Ray's pizza and others.

I must inform the reader with great disappointment that the famous Ray's Pizza 6th avenue corner 11th street doesn't rock at all. It's a big big slice of pizza with tons of oil on it. I really don't understand why is that so famous.
Anyway. To the point.
Yesterday evening I was hanging out quite a bit. I began in a Cuban Restaurant in the east Village where I wanted to order:
- Excuse me, Sir, what is a paella del choriros?
- It's just like paella de vormachinez but a little more spicy.
- Which is?
- Oh. sorry. vormachinez is with crullos and fartios, you know sir, fish!
(Oh, fish I know that!)
- Ok, that will be fine.

That was a fantastic paella. Rice with kinds of fish. Tons of primiadilez and kelisavertos in it ;-) or something similar. Next place was a live music bar, in a basement of a building. Good music, much fun. Then the Fat Cat also with live music.
Today I went to "track and trails", a sports shop in the downtown. I finally bought a couple of things: a small backpack, a raincoat, and fast-dry pants.
I ate lunch at Balthazar on Spring street, quite close to Broadway corner. That was a fantastic place. If you don't like gourmet food, turn to the next paragraph. Entree: Oysters: 6 fresh oysters samples: 3 from the West- and 3 from the East-coast. All of different types. Then I ate a huge beef steak fillet made medium-rare which tasted awesome. That was really delicious. Dessert I choose Pavlova with warm berries. That was the best Pavlova ever in my life, including all New Zealand and Australia. Fantastic.
After having eaten all these I went to Wall Street's museum of American Finance. All about stock-, bond- and commodities exchange, their history. The dollar, notes and interesting facts about them. This is one of the few non-boring museums which I rarely see.
Later on I walked all the way up to Chinatown and Little Italy. Chinatown is just like Hong Kong, Chinese occasionally tempered by a little bit of English. Amazing markets selling unknown fruits, and all Chinese stuff. Just one street ahead I crossed to the other side and found myself in Little Italy, where the best Italian restaurants are located.

Hanging out

Yesterday I took the subway all the way down to the financial district. The first thing I saw was Century 21. I went in, which turned out to be a mistake. So cheap. On the other hand they don't even have fitting rooms. Strange. I left the zone of Century 21 quickly. I saw the are of the ground zero, and the memorial. I walked all around Wall street and other small streets of the neighborhood. Then I took the Staten Island Ferry from the terminal. Not that I had something to do on Staten Island, but it goes quite close to the statue of Liberty. So I saw it twice. I saw New York from a very special view from the sea. In the afternoon and evening I walked all over the streets of the village and Chelsea.
Today first thing in the morning I went up to Empire State Building. I was there at opening. So I didn't wait in any queue. Now I saw how big and tall actually New York is. The building itself is amazing as well.
Later on I walked around the east side of the Midtown. In the after noon I took a bus to the Jersey Gardens Outlet. This was quite a disappointment. It's a huge area of bullshit with a few good stuff inside. The thing is that in order to reach the good things you have to jump into all that other stuff. The reader can replace some words with others. I don't want to violate bolg regulations. So I ended up with 3 pairs of socks. That's the whole deal. In general I can say the the sellers in NY don't know even their own stuff. The mix real shit with valuable goods, and sometimes it seems that even they cannot differ between them. Then I returned to the hotel to search the Internet for some sports stuff. It pointed out some stores here in Manhattan which are supposed to sell those things. When I called them to ask if they have it they just said "Eh? What? Huh?". So it works. I hunted some strawberries from the deli, which I'm going to eat soon. Then I'll be heading out for dinner.
One more strange thing. New Yorkers don't wait for the green light when crossing a street. They just walk. Even when cars are coming they cross if there are enough cheeky people who cooperate for red light crossing. Sometimes a policeman stands in the middle, but it seems to me that he defenses the cars from the walkers more than the walkers from themselves.

a less formal day

Yesterday I didn't post, but here it goes now.
In the morning I walked around Whashington Square, when came the phonecall from Szilvia, a very good childhood friend, who invited me to come to visit them. So I took the subway to Grand Central and then the train to Croton Harmon. They live in a very nice house with a garden. We went to soo the Pow-Wow not far from their place. Native americans (Indians) were dressed and were dancing their traditional folk dances. All kind of native handicrafts were sold, I liked the fox-faces, but no, I didn't buy one. The fox was inside.
Then a bried BBQ in the garden and I hopped on the train back to Grand Central. That was a very nice day. In the evening I went to the Commedy Cellar where all kind of commedists showed up on the stage making a really good time for the audiance. It was really funny, not that I can citate any of their jokes.

Stand clear of the closing doors, please!

This was my first whole day in New York. It's easy to get around, I don't even need the map. I toured over the village, drunk a terrible lemonade for which I even payed 3 dollars. Went up to the Times Square, then walked back to Union Square. Great sunny weather, a simple t-shirt did it. I had lunch in an Italian restaurant serving gorgonzola cheese with portebello style mushrooms and excellent salads. At the nearby table an old man was eating colorful candies for dessert which he pulled out from his jacket's pocket. :-)
I saved my eating capabilities to the evening. It was worth it all.
At 6 I went over to Tomi's and Josephine's home on east 70th street. They are very kind people. The jacket was on place, good that I bought it with me. I was glad to see that not everybody was wearing a tie. There were 17 guests which were served by 2 housekeeper ladies who were hired for this purpose.
The evening began in the hall of the kitchen where we drunk some wine, ate some cheese and other stuff. Then we went over to the piano room where Sarah - one of the guests from Boston - played Chopin in remembrance of the 200th birthday of the composer. Then we went up to the dining room where the table was already organized. The guests were from the Goldman Sachs (Josephine's work), from the UN, and other respectful employers. Tomi and Josephine sat on the opposite sides of the long table (actually of the room). On the walls of the dining room remarkable paintings were hanging. I thought it was a nice two stories house, until Tomi decided to show me around.
Ok, dear reader, just sit back. This house has six floors. Each floor serves different purposes. A floor where Tomi works, 2 floors for sleeping and bathrooms, one for the living- and dining room, one for the kitchen and the piano, and one... I forget, but there were six. The floors are connected with a wooden two staircases and an elevator, which was the original elevator of the building dating back to its construction in 1910. By the way the house is located just opposite of Woody Allan's house.
Some words about the menu: Soup with traditional kneidelach, then meat with meet: roasted lamb, duck breast, chicken items, salads, potatoes, etc...
The dessert was made of 5 courses: pears with cinnamon, Pavlova, honey cake, and another 2 kind of cakes.
We killed'm all :-)
Then we were sitting in the living room where the impressive china collection is located with Herendi chinas all around, and paintings on the walls.
I have never been in such party in such castle in my life. That was an real experience for me.
Shana Tova!
Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I was walking around without my camera, which turns out to be a great fun. For photos of New York use Google. They are far better than the ones I make. So I decided to get rid of the camera for the first days.

I made it!

Successfully arrived to JFK with Air France via Charles De Gaulle. I even slept a little bit on the plane. From JFK I took the Air Train to Howard Station where I bought a train ticket together with a one-week subway ticket. During the ride I figured out where to get off. I came up at West 4th street where I asked two girls for directions. Where is north, east, etc. They told two totally different things and they started to discuss with each other that if north is there then the opposite direction cannot be west, it must be south. Anyway, I figured out the directions alone. Found the hotel on 11th street between 5th and 6th avenues. Nice place. I went out to grab some food. I found a place named something like "7-day open food restaurant", ate some fish and now I am back to the hotel.
In the restaurant I heard an excellent joke, which was told at the table next to mine.
- Wh*&^*$#)%&*@)( the parrots and $(&#*(&$#@ so then the man came and said (*&$(*#&%*@&*(#$&
- hahahaaaa!
Good one, ain't it?
Now crashing to bed.

zero sleeps

two so to say irregular things in my backpack:
- a sport jacket
- a made-in-china colorful big farm tractor

New York, here I come!

12 more sleeps

to New York city!...
Come on, come on... augh it's still 12... faster please!