Jaco-licious

I was sooooo excited to see Emily as we landed in San Jose. We went straight to Pangea Hostel (our usual) and Em was there waiting for us. We had dinner accompanied by some Pilsens and good conversation. The next day we tried to go to my favorite, Soda Amon, but sadly it was closed, so we wandered over to the main drag (see the dome in the park below) and found random statues of cows "dressed up" as various other things. It was wierd and awesome.

My personal favorite, pigeon cow

Mardi Gras Cow

After a fabulous breakfast and some more wandering, we headed to the bus station only to find that the next bus was in 10 minutes and completely full, so we had to wait for an hour and a half at the bus station- not the funnest place. Thank god we had travel scrabble. The bus ride to Jaco was a nice re-aquaintance with the beauty of Costa Rica.

We settled in at Emily's, and headed to Ganesha, a bar owned by her friend that was right on Jaco Beach, and we caught the most gorgeous sunset. We wandered around town for a while, got some Musmanni (!), checked out the art festival, and ended up going to Playa Hermosa for a night time surfing contest. It was really cool even when it started raining. We were still trying to adjust from the city to Costa Rica

Spider web at Ganesha

FWOG!

Oooh

Night Surf Contest

The next day was, of course, dedicated to the beach- we finally got some sun, Chris went surfing, and Emily and I noticed the difference in skin tone of our legs and feet and proceeded to take a million pics of this amazing phenomena- I only included the best ones. This must have been a day of taking way to many pics of a certain thing, because we also have a 20 picture series of Chris eating pizza.

Sisters Feet at Beach

The next day Chris went on a canopy zipline tour and Em and I hung out at her place and played with the cutest puppy EVERRRRRRRRRR- except it was kinda bitey. Chris and I went to Carerra National Park the next day, and though it was beautiful hiking through the rain forest, it was kinda rainey and dark and we didnt see too much wildlife. Not to mention the fact that we missed the bus, there was no phone to call a cab, it started to pour, we had one umbrella and it took us 2 hours to get back :)Carerra Natl Park

Fun on the bus

You say its your birthday...

The Catskills

On Friday we took off and left the craziness of the city for a relaxing and romantic weekend in the Catskills. We headed to Haines Falls, NY, got a little bit lost on the way but when we got there we found our beautiful B&B nestled into the side of a hill in a gorgeous valley. The innkeeper gave us some recommendations for dinner and when we got to our room there were a dozen pink roses from my parents waiting for us! The room was so nice, the best way to describe it would be calm. We headed to Tannersville for dinner and had a great comfort meal at Last Chance Diner- mmm chicken pot pie and meatloaf.

The Rosehaven Inn

Gandalf, the four-legged innkeeper
(named before the movies, of course)

Chris hadn't been feeling well so on Saturday he rested and I went on a hike to Kaaterskill Falls. All by myself! It was weird that the parking lot was up the road from the trail head and so you had to walk along the highway to get to the trail. Not too mention the very lightly marked trail. The way you could tell you were on the trail was to look for these little yellow circles on the trees. The trail was a bunch of rocks so I would just climb for a while and hope to see a yellow circle. The falls were beautiful and they are the highest falls in the state of New York! Eat your heart out Bridal Veil! Wow!





Later we went to the very crowded TAP NY Craft Beer Festival at Hunter Mountain. As we were driving up, there were thin slivers of snow on the mountain that a few people were trying to snowboard down. I tried a lot of new beer and there was a lot of good food and music.


The breakfast and coffee at the Rosehaven was great, but on Sunday we left to wander around the Catskills. Here's a little pond we stopped at-

We circled around this big reservoir and then ended up in Kingston and had lunch and parked at this beach on the Hudson to figure out where to go next. There was a guy flying a kite that Chris really took a liking to :) During this time we also thought I had appendicitis and Chris actually drove to a hospital... hee heeWe ended up at a beautiful mountain house where we were the only guests. We got lost going to dinner and ended up in Woodstock at a really good restaurant with really good brussel sprouts, yah thats right, brussel sprouts. Yum. The next day we hung out in Woodstock a little more- had coffee and drove around and saw deer. It's a very artsy-hippy town. I bet you didnt know that the actual site of Woodstock is 45 miles south west of the town at a farm in Bethel. Either did we, and when we found out (thank you iphone) we decided not to go there. We headed back and stopped to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall in New Jersey. And then got lost getting back. This trip was really relaxing and a great pre-birthday trip. Yay!

Mom's Visit

On Friday we went to one of the best restaurants I've ever been to- Gramercy Tavern! Not only was the food delicious, it was beautifully served. Below is my amazing coconut tapioca with passion fruit and coconut sorbet and a sweet cilantro gooey sauce. Those crispy things tasted vaguely like cheese.

Lemon and Clam Rissoto

After lunch, we headed over to the Birthplace of Teddy Roosevelts write up the block. It was a very interesting house and talked all about his life and upbringing. Very interesting.

Les Halles

The next day we went to the Asiate Restaurant up on the 50th floor or so of the Mandarin Hotel. It had a great view of the park and the skyline. Brunch was awesome and we had a wonderful time.

This is the appetizer to brunch (I didnt know it existed either)

The view from the ballroom- some kid was having his bar mitzvah in this room.

After our lovely brunch we walked around Central Park a bit and then headed to the Plaza Hotel for afternoon tea with my friend Ying.

Tea at the Plaza's Palm Court

Fountain at Rockefeller Center

It only took an hour and a half to get to the Cloisters from Brooklyn. Atlantic Center to 190th Street in Manhattan. It is really beautiful up there and we looked at a lot of old boring stuff. Ha ha, there was some cool stuff too. Lucy kept pretending that she fell asleep. Do you know what a cloister is?

Not in the cloister!

Who is that way down there?
We love the cloisters!Peter Lugers Shiny Gold-coined Sailboat- Wow!

Goodbye East Village, Hello Fort Greene!

Well, our year in Manhattan has been wonderful, noisy, exciting, lively, noisy, and interesting. The East Village is a gluttons paradise because everything you could ever want is right out your door waiting for you. It's easy to get to most neighborhoods from there, and best of all it was a 15 minute WALK to work for me. But, alas, we are ready for a change - somewhere new to explore and get to know.... and that place will be Fort Greene.