Happy National Hollerin' Contest Day

So this weekend was the last (until August when we celebrate with my parents) of Matty's birthday celebrations. This was his birthday trip. We went up to New York for the weekend to see Jeff's new band, Tens of Thousands (who you should check out).

Friday we just stayed in and got a pizza and watched Freaks and Geeks and played Boom Blox.

Because I am a big dork, a map of our day on Saturday can be found here.

Saturday we took a 9am bus to New York. We took Greyhound because it is only $6 more round trip than Chinatown and Port Authority is just so much more convenient than Chinatown in New York. And leaving NY via Chinatown bus is so stressful and complicated. So we got to NY around 11:15. First we headed to Rockefeller Center in search of Nintendo World. It is so Nintendo-y! There were Wiis and DSs set up to play all over the place. And Wii Fits to test out. And so much Nintendo memorabilia. And they actually have consoles. And Wii Fits if you get there early enough in the morning. And pretty reasonably priced. And a little Nintendo museum section. Then we headed up 5th Avenue to Central Park. On the way we passed the Hare Krishna Parade heading down 5th (did you notice the names on that flickr account?). It was huge. By far the largest group of Hare Krishnas I have seen. We also finally got me a knish from a street vendor. I have been trying to get a knish the last 4 trips to New York. It was fantastic. Then we went to the Central Park Zoo. I had been wanting to check it out since we did not have time to get to the Bronx Zoo whenever we go to New York. It is cute. i would say worth a trip if you want to kill an hour or so. And $8 isnt bad. They had so many penguins! they were so cute! And the polar bears were very cute. I was not a huge fan of the free flying birds in the rain forest house. Matty always laughs at me at zoos and museums because I get really angry at parents who, instead of looking at the signs and learning something, lie too their kids because they are woefully uninformed about what they are looking at. This time there were two that I can remember. "They have these adorable little penguins that they call puffins. Puffins, isn't that adorable?" Puffins are not penguins. Which, if they took the 10 seconds needed to read the placard on the puffin enclosure, they would know. The other was "Oh look at the otters! Aren't those otters adorable!" They were looking at the seals. Sigh, I know, I am a snob. After the zoo we headed to the subway. We managed to get on the right train, but got off at the wrong stop. Which was my fault. But I am blaming the train. Because there was a blinky sign saying where we were, which matched the guy on the speakers, which matched the overhead signs. Unfortunately that did not match reality. But it was only one stop off. So we ended up at Houston and Bleecker which turned out to be totally fortunate because we passed by Yonah Schimmel's Knishery! It is this famous knish place that is like 100 years old and has AWESOME knishes. We got a roasted garlic and onion potato knish. It was so good! From there we headed to Crif Dogs. (From here for a few places we were following suggestions from my friend Rob). We got a chihuahua (bacon wrapped dog with avocado and sour cream) and a temptee dog (dog with a schmier of cream cheese). Now I know you are thinking - really? hot dog and cream cheese? hot dog and sour cream? eww! But you are SO wrong. Everything was perfect. I have no idea how they get the bacon wrapped around the dog like that but it was amazing. The dog itself was fantastic. The bread, the toppings. All of it was just breathtaking. Really. If you are in the East Village and you eat hot dogs, check it out. And they have a Ms. Pacman table. From there we walked to Tompkins Square Park to check out a random jam band playing. Then we decided to head West. We wanted to take a cab because it was fucking hot! But we were unable to hail one. So we walked. And I am really glad we did because I have this thing about New York. Well Manhattan. I dont like it. It is too big and there are too many people and it is too anonymous. But this was my first time hanging out in the village (since high school) and I can totally handle it. So I guess I really hate Midtown. And the Financial District. I still think it is too big and I would never live there. But I can at least handle parts of it without have a panic attack. So we walked to Greenwich Village and I wanted to go in every store and every place we passed but I was good. We passed yet another festival of some sort and then got to Washington Square. Which is TORN UP! It is a little unfortunate how much of it is under construction. But guess who was there? Well, first guess who wasnt there. The Scrabblers. I really wanted to see the Scrabble players from Word Wars and Word Freak. They were not there. However, the Hare Krishnas were! Thousands of them. Every free inch of space was taken up by them. There were food tents and spiritual enlightenment tents. And people sitting on the lawns and people playing music and chanting and playing volleyball. It was amazing. And the food smelled fantastic. So we walked around a bit and then headed on our way. Next we went to Papaya Dog. No, not another hot dog, Matty wanted a papaya juice. It was pretty good actually. I was impressed. I am not a big tropical fruit person. Except pineapple. Then we headed to Magnolia Bakery. That is a pretty sad website. This is better. Now I know I was supposed to get a cupcake. Because that is what they do. But they only had chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. And they had slices of red velvet cake. And I love red velvet. And they said it was the same recipe. So I got a slice of red velvet cake. And I have to say I was a little disappointed. The icing was great. But not cream cehese which I prefer on my red velvet. But still excellent. But the cake was a little too light and fluffy for a devil's food cake. And was a little blah, especially when it had to stand up to the extreme sweetness of the icing. I will have to try a cupcake before passing total judgment. But as I said I was a little disappointed. We had gone across the street in a little park to sit and eat. And there was a seemingly-impromptu cupckae dance going one. Four girls and a guy in little pink cocktail dresses with cupcakes, dancing . . . honestly I dont know. It had started to rain so we decided to try to get somewhere to wait it out. So we headed around the corner to Corner Bistro. The burgers are supposed to be amazing, but we stuck with $2.50 McSorley's pints. By the time we got there it was pouring! But it lightened up and we decided to head towards Chelsea. Mistake! Fail! First of all we didnt realize that 9th Ave is Hudson below 14th St. So we missed it and walked several blocks out of the way. And the downpour returned. To the point of flooding some streets. Awesome. And thunder and lightning. It let up a bit right around the time we arrived at Chelsea Market. So we wandered around in there for a bit. Totally different from what I thought it was. But cool. And there is a Sarabeth's. I had never been to one of their bakeries before. I got a baguettine at Amy's Bread which was very good. Then we met Howie and walked to Union Square (the rain came back) to grab a beer at Heartland Brewery. We also stuck around for dinner which was pretty good. The beer was pretty good too.

I have to go to a talk. I will write more later.