coexistapart's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- paninotecca (not ed) I know it's been absolutely ages since I updated. The last week and a half have been a whirl, keeping me busy. Not good, not bad, not anything really. I could wax poetic about being back in Toronto, and how I love seeing all of my friends and feeling relevant, but it's more the spending time with people that I like--not so much the city. And I can have that anywhere, really, if I try...which I don't. Time flies I guess when you're trying to keep busy today. Thursday, March 12 I flew from El Paso to NYC. Flew into Laguardia, took the bus to Melinda's apartment on Union Square, met up with her sister (who is ALWAYS stuck meeting me) who gave me the keys. I went to Babies 'R' Us and then got dinner from Whole Foods. I think I walked around a little, tried to get organized, and then spent a couple of hours getting caught up with Melinda when she got home from seeing Russel Brand. Friday I wanted to get up and have a croissant at Tisserie, but they've since gone out of business. In all fairness to NYC, I do kind of know where things are...at least in reference to Union Square. So I kind out of hung at the City Bakery for a while. It's got this wrap-around bar space in the loft that lets you look down on the lunch croud. It's great. I like their coffee, and their hot chocolate & marshmallows are quite well-known, but I just don't get the deal with their baked goods: it's like they let them turn brown for the sake of making them look more rustic or homemade. Used to love the mini rugelach bites at Tisserie, but at City Bakery a rugelach is like a gigantic slice of swiss roll--puff pastry stuffed with walnuts and apricots. A WHOLE LOT OF WALNUTS AND APRICOTS. I can't remember what else I did...walked around SoHo, Greenwich Village, etc. I got some really nice, very fresh tuna sushi from Dean & Deluca. Melinda had organized this nice dinner with her sister and Erin, who I had not previously met. I guess I've met enough people from online by now that I was not fazed, except for about five minutes before we left where I thought "hmm, what are we going to talk about?" since she's been off the diary circuit for a while now. But except for moments where I zoned out, not caring to elaborate on my current state of life for the tenth time, dinner was good. The food was a little bit bizarre, while the decor was varied and quite pleasing. The highlight of my stop in NYC was, hands down, our stop at Rice to Riches. It's a classic New York niche restaurant: all they do is sell different kinds of rice pudding, with various toppings, for borderling too much money except each serving comes in its own patented plastic take away bin. Erin highly recommended the roasted cherries, so I go a chocolate rice pudding (though I sampled an AMAZING tiramisu) and I'm still thinking about it days later. We stayed up kind of late chatting. I was kind of tired and incoherent, but it was a nice time...except for me blathering on about books, not really knowing if I was making recommendations or just general conversation. Saturday morning I got up and took the train to Boston. I've been craving a Montreal-style bagel for ages, so I got a decent one with lox at Penn Station. Read Jon & Kate plus Eight a little bit and then slept for 3 hours. Arrived in Boston, took a cab to the hotel at Andrews. Met up with Stephanie & Amy; we grabbed a subway pass and went downtown. Stephanie saw a man carrying a Cheesecake Factory takeaway bag, and then we were off! I can't really remember what else we did, other than window shop all along Newbury St. It was mostly me and Amy just watching Stephanie; I've been in the US long enough that there's nothing I need, or want really, right now and Amy is not really into shopping that doesn't involve running shoes or special socks. Sunday was more of the same. The whole weekend just kind of blends together in my head, to be honest. I mean we didn't have a bad time, but we also didn't do too much of anything exciting. I'm not sure how much of that was Boston or me just traveling with friends I haven't really traveled with before. We walked the Freedom Trail, and had seafood lunch at Faneuil Hall. We avoided the St. Paddy's day parade that was winding through our end of town, and head to the North End for canoli and gelato and cupcakes. We walked over the bridge, saw Bunker Hill, the USS Constitution, and the Marine Baraks. It took some convicing, but we finally went back to the hotel for showers, a rest, and then out to the Applebee's near the hotel (then Target, and Old Navy) for a late dinner. Monday we were going to get cheap Britney tickets, but I lost most of my cash: $260. I didn't really care; it's karma, right, and remember when I found that $100 bill at the end of last summer? In the scheme of things it's not like Emmanuel and Tiffany losing $2500 a couple of days ago, or someone who really needs it losing it, I mean it's going to be a slight inconvenience while I'm in Toronto the next two weeks but nothing that's not my own fault. The only thing that's kind of strange is that I know I had it one hour, and then the next back at the hotel it was gone. Other than that we saw Harvard, MIT, used some free tickets to the Boston Museum (Monet! Degas!) where there was this bizarre dove-shaped box for extra communion hosts. Tuesday we all flew to Buffalo. Stephanie got lost on the drive to get to the border, but we passed without any problems whatsoever (myself included, thankfully). Anthony picked me up and took me too his mother's condo; it's dirty, dusty, ancient and decrepid on the inside--someone was there one day, but not the next--but it's a beautiful piece of property just south of Yonge & Eg. Already I have visions of paying them to let me live there if my complete year becomes a fuckup (I don't use that kind of language lightly anymore) and need to come back to the city to work this summer. I've been seeing friends and family the past few days. I'm going to save all that for an entry that I will work on tonight at the apartment, as I've already spent the past three hours on a work computer getting caught up on all my relevant correspondence from the past week. My password WILL change after this entry (as in the next time I login to D-land, either tomorrow or Monday) so note or fb me about that. Song of the Day: "I Can Only Imagine" by Mercy Me. 8:04 p.m. - 2009-03-21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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