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.

Message to Emmy!!!!!!!!

Central Park

Luck a the Irish!

Well, St. Patty's definitely wasn't the same this year without Emily and it was on a Monday so nobody could go to the parade. Lucy, Jeff, Chris and I went to Ryans Irish Pub around the corner from our place for a few pints of Guiness and Harp

Empire in Green

The time I saved the day.

Union Square. Uptown N tracks at the stroke of 10. Trash... on FIRE!!!!! I ran up the stairs, through the turnstile and told the lady that there was trash on fire. Not 5 minutes later there was a guy with an extinguisher putting it out- look at all the smoke!

My beautiful god daughter Dahlia Echo Chaffee!!!

Born on March 8, 2008

Her frowny face is almost as good as mine

Belly button cork

Mommy and baby

Shooot her!!!!!

Perhaps my favorite thing I've done while in New York was this amazing play reconstructing one of the best movies ever made using cardboard and over-dramatic speeches. WHAM City, a theater troupe out of Baltimore performed their own rendition of Jurassic Park- half parody, half homage. Chris, Chris Burns, and I waited patiently on the floor of this Bushwick, Brooklyn space cross-legged and enjoying our cocktails for the show to begin. It was kind of a big creepy triangular shaped room with scary lighting and excitement in the air. The show was hilarious- they did all the good scenes, all the good lines and even put words to the theme song - yay! I am so happy to have found the words, here they are for you to memorize and sing along to :)

I thought that John Hammond and Ian Malcolm were played particular well and just enough over the top to be awesome. The paper mache T-rex was dazzling. As we said many times, this is the kind of things we're going to miss when we leave New York!

D.C.

Chris and I took a train down to DC on the dreariest day- it was rainy and gross in NYC. I realized how much I love train travel... why is it so expensive? Of course it reminded me of Europe and brought back a lot of good memories so I quite enjoyed the ride. We met up with Lucy, Jeff and some friends at a bar with a seemingly huge selection of beers, but half of the ones we ordered they didnt have. It was a fun night.
The next day after our free breakfast at the hotel, we walked through chinatown to the mall. From there we went to the Washington Monument, the WWII Memorial, the White House, and then to the Native American Smithsonian for lunch... it was good. Afterwards we went to the Air and Space Smithsonian and saw Sputnik and the Explorer and lots of other stuff. By this time we were really tired so we headed back to the hotel to rest and go in the jacuzzi. While looking for some peace and quiet we encountered the swiss family Robinson and enjoyed our hot soak whilst being splashed and yelled at by a million kids. On our way to the car to go to Virginia we saw this guy break a car window- I guess he didnt know the cops were across the street giving someone a ticket- and they took off after him. I wonder if they got him, and I wonder if that guy got out of getting a ticket. We went out to Virginia to see Jesse and had really good chili dogs at a true Virginian bar- we got some looks from the people there- the people that were smoking cigarettes inside- ew.

The next day we went to the Lincoln Memorial then the Holocaust Museum. We met Jesse again for lunch- it was funny because it was a "New York Deli" and then we headed back to New York in the car. In Dover, Delaware the bum that was washing the windows got in the car and drove us back to NY- I think he is still posing as Lucy's boyfriend. And good ole Jeff has settled into his life in Dover Delaware.

Spider Statue thing

JLu

WWII Memorial

Goose and Monument IGoose and Monument II

Sanders Sisters go to the White House

Sputnik

Explorer

Vietnam Memorial

Jefferson Memorial

The Elg's Come to Town

Chris's parents arrived Saturday morning at about 5am on the redeye from California- although we were all a bit tired, we packed in a full day of sightseeing and fun. The first thing we did was head to the Empire State Building. It was so early so there was almost no line and although it was cooooold, it was completely clear and so you could see for miles.

The VA where I work is in the pic!

It was also the day that Kosovo gained independence and there were tons of cars driving and honking through times square with flags and yelling and smiling.

After the Empire State Building we headed to South Street Seaport to get tickets from the tkts booth. After waiting in line, we got tickets to Mamma Mia! Im such a huge ABBA fan so I enjoyed it, although I did think it would be more outlandish and they didnt do my favorite song. The next day we headed to a New York Institution, Carnegie Deli. The portions are outrageously gigantic but the deli-style food is delicious. We spent the rest of the day wandering through Central Park and 5th Ave. We had a great dinner at Aquagrill and all in all it was a great weekend.

Mortified NYC

This ended up much more funny and much less cringy than I thought it would be. It was people reading their childhood diary or journal or poems or song lyrics. At first I thought it meant they like stole their kids's stuff, but then I realized it was their own stuff. Anyways, it was really hilarious- one girl wrote love poems about a crush, a guy performed some raps, and one girl sounded like the classic mean girl in high school. So it was really funny and its a grassroots thing all around the country so I recommend going and seeing it...

http://www.getmortified.com/