A fabulous weekend in New York! We flew down Friday night, on the same flight as Molly who was going down to visit her sister. With the new Air Train connection to the NJ Transit commuter rail service, Newark is really quite convenient from New York. From Penn Station we had a hair-raising taxi ride to Brooklyn, where Paul and Kelly had a wonderful steak dinner waiting to welcome us.

After a slightly uncomfortable night on an underinflated air mattress, we had a feast of a breakfast and set off into Manhatten. The weather was gloomy and cool, so we steered for the Frick Collection, a fine little museum housed in the massive parkside mansion of a wealthy industrialist. We spent a few hours seeing it properly, by which time the weather had cleared up outside and we had a lovely stroll downtown to Broadway. En route we picked up pretzles from a streetside vendor, and thus fully transformed into New Yorkers we wandered down past the Park Zoo. Once we hit 58th Street we realized we were going to be short on time, so we picked up the pace and made it down to the theatre only 5 minutes late (and 5 minutes before Kelly showed up at a dead run!) We enjoyed "Gypsy", which had just started its Broadway run two weeks ago, starring Bernadette Peters. It was an excellent production, and though we had rafters tickets (at $65 US each), we could see and hear everything clearly. Finally, in the evening we went out to Court Street with Paul, Kelly and Jamie and had a nice dinner at an Indian restaurant.

On Sunday we packed up and thanked Paul and Kelly for their wonderful hospitality. We once again ventured through the subway system to midtown, where we found our very cool hotel, the Shoreham, on 55th Street. It was too early to check in, but we left our bags and set off north to the Park. This time we weren't on a schedule, so we ambled at leisure up through the paths, past countless New Yorker having picnics and catching the rays. We passed a large pond where families were sailing model sailboats, and a small lake where couples had rowboats out for a gentle spin. Finally we reached our destination, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Met is a huge facility, and takes a very traditional approach to displaying its treasures: each age or category of art has its place, and the visitor simply decides what category they're interested in, and goes to see it. Until last year I assumed this was the best (and only) way to see an art museum, but the Thyssen-Bornemisza has spoiled me and now I find traditional art galleries a bit dull. The important works are all there, but there's no context to draw you in, and very little effort made to point out the innovations and creativity expressed by the artists within the timeline of art, in their region and in the rest of the world. So as a result of that, though the Met is a wonderful gallery with a fantastic collection, it didn't blow me away the way it did the first time I visited it.

We did have only a few hours to see the museum, so we picked out our goals and ventured forth. The massive building swallows throngs of people without issue, so for the most part there were no problems getting to see the masterworks. After an initial trip through the Egyptian collection, we went upstairs and toured the musical instruments. From there, we did a quick pass through some of the European art section -- and here was where I missed the context the most -- before taking a detour up to the roof for a cappucino and a fine view of the city. Back downstairs, we completed our visit with a trip through the ground floor section of the modern art collection and a stop in the massive museum shop.

After the Met, we wandered back to the hotel, checked in, and changed. We headed back outside and up to 82nd St. West, where my cousin Olga and her boyfriend Rob have their apartment. They really scored: it's a wonderful location, right by a subway stop and by the park, and a block north of the Museum of Natural History. Aside from Rob and Olga, my uncle and aunt were there, as was my cousin James. We had a great meal of chili, salad and herb bread, with cheesecake squares and fresh strawberries for dessert. It was great to see Helena and Peter again. It was their last day in New York: they flew out to Colorado yesterday.

Monday morning dawned sunny and warm. Anne and I set off with two goals in mind: Starbucks, and a post office. I'd remembered to bring Peter's jacket back to New York to return to him (they'd lent it to me after I forgot my goretex on the train in France last April), but I'd forgotten to take it to dinner. Rather than haul it back home, we resolved to send it along, and after a fairly lengthy hike we found a post office in Grand Central station and duly parcelled the jacked off to Vail. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at St. Patrick's cathedral for a spiritual moment with fantastic stained glass, and at Saks Fifth Avenue, across the street, for Anne to have a spiritual moment with a shoe sale. It was a spectacular day. We checked out, caught a cab back to Penn Station, and were on our way back home.
posted by Tom at 9:52 AM | link | (0) comments

Anne and I are looking forward to a great long weekend in New York this coming weekend. We're going to be staying in Brooklyn with Paul & Kelly (& Jamie) on Friday and Saturday nights, but will move to a hotel downtown for Sunday night. On Sunday we're going to my cousin's place for dinner with the American Leslie clan. It will be great to see them all again! Other than that, it's Anne's first trip to New York so the trip agenda will mostly be hers. We'll probably spend quite a bit of time going around the museums and doing touristy stuff... and maybe some time shopping for shoes! ;-)

Last weekend was the big music extravaganza. On Friday Exultate closed the 2002-03 season with a great performance of Rachmaninoff's All Night Vigil. (It didn't actually last that long.) There was a bit of a panic a couple of weeks ago when we found out that the original location, St. Patrick's, was unavailable due to an astonishingly inconsiderately planned renovation. Kelly, Michael, John and others made miracles happen and got us relocated to St. Andrew's (next to Roy Thomson Hall), which turned out to be a much better venue for the choir anyway. We'll never go back to St. Patrick's again...

On Sunday both our sets of parents came in for the performance of the Monteverdi Vespers by the joint choirs of Christ Church Deer Park and Calvin Presbyterian. Both the performance, and the subsequent meeting of the parents, went very well... Tick one more (important) box off the relationship progress list! :-)

Finally, on the work front it's a busy week with our build and unit test scheduled to wrap up on Friday. Tim's out of town for the week due to illness in the family, so Sonia and I are left to shephard the mad dash for the finish line. There's a palpable feeling of concentrated stress in the office, though we took time out today to take our two departing team members, Ron and Marcy, out for lunch. We travelled underground to get there -- it's really bloody cold in Toronto at the moment, which is Very Poor Indeed.
posted by Tom at 6:14 PM | link | (0) comments

The weekend's winding to a close, but it's been an excellent one. The weather was gorgeous, not too hot, which was great as we ended up shifting stuff around most of the weekend. After church and lunch at the sushi place (Sushi Garden, off Yonge just north of St. Clair) Anne went off to meet her mom for an afternoon of shopping & chatting. I returned to her place, caught a quick nap on the sofa, and did a load of laundry. At 4:45 I picked up the local Autoshare car and went down to St. Patrick. I loaded it up with various things, including leftovers from last night's barbeque, my older computer, router, tuxedo, tennis rackets and more laundry. Then I scooted it up to Anne's again. Turns out I forgot my power bar at home, but fortunately Anne's dining room (now a storage room, basically -- we've got to find a place!) has a couple of power points so I was able to get the computer plugged in and running properly.

Now we've both got computers here, and I can use my laptop's wireless LAN card to surf in the living room. Life is good!
posted by Tom at 7:59 PM | link | (0) comments

First barbeque of the season last night! It was really nice weather. Anne and I spent the day puttering around the city in an Autoshare car and made it up to the big Canadian Tire at St. Clair and Keele, where I dropped $120 on flowers and herbs. We stopped at Loblaws on the way back for some exhorbitant steaks and other necessities, and I managed to get all the plants planted in the planters by the time the last of the Usual Suspects arrived. Anne made a phenominal crab dip and served up mojitos, which were awesome.

Much wine and food ensued. My head's a bit foggy this morning...
posted by Tom at 9:02 AM | link | (0) comments