NYC Love
It sounds very cliché, but I do love New York. Big and bustling, diverse, fertile and ever changing - it is the epitome of why I like living in and/or visiting a healthy, vibrant city.
We have been three times so far since we moved to Connecticut, each time getting a little more comfortable - knowing how to get around, handling the pace and the heightened level of sensory stimulation. The first trip was Chinatown, the Neue Galerie and shopping. The second was MoMA, Korean food and getting lost in Central Park. The third was the Guggenheim, Turkish food and capping off a week-long visit from our dear friend Jacquie with a bowl of ramen that was out of this world.
This latest trip, with Jacquie-boo, was my favorite so far. All regular, day-in-day-out troubles were left behind and living in the moment, in the midst of this multi-colored, multi-layered city wasn't just easy, it seemed unavoidable.
Why? What happened to make this late-fall excursion to the big city so good? I don't know. Maybe it was the unexpected pleasure of learning all about Wassily Kandinsky's art and life at the Guggenheim. I had always admired a few of his paintings here and there, but had no idea what they were "about". Spending those few hours spiraling higher and higher up the museum's unique space, seeing his career from beginning to end, changed all of that.
Or maybe it was the food. Ramen to die for or Turkish lamb with puréed eggplant or, drum-roll please... a Gray's hot dog and papaya drink on a warm Sunday afternoon, perhaps that was it.
When it comes down to it, though, I don't think any of those things made the trip. They were wonderful, don't get me wrong. But I think the thing that made this last trip to NYC so great was wandering around with two of the coolest chicks I know, my wife and her best friend, on a warm and lazy Sunday afternoon in the city.
We walked for miles, the sunshine and warm air carrying us along without a care. We shopped, we snacked, we stopped for a beer so we could all use the restroom. We visited the Highline, one of the coolest parks I have ever been to, built on reclaimed elevated train track. We spotted celebrities (Josh Brolin and Sasha Cohen - not together) and bought great clothes on sale. The day was slow, the city was ours and nothing else existed.
That was a perfect day.
