Eurotrip 2007-2008: Berlin, Day Three–New Year’s Eve

Posted on January 18, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, dining, films, wide world of vacation | 3 Comments

My recollections of December 31st in Berlin are a little jumbled. Hopefully I’ll get this right and if not Ez can help me fill in any gaps.

Our first goal for the day was to head back over to the Filmmuseum. It was interesting. I didn’t know exactly what to expect. It focuses pretty heavily on German film, past and present, though there’s also an entire section on Ray Harryhausen and special effects (I think Ez wrote that those bits were special exhibits, but they are in fact a part of the museum’s permanent collection). There’s a section on Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, which I must see a.s.a.p. as it’s a big gap for me as a lover of old movies.


Still from Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920)

There are also entire sections on films under the Weimar Republic, Metropolis, propaganda films, Marlene Dietrich, German filmmakers in exile in America during the Nazi era, and modern German cinema. It was interesting to discover that some of my favorite character actors from the 30s and 40s were in fact German or Hungarian actors in exile–for example, Felix Bressart (Ninotchka, The Shop Around the Corner, To Be or Not to Be) and S.Z. Sakall (Christmas in Connecticut–Mr. Hunky Dunky himself!, Casablanca, In the Good Old Summertime)… not to mention one of my favorite directors ever, Ernst Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise, Ninotchka, To Be or Not to Be, etc.).

Ezra describes the section on Nazi-era German films on his blog. It’s one of those things–so fascinating. It’s like this train wreck that never should have happened but you can’t look away. At first I didn’t even realize that visitors were supposed to pull out the drawers tucked into the wall. It was only when I saw another visitor doing so that I realized. If the museum didn’t arrange the Nazi-era section that way, it would take up way more space. I can’t help thinking that reflects their complicated relationship with that part of their history. They’re not proud of it, exactly, but they know it’s important and they know that it fascinates people. The museum notes next to each display are certainly written from the viewpoint that what the Nazis did was terribly wrong and a sad, disturbing tragedy. But at the same time, putting their vast collection in that little room and keeping the displays largely put away in drawers definitely gave the whole thing a relatively low profile. Very interesting.

The Marlene Dietrich collection is massive and takes up two rooms (or was it even more?). They are obviously proud of their Berlin-born star. Their collection includes costumes and items from her films, outfits from her personal wardrobe, letters, photographs, and personal effects like her make-up box. It was pretty neat. For anyone who loves her the way I love Garbo or Bette Davis it must be a shrine.

The section on Harryhausen totally reminded me of Nora and her dad. Harryhausen was responsible for all of those fabulously goofy effects in Clash of the Titans, which I might never have seen had it not been for Nora. Nora, if you ever go to Berlin, I think you’d enjoy the Filmmuseum.


One of Ray Harryhausen’s creatures

After the museum, we needed a little refueling. The Sony Center is in a pretty touristy area, so we decided to stick with Billy Wilder’s, the bar/cafe adjacent to the Filmmuseum. Apparently Billy Wilder was Austro-Hungarian (he was born in an area of what is now Poland) and wrote a lot of scripts for German films until Hitler came to power. At that point, like many other Jewish filmmakers during that era, he emigrated to the U.S. (via Paris) and moved in with Peter Lorre in Hollywood. The Germans seem to love him, though–possibly because he directed A Foreign Affair with Marlene Dietrich, which takes place in Berlin. We had little coffees and shared some apfelstrudel. It was quite nice, but so crowded. We had a heck of a time trying to get the attention of the wait staff so that we could get our check. Oh well, there are worse places to be stuck for an extra 20 minutes.


Billy Wilder’s

If I’m not mistaken, we then caught a bus back into the Tiergarten en route to the Bauhaus Archive. Unfortunately, it turned out to be closed for the holiday, so we were only able to enjoy it from the outside.

We resolved to return on Thursday.

At this point I get a little fuzzy on what we did next. I think we ended up on a ferris wheel–or was that the previous day? Well, one of those days we rode a big ferris wheel at twilight.

We returned to our hotel that night via Savignyplatz, where we noticed lots of nice little shops and restaurants. We decided to go to a tapas place in Savignyplatz for our New Year’s Eve dinner. It was festive, though I must say a couple of the vegetarian dishes were a little disappointing. We had a good time, though.


Ezra on New Year’s Eve, having fun at the tapas restaurant

On our way home from the tapas restaurant we stopped at the petrol station convenience on the corner and bought a bottle of champagne (or was it cava?) and a bag of decadent German cookies. On our way out, we encountered a bunch of people walking around setting off firecrackers. Apparently fireworks that are not legal (at least, not for an average citizen without some kind of license) in most places I’ve been in the U.S. are both legal and popular in Berlin. We watched (and admittedly chuckled at) some of the New Year’s concerts and such on TV, but mostly we drank our champagne and gazed out our window at the fireworks people were shooting off the roofs of surrounding buildings. Lots of other people with windows off the courtyard were doing the same thing. The firecrackers were bouncing off the buildings. It was noisy and raucous and the kind of thing that I LOVE about traveling… I think it’s something I won’t be experiencing any time soon here at home.

Eurotrip 2007-2008: Berlin, Day Two

Posted on January 16, 2008
Filed Under Blather, art, christmas, dining, wide world of vacation | 3 Comments

On our second day in Berlin, we discovered the full wonders of our lovely little hotel. I wish I’d taken more pictures of it because it was really very cute. They had little Christmas decorations here and there and it had a very warm but uncluttered feeling. The bed was super comfortable and had one of those lovely personal duvets that I’ve once or twice experienced elsewhere in Europe. The breakfast room there is bright and orderly. Gosh, writing about it I wish I was there! They had yummy yogurt and cheeses and rolls and cereals, tomatoes and fruit, and some meats for the carnivores. It was a fairly typical European spread–very nice.

Once we had enough caffeine to pull ourselves away from all that, we embarked on our first S/U-Bahn journey (I can’t remember which) to check out some antique markets at Friedrichstrasse. This was our first foray into the Eastern part of Berlin, and we did notice some subtle differences (though that might just be because of the nice section we were staying in–it’s hard to know how representative that is of the Western side of the city). There were a lot of lovely things at the antique markets, but much of it was more along the lines of fine antiques that we could probably neither afford nor fit in our suitcases. It was neat to see everything, though. We saw a lot of cool old furniture and lamps and clocks–arts and crafts things as well as sleeker stuff from the 1930s.


Antiques at Friedrichstrasse. These are actually some of the newer items we saw.

After cruising through the antique stalls, we ended up heading westward on the Unter den Linden, a wide avenue that cuts east to west through the city, crossing under the Brandenburg Gate and turning into the Strasse des 17 Juni., which bisects the Tiergarten. We stumbled upon Berlin on Ice, a public ice rink that’s open from the end of November through early January where, besides skating, they apparently hold a number of other holiday events. Here’s a picture from their site:


We followed the people wandering away from Berlin on Ice and found ourselves at another big Christmas market at Gendarmenmarkt. This one was very pretty. I don’t remember this one having rides, except maybe a carousel, so it was a little less carnival-like than some of the others, but it was still very nice. We wandered the stalls for quite a while and sampled some drinks and these yummy little spiced dough things that were really tasty. Though I just got a nice pair of slippers for Christmas, I was unable to resist the fluffy wool footies I found in one of the stalls. As soon as I saw them I had to try them on, and as soon as I tried them on I had to have them. It was hysterical, really. I sort of wish I had a picture of when I tried them on. I think the people running the booth thought I was a little nutty, but dang!–those things were fluffy! (They still are, though they’ve been smushed down a bit from wear.) So, these are my new “woolies.”


We shared a yummy little pizza at an Italian place inside the market, where we huddled under a heat lamp and grinned goonishly at each other across the tablecloth. I remember the place had these cute red felt drapes over the chairs–very Christmas-y.


Ezzie at the pizza place, under the heat lamp.

After lunch we wandered around a bit more and went into a little indoor tent that was full of more stalls. There were lots of artisans in there. One was selling loads of carved ornaments and decorations. That’s another thing that’s very big there, as far I could tell–hand-carved things made of wood. In the “it’s a small world” department, there were also a couple of people there making letterpressed business cards.


An indoor stall selling lots of things made of wood.

Then it was time to head over to The Filmmuseum at the Sony Center. Unfortunately, the guidebook I was using said that the museum was open until 8PM and closed on Mondays. When we got there, the museum was about to close, but the woman we spoke with told us that it IS in fact open on Mondays. So, we planned to return the next day. There was still time, though, to go to the museum shop, which was full of lots of interesting goodies, promising much fun in the museum. I bought the exhibition poster for the current exhibit titled Sound – Film – Music, 1929-1933. The poster was cheap–7 euros, or about $11. It’s based on this photograph. Doesn’t this actress look like Claudette Colbert?


The Sony Center is this big commercial complex at Potsdamer Platz, a huge commercial intersection that’s been totally rebuilt since the war. Ez wrote about it on his blog. There was a sort of little Christmas market at the Sony Center, too, with curling (I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before in person) and a big Christmas tree made of Legos.


The little Christmas markets at the Sony Center.

I think it was on this day that we wandered over to even more Christmas markets at Potsdamer Platz–they call it Winter World because there’s ice skating and a big toboggan run. It’s smaller and more touristy (due to it’s location) than some of the other markets we visited.

I think after that we headed back to our neighborhood in search of food and warmth–not necessarily in that order. We ended up going to a rather tasty Italian restaurant (Italian is an easy choice for the veggie traveler) in our neighborhood called Ristorante Tre. I’m fairly certain it was run by bona fide Italians and everything I had was very tasty. (If you check the menu at their site, I had the spaghetti mafioso. NUM!)

Eurotrip 2007-2008: Berlin, Day One

Posted on January 16, 2008
Filed Under Blather, christmas, dining, wide world of vacation | 1 Comment

I really loved Germany. Overall, it’s very clean and orderly and I found it very pretty. I guess it’s as-advertised. The Germans are good at design, Christmas, and engineering. They’re efficient. The trains–even the S-bahn and U-bahn, which are more or less like our subway trains… AND the buses–run like clockwork. It was chilly, but that was perfect. I mean, it was Christmas/New Year’s! But I’d better go in more or less chronological order, as much as I can recall, or I’ll get everything mixed up.

So… We flew American Airlines through London. I do NOT recommend American Airlines. Their seats are pretty cramped and their food, at least on the way over, was GOD AWFUL. It was without a doubt the worst airline food I’ve ever had. Our layover in London was sort of funny in retrospect. We were so tired and out of it. It was fairly early in the morning, and as the airline food had been so terrible, we decided to get a cup of tea and a bite to eat. I got toast (it had some grand name on the menu that I wish I could remember) and a pot of tea and Ez got a little omelet. This was our first encounter with the little portable credit card machine that servers use in Europe. They don’t have to take your card away from the table–the whole transaction happens right there. Maybe these are showing up in the U.S., too… but I haven’t seen them here.

We arrived at Tegel airport in Berlin sometime around noon, I think. As soon as we got off the plane it was like, “so THIS is Germany!” Passport control was right there at the gate, as was the baggage claim for our flight! The carousel was literally right at the gate. Fantastic. So, we quickly gathered up our bags and headed for the buses. There is surely a simple way to buy a bus ticket from a machine, but a bunch of us travelers hadn’t figured that out, so there was a bit of a line. Once we had our tickets, though, we hopped on the bus and were on our way.

The bus stopped just a couple of blocks from our hotel, the Hotel Art Nouveau, which I highly recommend. It’s in what appears to be a quite nice neighborhood in Charlottenburg in the western part of the city. We were quite near the Kurfürstendamm, a long tree-lined shopping avenue. As we made our reservations a bit late, we ended up in a suite (oh woe!). It was beautiful. The whole hotel is in an old art nouveau building with very high ceilings, big lovely windows, and an old-fashioned elevator.


A bit of our clean, airy, cozy suite

Though we had every intention of going out, we had to take a little nap. After sleeping an hour or so, we set off to find our first Christmas market. It so happened that one of the biggest and best was not far from our hotel, next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. I loved the Christmas markets! They’re sort of these little carnival villages with lots of food and drink stalls, rides, gift stalls, and bright lights. Lots of the food stalls sell gluhwein (Ez tells me this means “glow wine”), a hot mulled wine that’s a bit sour-sweet for my taste but that warms you up quite well. When you order a mug of this stuff, or of beer or hot cocoa, a euro or two of the price is a deposit on the mug or glass in which they serve you the drink. The gluhwein and cocoa are served in special Christmas market mugs, which I guess some people collect. Ez and I brought home a few, of course.


Stall selling gluhwein and wurst


Note the mugs warming in the foreground. We brought home two of those.

Several of the markets had big indoor Christmas shops selling ornaments and decorations. It was like German Christmas wonderland. Here’s Ez in Christmas glow outside the one by the Kaiser Wilhelm Church.

We were hungry, so I ended up getting veggie lo mein from a stall (yeah, they even had that!) and Ez got what I think was his first wurst of the trip.

After that, we decided to track down the large and famous German department store, KaDeWe, which was just a few blocks away. It’s a big shiny department store–the largest in continental Europe. It’s interesting in the way that it’s interesting to go to food shops in other countries–just to see what they have and how they do things. AND they had a big, beautiful sock and stocking section (bliss!)… Falke, a fabulous German hosiery company, was well represented. In fact, they had some lovely tights on sale that I snapped right up. They’re so warm! Totally worth the price (which was considerably less than it would have been at home, even with the unfavorable exchange rate).

A quick update

Posted on January 9, 2008
Filed Under Blather, christmas, family, photography, wide world of vacation | 3 Comments

It’s been a wildly busy and wonderful couple of weeks in the lives of Terri and Ezra. Christmas was very nice, as always, and flew past too quickly–as always. After a short jaunt back home to see the kitties, we set off for Berlin. We spent several days there, with a day trip to Leipzig on New Year’s Day, and then flew down to Nice on the 3rd. Ezra’s sister April married Manu (a native of France) in a civil cermony on the 7th and a church wedding on the 8th. We fly back to Boston via London today. I have about a million pictures to weed through (only a slight exaggeration). I’ll share many soon.

xo

A pretty birthday visit to New York

Posted on November 5, 2007
Filed Under Blather, me and my brain, music, wide world of vacation | 7 Comments

Yesterday Ez and I hopped the train down to New York. He has to work here for a few days, and as it’s my birthday, we decided to make a little trip out of it.

We arrived around 12:45 and made our way down the street and to the subway. A very nice woman helped us make sure we were on the right train (who says all New Yorkers are cold?) and we got out at Grand Street Station, on the edge of Chinatown and the Bowery and just around the corner from our hotel.

Now here comes the crazy-coincidence, what’s-up-with-my-luck, I-swear-I’m-not-making-this-up part. As we were walking across Broome street, at the corner of Broome and Bowery, mere yards from our hotel, who was crossing the street as we were, going in the other direction, but Mr. Daniel Kessler himself. I just about didn’t believe it. Once he’d gone past Ez looked back at me and smiled and I said something like. “Yeah… ha ha!” Now, this is just a crazy crazy thing. I happen to be in New York when the band happens to have a week or so off before going to Europe. It’s a big city. Fans who live here tell me that they never see them. I’m here for no more than an hour, and I walk right past Daniel. Ez and I are still shaking our heads about it.

After settling in at our hotel, which is charmingly half-assed (no elevator, no phone in the room, totally noisy–Ez found a sticker of a man’s face on one of the radiator pipes), we headed out on foot to explore, with the Strand bookstore as our destination. We stopped at Other Music and Shakespeare and Co. along the way, where we made some delightful finds (a Liars single and Voxtrot ep that I didn’t know existed and some Richard Powers books for me, jazz and accordion cds for Ez). At the Strand itself I picked up Karen Russell’s book of stories and a great book about a woman who was an MGM photographer in the 20s (for only $8).

At this point we decided we needed coffee and realized we’d eaten very little all day. We ended up at the big coffee shop at Union Square. They have a fun neon sign, and we sat on their little patio under very toasty heaters. We then walked around some more and ended up stopping at the Grey Dog on University Place for a drink. I drank Sauvignon Blanc and Ez had a Brown Dog (beer, but not Smuttynose Old Brown Dog) and we talked about our books and New York and all kinds of good stuff. We ended up at an Italian Restaurant we’d eaten at years ago when we came to town for our first anniversary–I think the place is called Buona Sera. It was very romantic with little candles and a pretty fab little trio (upright bass, guitar, and violin) playing sweet songs like Paper Moon (one of Ezra’s favorites) and Fly Me to the Moon. Two girls came in who were speaking Russian (I think?) and looked almost like twins. I’m thinking about it now, and the one girl looked a lot like a supermodel I’ve seen in a lot of magazines… maybe they were??!! Listen to my crazy talk. Anyway…

And after purchasing some earplugs we called it a night. Which brings us to this morning. Ezra is at work. I’m in the West Village and will resume work after I finish up this post. I had my oatmeal (New York cafes seem to understand the greatness of a good bowl of oatmeal) and my tea is getting cold at this point.

Happy birthday to me.

Chicago… with even more Interpol

Posted on October 13, 2007
Filed Under Blather, friends, music, wide world of vacation | 5 Comments

On Wednesday I flew out to Chicago to meet up with some friends and to see Interpol. It’s kind of a long story, but the trip was originally going to be a bit more friend-oriented and ended up being largely Interpol-oriented.

They played at the Aragon, which is right across from the train station–it was impossible to miss it. When I got there I wandered around and only saw three other people hanging out on the side of the building. The band’s tour bus had just arrived and was maneuvering to back into this little driveway area when I got there. I set my stuff down at the front entrance, but a security guy came out and told me that people were lined up in the alley. The alley turned out to be this shitty little weed-filled lane full of broken glass and weeds and smelling faintly of piss–the things I do for Interpol. There were about 8-10 people in front of me, which was OK. The Aragon is big enough that we all ended up in the front.

I met some super nice people in line and had fun chatting, chattering (it got quite chilly when the sun ducked behind the clouds and the wind picked up), and generally hanging out. I got to meet my friend Rachel from Ohio and her friends Kim (from Atlanta) and LeAnne (from Oklahoma), who were both really nice. At one point Sam, Christy, and Mickey (their dog) waved to us on their way into the venue (yes, the dog waved to us!).

We wandered over to the other side of the building in the afternoon to hear soundcheck (at that point our spots in line were safe), and we could hear it really well. They played Take You On a Cruise, Specialist, Pace Is the Trick, Who Do You Think?, The Scale, and Pioneer to the Falls–a pretty great soundcheck.

Me and Lacinda
Me and Lacinda waiting in line

After a harrowing journey, my friend Lacinda from DC arrived a bit after four. It was really great to see her. We’d met at the Portland show in 2005, but in Chicago we really had a chance to chat more. She’s great! At one point as we were chatting she stopped mid-sentence, turned to the guys standing behind us and was like, “You are not playing pattycake.” But they were. Not too long after she arrived, a DJ from a local station (or so I’m told) handed out a few black and white promotional posters. I got one (yay!), but it’s a bit mangled after the journey back on the plane (sniff!).

Around 6:00 security finally let us in. I was very happy to stake out my spot on Daniel’s side. There were little sort of balcony boxes on either side of the stage (or so it seemed from where I was standing), and I could see various crew and band people (including Sam) up there filling up plates from a catering spread before the show.

Liars’ went on around 8:00. Their set was pretty good, though I definitely enjoyed the first time I saw them the best. Angus said that it was his best friend’s birthday and motioned to the drummer/vocalist, revealing that he was turning 30. I was tempted to sing happy birthday. There seemed to be something wrong with Angus’s microphone for most of their set.

A bit before 9:00, Interpol’s crew taped down their setlists, but then just a few minutes later they came back and ripped them all up again. It’s hard not to wonder what was on that original setlist. My guess is that they switched up the encore at the last minute. Hm… Anyway, they came back with the new setlists and shortly after that the lights went down and the guys took the stage.

As I said, it was great to be back at home on Daniel’s side of the stage. When he really hams it up I can’t help laughing, and the rest of the time I feel like I’m right there with him in the song. The stage was really elevated above the crowd, probably because the venue is pretty big, but totally flat, so that if the stage weren’t high off the floor people standing in the back would have no chance of seeing anything. Because of how high the stage was and where I was standing, I couldn’t see Sam very well. I had a good view of the others, though. Carlos is definitely more into it now than he was a few weeks back. It’s good to see. He just seems much more engaged–like he’s enjoying himself and interacting with the crowd a lot more.

Here’s the setlist:

Pioneer to the Falls
Obstacle 1
C’mere
Narc
Say Hello to the Angels
The Scale
Mammoth
Take You On A Cruise
No I in Threesome
Slow Hands
Rest My Chemistry
The Heinrich Maneuver
Evil
Not Even Jail

Untitled
Stella
PDA

A big cheer went up when they started playing Obstacle 1. Narc and Say Hello to the Angels were great as always. I got a little smile of recognition from Daniel during The Scale (as Lacinda is my witness!). He was definitely giving a lot of looks and smiles to people in the crowd. I think Paul sent a grin my way later on in the show, but with his bangs down in his face it’s hard to know exactly what he’s looking at sometimes. I was glad to hear The Scale because I haven’t heard it live in a while. Same with Take You on a Cruise. I was actually kind of hoping they’d play both of those. Once again, Evil sounded amazing. They are playing the hell out of that song every night.

When I saw Daniel return on his own for the encore I knew we were getting Untitled (yay!). I would have liked to have heard Specialist, but I absolutely can’t complain a jot about getting Untitled instead. And since they played Specialist at soundcheck it was all good. Stella was great, and was again followed by a wandering little “jam” before they kicked into PDA. Daniel’s singing sounded particularly good to me during PDA–better maybe than it usually does.

Sometime during the encore I noticed that Christy was sitting at a little cocktail table up in one of the balcony boxes, taking pictures. She waved down at the band at least once, and I think I saw Paul make a funny face at her when he played a high note on his guitar during Stella or PDA.

At the end of the show Sam threw his sticks way back into the crowd. A security guy up front kindly picked up and gave me one of Daniel’s used guitar picks (he’s still flicking them onto the floor throughout the show, bless him).

Getting out of the venue was a bit nightmarish. I hate bottlenecks! I was starting to feel a little claustrophobic and suffocated when Lacinda urged me to just push on through, so we made a human train and got the heck outta there.

There were fliers all over the place and a guy out on the street advertising an “afterparty” across the road at another club, but it was just a promotional thing and had nothing at all to do with the band. I’d never gone out to the buses after a show, but I wanted to hang out with my new friends, I wasn’t sure what to do next, and I was a bit curious. Well, it was surreal. The buses were parked in this little lot behind the theater surrounded by buildings and a chain-link fence lined at the top with barbed wire. Before the show, the fence gate was open, but afterwards it was closed up. There was a huddled mass pressed up against the fence waiting for the guys. When we got back there Daniel was signing things through the gaps in the fence. People were making a ton of noise and it was just really bizarre to me. It was like they were in a cage or at the zoo. I don’t want to take anything away from anybody who was excited to say hi to the guys after the show, but it kind of creeped me out. Carlos came out after Daniel went back to the bus and he was out for a little while saying hello and signing things. We found a skinny gap at the side of the fence and we were like, “Carlos! Over here! You can escape!”

A girl who’d waited in line with us asked us if we were going to the secret show at the Empty Bottle. I hadn’t heard about it before (the show, not the bar) and as I thought it was pretty far away, I was skeptical. I’m kicking myself now for not going. Another lesson learned… EDIT:  Just discovered that the secret thing was sold out ahead of time, so I wouldn’t have been able to get in anyway, which is a sort of relief.

There wasn’t much open that looked appealing around the venue, so after that (and after I found an Interpol sticker on the ground) we bid farewell (too hastily, I’m afraid) to our new friends, and Lacinda and I got a cab back to our hotel, where we immediately went to IHOP. We were starved!

I found out that Lacinda does a lot of writing (I didn’t realize) and that, like me, she is a smart and creative person who sometimes watches ESPN. Yes, I’m not the only one.

I don’t have many pictures to share because I didn’t take my camera. I didn’t want to check any luggage, and I’d heard that the venue was very strict about cameras (which they were). My new friend Kim took a picture of me and Lacinda (above), and I think there’s a picture of me, Rachel, Kim, and LeAnne, too, but I don’t have that yet.

Our Sixth Anniversary

Posted on September 24, 2007
Filed Under Blather, Pennsylvania, art, dining, knitting, wide world of vacation | 4 Comments

Saturday morning I woke up pretty late, and I admit that it took me a while to get moving. Our hotel was comfy and I was still in recovery. But it was a very nice day, and Ez and I set off for brunch at the Galaxy Global Eatery near Union Square. I’d been there once before with a friend, and we didn’t have too much trouble finding it. The waitstaff were as cute and pleasant as I remembered, and I happily ordered a healthy vegan breakfast of scrambled tofu with tempeh bacon (which, incidentally, was deeelicious). We were seated in a booth by the window. They opened the windows and the front doors and we got a pretty hefty breeze blowing through. After the yucky heat and humidity of July and August, that breeze was bliss. The TV above the bar was playing TV Land.

Ezra at the Galaxy Global Eatery, being cosmic.

…and speaking of re-runs… Not too long after we arrived, Woody Harrelson came in with a group of people and sat in the booth right next to ours.

After our rejuvenating brunch we walked through Union Square a bit and stumbled upon the Union Square Farmer’s Market. It was such a pretty day… all of the fruits and vegetables and flowers looked so gorgeous and enticing! We wandered through a bit and found a woman selling vegetable dyed yarns (and lamb sausages, legs of lamb, etc.). The yarns were just calling my name… I spent probably too long gazing at them and mulling over which colors to get (I need a new scarf or two!). As I was perusing the bins of yarn, a woman came into the booth and mentioned something about a new yarn shop her friend was opening in… State College! I couldn’t help myself–I had to ask her about it. She couldn’t remember the name of it and said they were just getting started, but I was really excited! State College hasn’t, to my knowledge, had a good dedicated local yarn shop up until now. I’m anxious to check it out the next time I’m there!

Me checking out yarn in Union Square.

So… after buying a shade of mauvey pink and another of sort of teal-blue, we hopped on the train and headed uptown to the northernmost part of Central Park. We walked along the jogging road for a while, just taking it all in. At around 89th Street we stepped out of the park in search of something to drink. We walked past the Guggenheim, which is apparently undergoing some sort of exterior restoration, and ended up stopping at Cafe Sabarsky at the Neue Galerie, both of which I love. We shared a bit of Apple Strudel and just gawked at the loveliness. Before leaving, we had to duck into the gift shop, and Ezra picked up a really great book on the Wiener Werkstatte, which might easily have been something I would have purchased myself if he hadn’t done so first.

We had then hoped to go to the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum down the street, but as we’d had a late start it was closed. We did, however, take in the building itself.

We were both in need of a little recharge at that point, so we headed back to the hotel to gather ourselves before dinner. We ended up dining at a rather good Italian restaurant not that far from our hotel, Da Ciro on Lexington. After that feast, we returned to our hotel and headed to the roof bar that Ezra had enjoyed the night before. Unfortunately, we found it empty. We went downstairs to ask why it was closed and the man we asked told us it was too cold (!). I thought it was really nice–maybe a bit chilly, but in a good way. Anyway, the door wasn’t locked, so Ez and I raided our mini-bar, went out on the roof, and mixed our own drinks. It was really lovely up there. Even from that height (about 11 stories up), the view was something.

Me in Herald Square.

Sunday we managed to get up at a more reasonable hour. I’d noticed a great big newstand just down the street from our hotel, so that was our first stop. (As some of you know, I’ve lately been buying up a lot of foreign fashion magazines. This time I picked up a British magazine I’d never seen before called Wig. ) After that, it was back to The Strand bookstore via Herald Square and the Shake Shack, both of which Ezra really discovered on this particular New York trip. I do love The Strand (I’m a book-lady, so it’s only natural). Unfortunately, it seems like I’m in a big hurry every time I’m there. Next time, I vow to allot at least an hour to the Strand. This time we had to get back to Penn Station to catch our train home, where we found our two furry felines and a very comfy bed waiting for us.

Cool tree sculpture in Madison Square Park.

Oh, the places I might go

Posted on July 30, 2007
Filed Under Blather, friends, wide world of vacation | 4 Comments

NYC. As many of you reading this already know, Ez got a new job for a company that, at the moment, is based in NY. They’re opening a Boston/Cambridge office in the very near future, but until that happens he’ll be down there a good bit and then working from home (with me!). Anyway, I’m hoping to tag along on some of the NY trips. It’ll be nice to a) be able to see my husband, b) be able to see New York, c) maybe even see my cousin, d) maybe even see some of my friends down there, … and–e) potentially have lodging paid for to boot.

Chicago. Pal Amy is going there for work in October, and has suggested that she wouldn’t mind if I were to join her. This is another case of potential cup running over. A) I’d love to go back to Chicago and explore more, b) I might get to go back to the Art Institute, c) [as if I could hide this fact in the middle of the list], Interpol are supposed to be playing a show there at that time [I say "supposed to" because, annoyingly, it has not yet been confirmed], d) might even get to see a few other friends there [though some of my Chicago friends have moved away], and oh… did I mention? e) I’d get to go on a trip with pal Amy!

Barcelona/Paris/someplace European. This is another pal Amy adventure, potentially. Like Chicago, this would potentially be both an Amy work trip and an Interpol show(s) trip. And heck, IT’S EUROPE, which of course I love. That’s a dreamy thought, though I have not yet determined where the money for such a trip would come from.

My adventure

Posted on April 18, 2007
Filed Under Blather, friends, music, wide world of vacation | Leave a Comment

I have been a little too overwhelmed by recent events to post my little tale, but I’ve been home for a day or two now, so here goes!

Last Friday I trekked down to NY to visit my friend. We hung out there on Friday and then on Saturday jumped in the car and drove up to Montreal, where we stopped to have dinner with another mutual friend. Much fondue was consumed. Then we got back in the car–rather late, but oh well–and continued on to Ottawa. We arrived at about 2 AM. Though we were tired, we decided to walk over to the concert venue just to check it out. There were loads of drunk people spilling out of the clubs and bars. After much walking around in circles, we found the entrance to the venue. It didn’t look like much, I have to say! Here it is in daylight:

Capital Music Hall Ottawa

It’s apparent crappiness appealed to us–small general admission venues=good. We finally got to sleep around 3… or 4.

On Sunday we gathered ourselves together and prepped for a long day of waiting and anticipating. It was already cool and misty in the morning. The rain increased as the day wore on. We walked by the venue just to see if there were any hardcore people already in line, but finding none we headed across the street to this cute little tea place to fortify ourselves.

The Tea Party

I had very hot veggie barley soup and a pressed veggie and goat cheese sandwich-very tasty. I sampled a bit of my friend’s scone and we were in pre-heaven. We grabbed some copies of a local rag that included a short Interpol blurb and went back to check on the line.

As there was no one there, we started the line ourselves. Due to the weather, we opted for cover on a loading dock platform. (To our delight, people did in fact line up behind us later on.) No one came by for quite some time, so we got to chat, watch a homeless guy root through some dumpsters, and discuss our strategy.

Later in the day, two sweet young Canadian guys who didn’t have tickets showed up and hung out with us. We listened to soundcheck with them and generally grinned and acted ‘pol-fan-like. We were the only people there for soundcheck and it sounded really good. They did PDA, Not Even Jail, Evil, and a new song (!), which we later determined was Pioneer. At times a guy propped open a door, so we could hear everything crystal clear. Here’s me listening to soundcheck:

me at soundcheck

We asked our new friends to hold the line for us while we took one last run to the hotel, and when we returned they told us that we’d missed two other new songs at soundcheck, plus Carlos walking his dog. Whoops. Well, I had to take my camera back to the hotel because it was clear that I wouldn’t be able to get it into the venue with that big lens. I bought a few disposable cameras (we’ll see if I got anything with those.) By that time, a handful of people had joined us in the line. The next couple of hours went by really quickly (with my friend and I totally forgetting to EAT). Just before the doors opened, we ran over to where the actual line was supposed to be, and we were the first to get in. We got right up front, slightly to the right.

It was a long wait, and very chilly, so my friend and I had decided to have a nip. (Yeah, there was some nip in that Diet Coke.) In the venue, she sent me off to get rum and cokes. First, you probably know that I don’t usually drink a lot of liquor. Second, as mentioned, we hadn’t eaten since our late breakfast. Needless to say, I was feeling fine.

Lynx and Ram were the opening band. I wanted to give them a chance, but they were pretty terrible. Everyone standing around us was really nice. We chatted with a Canadian girl and two French girls after the opener.

Then Interpol took the stage and we were happy little revelers. They sounded great, they looked great (although I could do without the moustache, Carlos), and the new songs were all excellent. First up was Pioneer, which reminds me a little of the old song Mascara. It’s sort of downbeat, but has a good pace. The full setlist was as follows:

Pioneer
Obstacle 1
NARC
Say Hello to the Angels
Mammoth
Slow Hands
Leif Erikson
Heinrich Manuever
Evil
Not Even Jail
——–
Length of Love
Stella
PDA

I want to hear Mammoth on record, because I don’t think I got a strong enough impression of it that night. Heinrich Maneuver was fun, and I suspect it was as poppy as they’re going to get on the new record. Based on those three songs, it sounds like the new record will be a little more downbeat and maybe a little more ambitious musically than Antics was. As has been hinted elsewhere, it sounds like there’s been a progression. I am VERY excited to hear the new record, but I’m not expecting it to be released until at least July–maybe later.

Not Even Jail worked well as the closer for the main set, and though many people don’t seem to like Length of Love, I always enjoy it live and was glad to hear it. And of course Narc and Angels are live favorites, and Leif is one of my favorite songs period. It was a pretty great night.

After the show my friend zipped away to get to the merchandise table. I hung around to see if I could get a pick and/or setlist, but I didn’t have any luck this time. My friend and I finally reconnected in the parking lot and just headed back to the hotel, knowing that we had a long, possibly unpleasant (weather) drive the next day. We later learned that there was some little afterparty or something. I’m a little disappointed that we missed it, but I arrived home in one piece with some very nice memories, so I can’t complain. There will be more shows for me.

Recent Reads and New Picks for the Overflowing Bookshelf

Posted on September 21, 2006
Filed Under Blather, the written word, wide world of vacation | Leave a Comment

I recently finished Francine Prose’s Blue Angel. I enjoyed it, though my feelings about the ending are a bit mixed. I can’t disagree with how she skewers the academic system and all of its politics, but I can’t help feeling that somehow she lets the protagonist off too easy (despite what happens to him). No one really comes out smelling too good.

I’m currently reading I’ll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Inteviews: 1962-1987 and I’m really loving it. I’ve read a few of them before, but some have been pulled from unpublished goodies at the Warhol museum, and they’re all pretty well presented so far. Beyond just getting more Andy, I think it’s really interesting to look at the interview process and the struggle between Andy and the interviewer as he often tries to subvert–or invert–the whole thing. Good stuff, especially if you have a little background to begin with.

And even though I have so many books to read that I’ll never get through them all, I picked up a few others that I couldn’t resist, as is my wont. At Skylight Books in Los Angeles, home of a pleasant orange cat who put up with my rubbing and petting for a good five minutes, I found a copy of Olive Higgins Prouty’s Now, Voyager. Those of you who have read my blog consistently (all 3 of you!) will recall how much I love the movie. So I’m going sort of backwards on that one… movie to book instead of the other way around. Last night Ez and I were talking about another movie to book journey I’d like to take–with Jim Thompson’s The Grifters. But I digress.

At City Lights in San Fran, I was lured in by The Last Masquerade. Nice book cover, I thought, and then I read the back cover and the first few pages, and the book was mine.

« go back — keep looking »

Song of the Day

Japandroids-The House That Heaven Built 

Photos

My Photos on Flickr


Links


Recently


Categories


Archives