We hearted New York--mostly.

Three of us spent a few days in New York City this August, and had a wonderful time. There is so much to see, and so much that we didn't have time to see, but we got in most of the major touristy things. We were fortunate in having a hotel right in mid-town Manhattan, and so it was easy to either walk or take the subway to anywhere we wanted to go, and we got lots of use out of our subway passes. I loved it, and I would be happy to spend another week there sometime seeing some of what we missed.

Aspects of NYC were puzzling, like the smell. I can't even describe it, but it was everywhere, even in the plane coming back. It was just a...smell. The closest I can come is that it was a combination of diesel fuel, urine, and some unidentifiable...thing. I had to take a shower back at home before I could get rid of it from my nostrils. And New Yorkers themselves are interesting. Everyone we interacted with was just lovely, but by and large they're a dull lot to look at. Everyone who lives there wears black, gray, and white--exclusively, unless they were in livery. I really stood out, in my midwestern colors. And we were warned before we left that it doesn't do to make eye contact with New Yorkers in the subway--they don't like it. Well, I'm from Ohio--and that's just odd.

The other really unexpected thing was the food. We somehow expected New York City food to be really, really good. But it was largely mediocre, and some of it was actually awful. There are corner shops all over Manhattan that are fairly good, and we hit the one by our subway stop about once a day, but dinner was always an adventure. One night we decided to go down to China Town and take advantage of what we figured would probably be pretty authentic cuisine. Well, the map may not have been as clear as it might have been, because I'm not convinced we ever did find China Town proper. We kept walking though, and eventually found ourselves in Tribeca and turned back, and finally entered the one visible Chinese restaurant out of desperation. There was no air conditioning (at least not that night), but the food was authentic all right. I couldn't identify much of it, and some of it that I could (like the tray of chicken feet) I didn't want to. The night we did pizza (we figured surely pizza was a safe bet) left us a little disappointed too.

But there were some gustatory highlights, like the soup I had the first day: chicken with vegetables and couscous. Oh boy. One night we gave up and ate at McDonald's, just because the quality there is more or less universal, and I acquiesced on the condition that we go to the gelato shop a few doors down for dessert. The gelato shop was an adventure. They had two big sets of cases of drums of gelato in diverse flavors, and some really energetic and enthusiastic employees who made us taste every flavor in the shop before we made our selections. There were a LOT of flavors, and they just kept saying "When you find the right one, you'll know". They were right!

But the true highlight was our last meal in New York. Down in the Soho/Greenwich area, there is a little tiny restaurant called "Peanutbutter and Company". It took us a little while to find it, but we were glad we did. They have flavors of peanutbutter that would never have occurred to me, like the one full of red pepper (The Heat Is On peanutbutter). The sandwiches are simply enormous--they must have the bread loaves specially made--and the combinations are imaginative. I had dark chocolate PB on whole wheat with cherry jam and shredded coconut. Emily had creamy on white with cream cheese and chocolate chips (which did, as it was supposed to, taste like cookie dough), and Stu had the Peanutbutter Sampler. They brought him eight little tubs of PB (one of each flavor), carrots, celery, and crackers. So naturally we all tried everything. It was the most fun we had all week. I think the only one that didn't get finished was the cinnamon/raisin, which was strangely chewy.

I hadn't realized that there had been something missing from Emily's NYC experience until she confided in me on the last morning. You see, Emily's previous conception of New York had been formed by a television show, and even though we had seen some truly extraordinary things that week, none of them looked right to her--they didn't look like New York. It wasn't until we came up out of the subway station in Soho on that last morning that she gave a sigh of relief and said "Now *this* looks like Sesame Street!". Little Emily, happy at last.

Love, Spud