NYC more in depth...

As I drove to work in the dark this morning, my first holiday fever hit me. I'm ready for fall and the crispness of winter. I suppose I'm one of the rare few who actually enjoys the changing seasons. Summer all year round would make me appreciate it less, I think.

All the anger and disdain of yesterday was slept off. My day spiraled into shit somewhere around 1pm when the files that made me work 12 hour days last Mon/Tues didn't work after all. But what really pissed me off is that our expo people tried to blow smoke up my ass about a process. I'm not an idiot. I do this for a living. And if it takes their people 10 hours to lay something out that they're copying exactly, they either have the worst graphic designers on the planet, or they're being robbed blind for hourly pay.

I love NYC. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it. I mean, I love Chicago, and New Orleans, and utterly adore Toronto, but NYC is it's own animal.

Wednesday, I had the fastest cabbie of all cabbies EVER. The normal charge for a ride from Laguardia to Times Square is $45. I paid like $32. He was passing every cab on the street and cutting down back streets. I tipped him well. I checked into my hotel and immediately jumped on the subway and then walked to the Metropolitan Museum.

I waffled for weeks on which museum I wanted to go look at on Wednesday afternoon since it was my only day off alone. I considered the Gugenheim, and I really wish I had walked down and at least touched it and taken a picture of it before going back to my hotel. I worship Frank LW. He looked at the world in a way no one else could and had such a complicated understanding of it.

The Met was awesome. I'm a huge museum nerd, and I love nothing more than spending an entire day in a new museum. I have tons of pics, but I need to download them off my phone. That thing has a great camera. I was slightly disappointed by the Greek/Roman section. I dunno. Maybe I expected more than tan pottery. The sculptures were fascinating, but…I dunno.

The Egyptian section was amazing, and I really enjoyed the arms and armor. They had some sweet crossbows on display. I loves me some crossbows. I also took some pics of interesting patterns that I'm thinking about incorporating into the house somehow.

I loved it. I saw everything I wanted to see, and then most of everything else. I wasn't as interested in the paintings, so I save those for the last 45 minutes and kind of hustled through looking at the Rembrandts and Degas. I was disappointed that the Medieval art section was closed for renovations, though. I had wanted to see that; although, medieval art pretty much consists of Christian paintings and junk. Been there, done that.

That night, we ate in Little Italy and got a table full of desserts afterwards. I'd just like to say that coconut gelato is the food of the gods. nom nom nom. Thursday night, we ate at Jekyll & Hide, which wouldn't have been bad had it not been 80 degrees in there. As soon as I walked in, I got hit with the barf bat. I spent the whole time in there feeling like I was going to hurl, and it ends up Phenergen takes about 1.5 hours to actually kick in. Urgh. And when I feel ill, I have the attention span of a gnat. So I spent the whole evening feeling spacey and out of it. Around 8:30-ish I finally stopped feeling sick, but I was in the hotel room laying in bed.

Friday, Angi collected me after work and we ate in Jersey City at a place called Taqueria. Holy god. How good could tacos be, I asked myself. Though, oddly, I ended up fantasizing about eating them all day Friday leading up to it. Heh And I wasn't disappointed. I was unconvinced that taco without cheese could be delicious. And I was oh-so-wrong. They were PHENOMENAL. I could have eaten breakfast, lunch, and dinner there every day for the next month.

Saturday, we shopped our asses off. We meandered all over southern Manhattan. She refused to show me exactly how much ground we had covered until we got back to the apartment, for fear my ankle might explode at the very thought of it. But we covered a LOT of ground.

I got some kick-ass t-shirts, a cool punky jacket, and some delicious NY pizza. I love how the crust is so crispy and delicious. Mmmm I was also ecstatic that I got to go to the Giant Robot store. I happened to remember that there was one in NYC while we were out shopping, and Angi called the fiance to find out where it was. I got a t-shirt and a calendar, and I contemplated getting some other stuff but held off. I can always order from their website later. But I was thrilled just to get to go to one finally.

I'm kicking myself I didn't buy that damn hat at Century 21, which is an enormous multi-storied version of TJ Maxx but with higher-end discounted stuff. And there was something else I was wishing I had bought, but I've forgotten now. Which I suppose is good and probably means I really didn't need it anyway.

We had dinner at some pancake house that was featured on Dives, Drive-ins, and Diners--or whatever it's called. I got a burger that wasn't very good. But I learned the valuable lesson that if a restaurant is named for a certain food, you should probably just order that food if you want to be impressed. Next time…

I had a great time. And I'm grateful to Angi for taking me around. I've decided I'm old and need to eat dinner at 4:30, as I was in bed and asleep almost every night by 10:30. Oh well. :)