Rudi and I are heading to New York City for a couple days next week after a few years of not visiting. We’re planning to see a couple shows, catch up with some friends, buy coffee beans and tea leaves in the Village, and take advantage of the Citibike system.
If you’ve been to New York, particularly if it was a recent trip, what were your favorite things to do/see?
Three beautiful things from the past week:
1. Long denied the sea air, on my one free evening in Boston I take the T to the ocean in Revere. I walk along the beach, watching the beam from an offshore lighthouse cut through the fog, and marveling at the size of the clam shells washed up from recent Nor’easters. I had done some research to find a fish/sandwich shop for dinner, but it turned out to be a takeout-only joint. Disregarding the 40-degree temperatures and the storm rolling in, I take my dinner outside and have a tasty, if quick, fish feast in a beach-side pavilion before heading back to the city and my warm hotel bed.
2. After six years and many requests, Nationals Park finally added a veggie hot dog to the stadium’s menu.
3. My friend BW has a monthlong internship in D.C. this summer and texted me to inquire about an apartment she was considering. Turns out it’s less than a mile from the Burrow, which is the closest we’ll have lived together since we graduated from college 18 years ago. I’m beyond excited.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this week?
Three beautiful things from the past week:
1. Sam and Alexis invite me out to a vegetarian restaurant, where I have fiddleheads, and to an ice cream parlor, where my dessert is a nut-filled, rosewater-flavored scoop. Karen takes the train up to Boston and we end up at an overpriced Italian spot for supper and, later, a Chinese bakery for cups of tea. Regardless of what I’m eating, it is best done with people I’ve known and loved for so long. It cannot be said enough how much I miss them and how wonderful it is to have them sitting an arm-length away.
2. Opening Day eventually holds a loss for the Mets, but because their opponents were the Nationals, I was able to pull in a staticky radio broadcast for the game at my desk.
3. I head to Boston’s North End in pursuit of a lunch place Sam recommends. Instead, I end up in Modern Pastry Shop, whose overwhelming smell of sugar and almond paste reminds me of Libby’s in New Haven. I buy a cannoli, which they fill on the spot with ricotta and top with powdered sugar. It is the best Italian pastry I have ever had, whether enjoyed outside with sugar blowing all over me or at one of the shop’s handful of tables with my oldest friend.
How about you? What’s been beautiful in your world this wweek?
Coffeeneuring, the third annual, seven-stop coffeeshop bike ride challenge, ran from early October to mid-November. I originally planned to share these stops as I did them, but that only worked for two of eight (#1 & #4), so I’ve reproduced them both in my extended event reports.
My rides split neatly in half by month, so below are the October rides:
Ride #1: Saturday, Oct. 5
Teaism, 2009 R St., N.W., Washington, D.C.
3.11 miles
I started the weekend slowly, having slept past the event I’d planned to take part in on Saturday morning. I puttered for a while, did some chores, but failed to find any food that appealed. So, I thought, I could tie in my bike ride and coffee shop quest with a snack. By this point, it was later in the afternoon and my ride also had to include a stop at the garden, where my plants were awaiting water, parched after a week of sun and warm temperatures. Watering and picking vegetables takes time, though, even for such a small community garden spot as mine and by the time I finished up, it was getting close to 5.
My original hope for the day was to visit a coffeeshop (Bourbon) nearby that I hadn’t yet tried. I took the L Street cycletrack over to L, but they’d put away their food. No worries, I thought. There’s a second location of Filter over by GW, and my phone suggests it’s open until 6. Not, apparently, on weekends, when it isn’t open at all.
Fine. I can start this week with a known entity: Bread & Brew is on the way home and they have a nice outdoor deck and tasty bread pudding (even if their tea leaves something to be desired). As I pedal up the hill, I notice the windows are dark and the patio deserted. They, too, were closed.
By this point, I’d pretty much given up hope, but then realized sometimes your heart’s desire can indeed be found in your own backyard: Teaism in Dupont Circle is 1.5 blocks from my house, but after all the other shops I visited, I completed the day’s ride with 3.11 miles under my belt.
I celebrated with chai and naan, my teahouse version of tea and cinnamon toast and my default to-stay order at Teaism, on the bench outside the front door.
While we were in New Orleans last week, we saw many beautiful flowering plants (they still were experiencing what I’d call summer temperatures, but which I’m sure they wouldn’t). Many I could identify, but not this one.
Do any of you know? (Julie and Amanda, I’m looking your way in particular…)
Rudi and I will be heading south to Louisiana next month, when a former student of mine will be getting married. It will be my first trip to the state and a much needed vacation for us both.
My friend will be getting married in Baton Rouge, and we’ll be flying into and out of New Orleans.
Obviously we’re aware of Bourbon Street and know we should eat beignets and listen to music in clubs in New Orleans, and several people have recommended that we see the historic plantations that are en route between the two cities. But short of that, we’ve not yet done any research into what we should see/do while we’re there.
What would you, dear readers, suggest we catch during our week in the Deep South? Nothing is off limits, provided it’s within a reasonable drive of either city.
Thanks for any tips you’ve got!