Brian in New York

Back from Austin

Well got back yesterday from my trip to Austin, TX. I had hoped it would be a chance for me to thaw and warm up but they were hit by a freak storm. Tuesday was warmer in NYC than Austin :) and it rained pretty much the entire time. Did get a chance to have some real Mexican food while down there. It's a funny thing, and the topic of our dinner conversation during the first night, there is hardly any decent Mexican food in NYC and most of the restaurants are southern Mexican food. Looking forward to having some when I'm back in CA for the holidays.

Although I'm no fan of Texas (sorry cousins) Austin is a music mecca. Even though it's so much smaller they almost have as many shows as NYC any given night. Most things were sold out but we did go bar hoping and found a great cover band in Darwins Pub. They were really great playing rock and a ton of soul/groove hits. Really great cover of Bill Withers "Use Me Up", when I remember the name of the band I'll update.

The trip down was easy and the trip back up tool 6 1/2 hours instead of 3 because of routing around JFK.

This was my first time taking JetBlue and they are really good. I like the planes a bit more spacious than delta and the rest and it may have just been these two flight but I think the pilots are better. Besides traveling through two storm systems we avoided almost all nasty air. But one thing made me a customer for life; when I was checking in at the counter the rep said "oh sir I noticed your in 5D, across the aisle I just booked a young family in 5-6. Would you like me to move you to another area of the plane"... was that rhetorical? Yes, please... you are a gentleman and a scholar.

Washington for the Holidays

So as you saw in my Penn Station post (yes I got over it, stepped outside to cool down. Although it's really interesting that in the craziness of everyone trying to get out of town at the main train depot that they are prepping for the Thanksgiving Day Parade right there as well, pandemonium) I took the train down to Washington DC to hang out with friends.

The train was perfect, about a 3 hour ride for about $69 each way. The best part is that the seats are large with enough legroom to kick your legs out in front of you (even if your 6'1"), there's power outlets and you can walk around. The tracks were fine until Maryland but after that it was a little too bumpy and to hard to type or write so I just organized my music collection, something I had been meaning to do for a long time.

Got to DC and took the metro to gallery station where I met up with my friends at Fado's Irish bar for an evening of rowdy Irish bar band. I swear everyone from Georgetown was there. It was PACKED!

Thursday was beautiful about 75 degrees mostly clear, we went down and walked through Algonkian Park for some exercise and then went back to their place to cook a late thanksgiving dinner for us and a few family members. Stayed up way too late playing Wii with each other (Family, I still suck at guitar hero, but I was good at bowling so I did keep some of our traditions)

Rest of the weekend was sleeping in late and a few real late night parties with family and friends that devolved into 2am dancing and sing-a-longs, way too much fun.

Saturday we woke up and went to downtown Leesburg to hang out then after a leasurly lunch it was back on the metro to Union Station and back to NYC. Now I have no complaints about Penn Station. I didn't understand why everyone gave it a bad rap until I stepped into Union Station. It was so beautiful with marble galleries columns, statues, nice shopping mall and restaurants plus some great views. I know that's what Penn used to look like and I'm hoping the new Penn will bring it back.

I had a blast, although I missed my family (first Thanksgiving I didn't spend at home) and I plan on going other places on the train.

I hope everyone had a great holiday.

Pics are view of trail of Algonkian Park, view of craziness outside Madison Square Gardens (Penn Station), me hanging out with Chilly, a view of the main gallery in Union Station, and the outside of Union Station.

Who's Running France?

So one, if not the only, good thing about the dollar being so low against the Euro is it's affect on New York City tourism. This place is packed right now. While most of the tourists it seems are from Europe it also seems as though there are an amazing number of French people around. I mean for the last two weeks every subway ride, shop I enter, central park walk, everywhere it feels like everyone is speaking French. I mean its so many that I sit back and wonder is there anyone left back in France?

All in all it's neat but now I can understand why New Yorkers have a love/hate relationship with the tourists. They, and all tourists, really don't know how to deal with the city from bumping into you at crosswalks, holding up the train, and mobbing everything even remotely quintessential about NYC. But hey you want to come over here and drop your hard earned Euro's be our guests, we love to have you. In fact that has been one of the most fun things so far is to interact with so many cultures I have never been close to before. Now if we can only get the dollar back up so I can afford to play in Europe for a little :)

(BTW, the pic is a deserted Paris Street photo that I found out on someones site, thought it worked :) )