New York: Day 3

What a spectacular day.

The wonderful weather left.  Mara and I got going around noon, and when we went outside it was 40, with a windchill factor of 30, and there was light snow blowing through the air.  I had layered up, but was still quite cold.

We went to Bagel Bob's, which has the most delicious bagels with the most generous amount of cream cheese ever.  They have a cream cheese variety menu as long as their bagel variety menu... I opted for cinnamon raison bagel and plain cream cheese, and a hazelnut coffee.  Wonderful breakfast.

Lucky shot of Mara while the front door was opening.

Bagel with hazelnut coffee... perfect breakfast.

Mara continued her streak for running into random people while I'm in town, and saw her aunt and uncle walk by Bagel Bob's while we were in it (they are Florida natives, so this is an unusual sighting).  Her cousin is having a baby in the next few days, so it made sense, but still a surprise!

After Bagel Bob's we went up to Union Square, where there was the usual craft / farmer's market going on.  We sampled some jams, browsed the cheese and produce, and enjoyed a bit of sunshine (it was still snowing, despite there being hardly a cloud in sight - strange) before getting on the subway and going out to Brooklyn to see the Brooklyn Museum.

Mara trying some jams in Union Square - the red building in the background is the Barnes & Noble where on our first day of classes at NYU freshman year we went to a Bill Clinton book signing and shook his hand.

The Brooklyn Museum is pretty neat.  We only saw about 2/5 of it... it's a pretty large museum.  We started out with African arts, then we happened upon a Norman Rockwell exhibit, which was really fantastic.  It was an exhibit showing his photography and how he used it to compile images for his paintings.

The Brooklyn Museum

The Norman Rockwell exhibit - no photos were allowed inside, unfortunately.

Then we went up to the second floor, which had the Beaux-Arts, Ancient Near East, and Egypt.  Mara loved the Beaux-Arts, making her feel like she was back in Europe.  I just finished a unit of the Ancient Near East in my Art History class, and enjoyed the small exhibit they had for that.  The Egypt exhibit was large, and had really neat objects in it, but wasn't layed out very well and I got bored / lost.

Mara enjoying the European paintings

Myself in front of some Ancient Near Eastern art.

Then we came back to Manhattan, and got ready for our respective evenings.  Mara had another Israel group get-together, and I had a show to go to.

First, I met with Emily at Nanoosh, a hummus restaurant, and got a labane wrap with tabouleh, which was very yummy.  Then we went to an Italian place called Rocco's to pick up some dessert (I got some chocolate covered strawberries), and went to The Bitter End on Bleeker Street, a semi-famous music venue, to see my friend Isaac from high school play with his band, Sam Reider and the Lost Boys.

Labane wrap with Taboule

Strawberries from Rocco's

WOW THEY WERE ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!!!  You MUST check them out.  They. Killed.  So great... I don't even know how to describe it... and my friends loved it too.

Isaac soloing in his band at the Bitter End

It was my first time seeing Isaac in a few years, and it was really cool to see him play.  He is a trombone major at Manhattan School of Music, and has always been an amazing musician.  We were very close friends in middle school, and transferred to the same out-of-district high school where we continued to play in music ensembles together.  Hopefully we'll be able to reconnect before I go back to California and catch up a bit more, but it was great to see him.

Isaac and I before he went on.

Emily, Brittany and I

Emily, Dani, and Brittany - the NYU friends who had accompanied me to see Isaac play.

After they were finished playing, Mara was still out in Brooklyn, so I went with Dani and Brittany to a bar they really like called the Crocodile Bar at 14th street and 2nd avenue.  It was not very close, and my shins are now sore from all the fast walking in my still-unfamiliar boots, but it was a pretty neat little hangout.  It had several rooms extending very far back, and in the farthest back room they had oldschool games like skeeball and pacman.  You also got free pizza with your drinks, so we ordered a couple beers and had some fresh oven-baked pizza (you could literally watch them make it).

Brittany and skeeball at the Crocodile Bar.

The subways were running on different tracks, and it took me a long time to figure out the right one to take back to Mara's so I didn't get back until after 2 (I'd left the Crocodile Bar at 12:45 or so).  I was exhausted, but it was overall a great day - seeing Isaac play was definitely a highlight of my trip so far.  Great music, old friend on stage, NYU friends having a blast with me... I couldn't have asked for a better evening.