Life in Gotham City

(Holy Crap Batman! This city has a lot of nicknames!)

I'm thinking of doing a poll- What is more numerous in NYC: rats, people, or taxis?

Wrigley likes to laugh at the street performers in the park

Who doesn't eat their sushi from a bowl of fog?

A new day = A new challenge! It seems that with each day I learn something new or learn how to adapt to new experiences or challenges. My latest lesson was how to navigate the sea of umbrellas. The Big Apple was a bit soggy for a couple of days so we bought a couple of umbrellas. Us suburbians don’t walk in the rain to much as we spend most of the time in our cars. But here, even if you take the subway, you are going to have to walk at least one block. Walking down the street with an umbrella is not as easy as one would think. Here there are hundreds of people also walking with umbrellas on small cramped sidewalks. It is not as easy to bob and weave around people when they have a large canopy over their head and your large canopy is getting entangled with it! Also being of short stature, like I am, your umbrella risks gouging out the eyes of everyone you pass. I learned when passing people you have to hold your umbrella up really high so it will be above everyone else’s. Well, that is how it is supposed to work when you are not vertically challenged!

One of the things Blake was real excited to do in NYC was to go to a restaurant called Ninja. It is like a more sophisticated Disney restaurant. The restaurant is themed like a Japanese village, the waiters dress like ninjas, and meals have presentations to go with the theme. Some of the dishes were chocolate mousse with a bread bonsai tree, a chocolate cake shaped like a ninja star that appears from flames, and sushi over a bowl of fog. There is also an act at the end. Our waiter was very funny and the food was great. However, it is very pricey and one of those things you only do once for the experience. For 5 people our bill was $500. To quote our waiter "Ninja please!"

Being an Architecture and Design buff you will see a lot of pictures of random buildings in my “photo albums”. Anyone who has ever suffered through our photos from a trip knows I take a LOT of pictures. Most of the time it is of beautiful but random buildings (so just be warned when looking through our photo albums). This isn't so easy when following Blake down a street. When Blake "walks" it is the equivalent of a sprint for me and when he power walks I have to run to just stay on the same block. So many times I have stopped to take a picture of a building only to find he is 2 blocks down! To make matters worse he can look on google maps on his phone and know when the next train is coming. He is always saying "Come on, the next train arrives in 2 minutes! We can make it!" Problem is I cant run 10 blocks in 2 minutes! It is even worse when we are at home and about to leave. I am brushing my teeth, half dressed and I hear "The train will be there in 40 seconds! Come on, we can make it!" He has become one of those rushed New Yorkers while I have stayed true to may Southern slowness! That blackberry may end up becoming part of the tracks!

We haven't done much sightseeing as the weather hasn't been cooperating. Hopefully soon I can post about some of the cool New York things we have done. Thank you so much to everyone that has told me they are enjoying the blog! I didn't realize it wasn't set up to take comments but that has since been fixed by my technical support department (Blake) so feel free to comment now and thanks again for checking it out!