Dah-ling I Love You, Give Me Park Avenue

This Thanksgiving weekend, we went to New York City for three days. I've never been there before, but V has been and loved it. Now that we live only 4 hours away, there's no excuse for us not to go there and enjoy the things that the city has to offer!

The trip was pretty last-minute, so we didn't get tickets to any shows or anything. We had dinner in Little Italy one night, and at Bar Boulud the next (one of Daniel Boulud's restaurants) where I had a celebrity sighting that only a public radio nerd like me would be thrilled over: we saw Garrison Keillor with his family getting a table at the same restaurant!

We visited the Statue of Liberty:



Ate chestnuts roasted on an open fire (from a street vendor):



Looked at the beautiful Christmas decorations:



And went to Times Square to meet V's cousin-brother (note the Incredible India billboards you can just barely see in the background):



We also bought some Christmas gifts from interesting vendors in Chinatown; I got an expensive lipstick at Saks Fifth Avenue; braved the crowds at Tiffany's; became masters of the NYC subway system; went to the little India area in Jackson Heights for pani puri, paan, and cheap pashmina stoles; and walked around just generally enjoying the city. On Saturday night after dinner we met one of my friends at a very cool little bar near Chinatown where we drank absinthe in a cave-like room lit only by candles.

On the way home we visited V's cousin-sister and her family and had a wonderful lunch and chat with them. From their house in Jersey City, you can see the entire city of New York stretched out in front of you and the Statue of Liberty in the foreground, and as I looked at it I was kicking myself for never having been to NYC before. It was a wonderful weekend and an incredible city, and I can't wait to go back!

Procrastination, That's My Function

Oh my God, you guys. I'm sure that by now you've seen how bad I am about keeping up with my blog. Now it's December and I haven't even started Christmas shopping yet. That's why this year I was really interested to learn about Snapgifts.com, a website that one of my blogger friends, Cagey, told me about (all right, it was her husband's idea!). You can get giftcards for a ton of different restaurants and shops, all in one place. In that way you can knock out most of your gift-giving list! I'm always looking for the easy way out...especially this year when we've got a lot of other stuff going on and taking up our time.

In other news, we went to NYC for Thanksgiving weekend and had a blast (the high point was my celebrity sighting: Garrison Keillor. Yes, I'm a nerd). I took some pictures (not of Keillor--I did't want to be That Fan, and I've met him a few times before already), but true to form, haven't had time to upload them yet. The Christmas decorations in the city were so incredible, I was able to put aside my usual "Don't jump the gun on Christmas!! It's not even Advent yet!!" objections and just enjoy them. I'll get them up soon!