, she is just starting to walk across the Manhattan Bride from Brooklyn and se we'll try to meet on the footpath of that bridge. When I call some of my friends here in New York I found out through Ofer that Piper is here too, the last thing I knew about her is that she is traveling in Germany. She is just extending her vacation for a week here in NYC before heading back to her home in Seattle.

Piper in New York, an additional bonus on my trip. We start with getting a cup of coffee, then explore more of Manhattan...

The next challenge is to find a slice of "real" New York style pizza, I think we're in luck...

Now at Union Square we try to find the Trader Joe's Wine Store, the mission is to get some wine for our next adventure. First we walk west and after a while of no sight of the store we ask somebody, and promptly we had to turn around. Now inside I'm looking around, this is a TJ's that just has wine, all the good deals we have in California, same feel, same guys running around and sort of the same kind of people shopping too. The "2 Buck Chuck" is a dollar more than at my TJ's in Emeryville, still an amazing deal. Piper and I buy a couple of red and a white and head over to the nearest subway station, squeeze our way through the commute-traffic, take the N train to Canal St. and transfer to the M. In no time are we at the Myrtel Street Station and find our way to Nick Adamski's place. There we get greeted by the biggest dog and we'll meet his girlfriend and another couple that is hanging out at his place.

From Union Square to Nick's place in Brooklyn via Subway...

We're sitting outside on the porch of this loft-complex when Ofer Ziv joined us, now we're having a mini Great Mother get-together, drinking wine, talking, and watching the dogs drool.

It's getting late and I decide to get my tired butt back to Tuckahoe. That means, back onto the Subway, take the M train to Canal Street then the 4 to Grand Central and from there the Metro North to Tuckahoe, 2 hours later, after 2 in the morning I slide into bed and sleep like a baby...

Leaving Nick's place at midnight, taking the M train to Canal then the 4 to Grand Central... 1:57 in Tuckahoe...

I don't remember how long I slept into the morning, but once up and awake, I make breakfast and start working on the blog here again, writing, pictures, and more computer stuff than I care to do. Then 3 o'clock hits and that completes this entry here...

Another 3 o'clock in Vicky's office...