January 2007
Home Alone...Lost in New York!
"All the noises of the city were muted here into a distant hum,
so unceasing that it seemed to belong to silence...The simple joy he felt at being once more of such familiar things also contained an element of strangeness and unreality. With a sharp stab of wonder he reminded himself, as he had done a hundred times in the last few weeks, that he had really come home again--home to America, home to Manhattan's swarming rock..."
I started reading Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again on the flight to New York from Houston, and I felt it oddly appropriate. My mom and I were heading to New York for a week to stay with my sister and her little piece of (rented) Manhattan swarming rock.
We arrived on Christmas Eve, and I immediately donned an apron and started cooking. We forwent the traditional turkey for my little menu. We started off with mussels a la escargot, a recipe courtesy of my Belgian roommate Kristiaan, followed by roasted magret (duck breast fillet) with a side of seared fennel, and concluding with some pastries that Stacey had picked up from Buchon, one of my favorite pastry places in New York. We had a bottle of wine that my sister contributed to the evening's festivities and we were quite stuffed by meal's end.
After dinner we met up with my friend Eric and his girlfriend Sharon who had been visiting the city for the last couple of days. I've known Eric since I was in eight grade, and we've shared many exploits in German class from acting in atrocious Rollenspiele to getting lost on the Philosophenweg in Heidelberg. Feeling very touristy and in the Christmas spirit, we took a little photo among all the other touristy folk by the Christmas tree in the Rockefeller Center.
The next day we walked along 5th avenue and walked along Central Park. We then had afternoon tea at the Four Season's which was a lot of fun. We spent a few hours there drinking tea and nibbling on little scones and crumpets next to a blazing fireplace and it felt very Christmas-y.
We also managed to catch two Broadway shows. The first one we say was "Company." It was my mother's first Broadway show, and she was quite excited. IIt wasn't a traditional song and dance kind of musical. There wasn't a pit for the orchestra/band; each of the cast members had their own instrument which they played when they weren't speaking/singing. There wasn't much of a plot, but it was a series of short vignettes revolving around a 35-year old bachelor named Bobby and his married friends discussing the woes and virtues of marriage. Kind of a dark comedy, and so dark that I fell asleep halfway through.
We then saw "The Producers" a few days later which was pretty awesome. I'd seen bits and pieces of the movie before, but the show was spectacular. I couldn't stop laughing and left the theater skipping and humming "Springtime for Hitler" until I realized I was getting weird looks from passersby.
I also met up with a few college friends. I hung out with my blockmate Jon quite a bit, and we ended one of the evenings with a pubcrawl around New York of which my memory of it was very dim. I also got to see my other blockmate Justin from London, and the three of us had quite the feast at a dim sum restaurant in Chinatown. I also met up with my friend Tamara from college; we were walking down the road looking for a place to sit down and chat and within a span of three minutes I ran into two people from Harvard that I hadn't seen in college. I guess New York's a small city.
All in all I had a good time in the Big Apple. I had lots of good food, the highlight of which was a six-course extravaganza at the two Michelin star Daniel. We also spent a couple of afternoons at the museums, and there was a glorious exhibit on Spanish painting at the Guggenheim.
Now I'm back home in Texas enjoying the sun until I return to the rainy season back in Palo Alto.
Subscribe to RSS