Isn't It a Shame?

It's been quite a busy past 2 weeks down here in the Big Apple.

For starters, there was the dinner at the Brazilian steak house. If measured by meat intake alone, this was bar none the greatest meal I have eaten to date. You actually START with a full fledged buffet...but this is just the warm up. The main course is mounds and mounds of meat. We're talking 10+ different varieties of succulent, flavourful meat. Chicken, flank steak, skirt steak, top sirloin, short ribs, pork ribs, sausage, lamb, pork, turkey wrapped in bacon, all served right onto your plate at your table off of big swords. The chocolate truffles I had to finish up were also melt in your mouth amazing. The best part? It was a company dinner, so didn't cost me a dime!

Hmm, MEAT! Turkey wrapped in bacon

Our friend Ms Yonsense was down for the weekend. What fun!! The roomie went back to Toronto thursday night which made haqving a guest in the tiny apartment much more manageable.

We painted the town red, starting with a fantastic dinner at this uber-chic yet affordable thai place with yummy curry and pad thai. On Friday we hit up the Guggenheim, which was nice, but the main exhibit(the works of one particular architect) didn't do much for me.

On the recommendation of Sara's travel book, we started Saturday with New York's "best" bagels, but were both rather unimpressed. Later, we hit up the Botanical Gardens, which was very nice although we were definitely not there in peak season. While the roses were still in pretty good shape(and we're talking easily 30+ different types of roses), most plants were no longer flowering. To make up for it, there were a number of works by this glass-blowing guy, including the neat one below.

Cool glass thing at the Botanical Gardens

Saturday also included two trips to Chinatown, feauturing "Tastes of Chinatown" in the evening. We got there just before closing, so most of the booths were out of food, but we did manage to land some very yummy sticky rice, mango bubble tea, and ice cream!

Sunday we went to Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, home to many Van Goghs, Picassos, Monets, etc. This place is potentially the biggest building I have ever been in - you could easily spend days and days in there! While I still don't think I'm really a big art person, I did have fun and enjoyed a number of the paintings. Van Gogh I think was my favourite. In the afternoon I got my hair cut at this little barber shop where apparently the editors of GQ and FHM get their hair done. Boy, aren't i stylish!

Me, on the stairs of the MET

In all, we spent an absurd amount of time on our feet. Like, a LOT. Don't forget, I sit in a chair all day.

I kid you not. I was coming in to work this morning and was walking next to a mother and her 5-6 year old daughter.

The daughter was wearing a hoodie, with a big logo across the back reading Thrown Out of Hell.

Charming, really. Thanks Mom.

Was back in toronto for the weekend....I really do like the new apartment, even though the painting job in the bedroom was a little rough.

I went for an adventure yesterday with Laura! We borrowed her parents car, and went up to the Georgian Bay...up past barrie and in to Collingwood / Blue Mountain.

We stopped for hot apple cider and a farm on the way, which was d-lish.

We ended up doing about 3 hours of hiking on the Bruce Trail which was lots of fun...saw a couple of blue jays, and an unidentified bird that faces downwards when he's on the tree, but is not a woodpecker. On another note - there was SNOW on the ground!! I love winter!

This is an exciting week for me - Yonny is coming down to visit on Thursday!! Here's to being a tourist!

Every once in a while I'm reminded of how lucky I am to have the friends I do.

I got an email from Dickie during the week. I've known Dick since we were literally like 3 years old. Dick was my hobo-in-crime during last year's Hobo Roadtrip. He's now gainfully employed, and word on the street is that he's grown some pretty serious facial hair.

Anyways, Richard's email contained lots of exciting gossip about our friends - one of whom is now married, and another who is now engaged. Congratulations of Janderson and Daddy D. What put a smile on my face though was just dickie's usual way of making pretty much anything into something humourous. Can you believe dick actually thinks I'm going to add an RSS feed to my blog? I'm tellin ya, this guy's a veritable fountain of chuckles. (okay okay, I'll take a look at the link you sent me dick!)

I also had a chat with my good friend Karen, who I haven't spoken with in ages! Always nice catching up with that girl.

On another note - I finished up "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown. I rather enjoyed it...good quick little read.

I also watched Everyone's Hero, which was actually quite cute and fun. Good work Dave! Those crowds looked very real, you crowd animating machine you!

It's been a crazy week - I tried posting earlier in the week, but alas somehow the post got lost...so I've got a whole slew to update you guys on.

Sara is coming to visit on the 21st, which should be a blast. I'm really looking forward to having another person to go exploring with.

Tuesday was a staff meeting for infusion, so I got to see all the ohter new york infusionites working at other banks. Went out for a couple of drinks afterwards at this little bar. Needless to say I was amused when I went up to order the first round and asked for 2 pitchers of Brooklyn Ale...the girl looked at me for a minute then was like "oh, no, we don't do jugs". So conclusions i) there are places here that don't sell pitchers. ii) they don't call them pitchers, they call them jugs. (further, they don't call pop 'pop', they call it 'soda').

Wednesday I organized a team social night for the my team(yes, 12 guys, 0 girls). We went out to Dallas BBQ in Times Square. We're talking about HUGE drinks(like, I had one called the Bushwacker...this slushy drink with amaretto, irish cream, rum, coco lopez....AND a shotglass of rum sitting on TOP of the dirnk)...then I had 2 pounds of these huge ribs, and a half order of wings. Stellar.

I was out jogging yesterday with my friend Kurt. We jogged on this bike path next to the Hudson river up past 42nd St. Pretty enjoyable - haven't been out jogging in ages. Needless to say I'm pretty sore today. Watched the senators game last night with 4 other guys from work.

Today...today was cooking day. That's right - I'm celebrating Thanksgiving all by myself, but I'm doing it in style.

Butternut squash soup - butternut squash, apples, onions, spices and cream.

Stuffing sausage, onions, jalapenos, red pepper, celery, rice, bread, chicken broth.

pumpkin piepumpkin! spices, cream, honey.

However, it took...literally about 6 trips to the grocery store to get everything I needed. I just kept forgetting little things. Thanks to my mom for keeping me on track with recipes, advice, and wisdom("greg...that pumpkin you bought? That's a jack-o-latern pumpkin...you don't make pie from those kinds of pumpkins!"). I was so embarassed after my 5th trip to the same grocery store(there's only 3 checkouts and it was the same 3 girls working the cash each time i was there), that I actually went to a different grocery store to get baking pumpkins.

All in all though things look friggin fantastic, and I'm REALLY excited to start eating!!!

Well, I went adventuring yesterday!!! I've been in New York for almost 3 weeks, but this is the first weekend I've spent here, so the first real chance to get out and about!

THROWDOWN with Bobby Flay
I've been watching a lot of FoodTv down here in NY. A LOT of FoodTv.

One of the shows I saw was Throwdown with Bobby Flay - this chef travels around and challenges other chefs who are experts at a certain thing(say, Chowder) to a "throwdown" face-off at their specialty! So I was watching Bobby Flay take on the Surfboard Chowder King, who is this guy named Ben Sargeant from Brooklyn.

So I did some research and found Hurrican Hopeful, the restaurant this guy owns! So I took the subway over to Brooklyn and found this guy's place! I had the monkfish chowder which was quite yummy!

I did some exploring and found this neat urban-chic flea market where people were selling neat homemade jewelry and tshirts and purses and things(sorta like that Craftster website alison likes). I almost bought some neat mini-buttons for muriel and Ali since they both seem to like buttons...but they both seem to have lots, and I wasn't sure if they really wanted/needed more buttons. I bought two used books - "Big Fish"(you know that movie? yah, the book.) and Angels and Demons, the other book by Dan Brown.

Then I took another couple of subways to get over to the Brooklyn Bridge. I'd seen a Rachael Ray's $40 a Day: New York. She stops in at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory which is this neat little ice cream place at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. She got a tasty all natural cone for $1.50, so I figured I HAD to stop in!

I was a little disappointed when I got there though because the small was actually $3. Nonetheless the ice cream WAS super tasty, and since the place is right on the water, you get a great look at the Manhattan skyline.

After walking across the Brooklyn Bridge(maybe a 20 min walk?) I took the subway up to Canal St, which has a whole slew of street vendors selling everything from knock-off sunglasses and watches to illegal DVDs. I've been watching a lot of tv at night, so I figured I might as well pick up some DVDs, so I got 7 for $24( Crank, Everyone's Hero(which my friend Dave worked on as a visual fx programmer), Superman Returns, Clerks II, Open Season, XMen and. Telladaga Nights).

The rest of the weekend was rained out, so my plans to go to central park were kiboshed.

I want to get to one or two museums as well as the Brooklyn Zoo.

Sara has been talking up coming to new york, however she's failed the test in terms of actually getting in touch wiht me to make plans! That girl is hard to get a hold of, but I know she reads the ol' journal from time to time....

So, Sara, email me! We need to make plans! I think your only window of opportunity is Oct 21. Does that work?

Murtle. Does Nov 4th work for you?