New York is a hoppin' town

We are having a great time so far. We decided to come to New York City for a long weekend. A friend of ours had a meeting in the city and was here for Friday night. We arrived at our room around 3:00. It's a nice place with a very modern atmosphere. It has everything anyone could ask for.

Of course, I took an inventory of the room and came up with some cool things from the bar in the room. Things like... Banana Moon Pistachios, peanuts, chocolate covered almonds, gummy bears!!, and of course their "intimacy kit", which consists of "two Durex lubricated, spermicidal prophylactics, two obstetrical towelettes, one package lubricating jelly". You can't get that in a Motel 6!!! Oh, by the way, this place has high speed internet - VERY IMPORTANT!

Ellen, the friend we were meeting, called a little after we arrived in our room. We were in the middle of unpacking. She wasn't expected for another two hours, but her meetings had ended, and she called to see if it was alright for her to come over early. The problem was that our dinner reservations at db Bistro Moderne weren't until 7:45pm. So, we had several hours to kill, not a big problem in NYC. We showered quickly, and got dressed in our dinner clothes. Ellen arrived with her bags. She checked out of her hotel and since she was leaving NYC early Saturday morning, decided to take a taxi to the airport and stay at the airport for the night. She dropped her bags off in our room, and we were off for the evening.

Now, where to kill 3 hours... We decided to just walk down the street and see if we saw anything that appealed to us. We came upon a bar called O'Casey's (located at 22 East 41st Street - sorry, website not available), a friendly neighborhood bar with a very friendly and welcoming atmosphere. The tables were made for two people, so we decided to sit at the bar. There was no loud music so it was very nice to be able to sit down at a quiet place and just talk with each other. I started talking about what would be good to order. I mentioned that I was trying to learn more about martini's. The guy next to me, who said his name was "Jimmy", offered his advice on the different martini's. He was very Italian and a good looking man. He seemed to take a liking to me, and we started talking about many things.

He convinced me that I should try a martini with vodka and onions, the call it a "Gibson" apparently. It was good, and very relaxing. An hour later, I'm on my second martini, but this time with olives. Nice! People acknowledged that I had good fashion sense (of course!), and it wasn't long before I was talking to other patrons who were regulars in O'Casey's. If I lived in NYC, I would certainly like to hang out more at this bar. It felt like home.

After O'Casey's, we walked a few short blocks to db Bistro Moderne. I was very taken by the rich atmosphere of this restaurant. As you enter, you are met with walls painted red. Painted on the walls are huge flowers in yellow. It was quite striking. The wall opposite the flowers was also red, but had mirrors all over the wall, which give the feel that the flowers were everywhere.

Aside from the warmth of the place, the food was first rate. I started out with an apple martini, made with apple vodka complete with apple spices and a stick of cinnamon bark - WONDERFUL! Shortly after came my warm artichoke soup that was a nice prelude to the main course. I had a steak on a reduction sauce with peppercorns and vegetables, consisting of Lima beans, baby carrots, among other vegetables. of course, cooked to perfection. Kent had the poached salmon on cabbage with gnocchi.

For desert, I had pear and banana on chocolate pubbing cake. It's a bit hard to describe but was beautiful to see. Very well presented. With this, I had a glass of desert wine, Muscat beaumes de Venise.

Afterwards, we came back to our room, said our goodbyes to Ellen and took a shower before bed time. I woke up at 6 this morning fully refreshed. Ordered coffee, and am about to go downstairs to the hotel restaurant for breakfast.

We aren't quite sure what we will be doing today. I think we are going to take in a museum, perhaps the Museum of Natural History, and I would like to try to get to the World Trade Center to pay my respects.

Have a great day. I'll catch up with you later!