We stayed in an HI hostel in the Upper West Side. This was my first time staying in a hostel in the US, and in fact, it happens to be the largest in the world, with over 660 beds. Holy mackerel! Very clean, but noisy and with little personality, in case you find yourself looking for accommodation in the Big Apple.
The view from the Chinatown Bus of Manhattan rising up from behind this massive cemetery
Little Italy (uncanny, except the street is too wide)
Our first night we met with Ting Chun, a friend of Seth's from Brandeis. Here we are at the amazing Shake Shack, after having eaten hamburgers! Made with beef! I haven't had a full-size (beef) hamburger in probably a couple years. It was so good I went back for seconds :o) 
We spent the mornings in classic New York fashion, running through Central Park
One of the lakes in Central Park
Friday morning we visited the American Museum of Natural History with the main objective of saying hello to our dinosaur friends.
I really like the hat on this big guy
After museum number one, we met with my cousin, Christina, at museum number two, the Met. After getting a quick taste for the museum (it is GINGANTIC), we joined up with her husband, Kevin, for dinner and a show. We ate at a Japanese ramen place in the very funky East Village.
So good!
The four of us went to a very eclectic concert in "Alphabet City", at an exceptionally tiny (though famous, of course) venue called The Stone, owned by John Zorn. All non-profit, it has two sets a night, does not sell drinks or other refreshments, and consists of a single room with concrete floors and fold-out chairs. It is truly 'all about the music'. Our show consisted of a Gamelan 'invocation' and awkwardly transitioned into a strangely charismatic band from Tennessee called the Terror Pigeons. The funniest part of the evening was that the band brought a variety of homemade desserts that corresponded with stories from their songs. Since no food is allowed in the club, the audience shared cookies, root beer floats, and cake shaped like pizza on the sidewalk outside after the set.The band brought dessert for its audience. How thoughtful!
The cake really did resemble pizza, though we had to avoid swallowing the Juicy Fruit gum cheese.
Seth and I with Christina and Kevin outside the inconspicuous club, The Stone. Only in New York.
The next day Seth and I took a walk through midtown. Here is Union Square, wearing its winter coat.
The flatiron building
A close-up of the hanging paper cup exhibit at the nose of the flatiron
A guy pushing a tree in a shopping cart. Creativity is directly proportional to city size.
A visit to the New York Public Library gave way to a surprise exhibit--they were showing a host of interesting items such as a Gutenberg Bible, Virginia Woolf's walking stick and diary, sketches by Beethoven, and T.S. Eliot's typescript of "The Wasteland" with Ezra Pound's scribbled comments.
We eventually made our way to Rockefeller Center to see The Tree. It was quite a tree, indeed. The crowds of pushy people and megaphones from the surrounding cop cars squalling 'keep on the sidewalk' dramatically took away from the Christmas in New York romance, but at least we were warned of what to expect in advance. It was nice to see the spectacle nonetheless.
While we were in Rockefeller Center we got hooked by a mysterious countdown on the side of the Saks building. Of course, we waited alongside hundreds of other curious passersby to see what would happen after 13minutes. I won't divulge what surprise awaited us, you'll have to see it for yourself ;o)Seth wondering what would happen after 11 minutes and 30 seconds. Saks sure knows how to build suspense!
After trying in vain to see a few of the famous 5th Avenue window displays (of course we had to go the weekend before Christmas!), we gave up and went underground to speed our way to Tribeca, to a small theater called The Flea (see? small!). We saw a really cool play called "She Kills Monsters", about an ultra geek girl who plays Dungeon and Dragons. I was totally unable to relate.
The show was awesome, and the only way to make the evening even better was to follow it with a fantastic Vietnamese dinner on the edge of Chinatown. God, why does Waltham (or even Boston) not have any place even remotely like this??
After a chilly start this morning we headed back to Waltham. It was a really wonderful trip, and the getaway was long sought-after. I figure if they are going to run my final exams up until Dec. 22nd, the least I can do for myself is get out of town! It was also wonderful to see Ting Chun and Christina and Kevin. It is nice having people to visit :o)
As a side note, I must declare that during our time in NYC Seth and I were extremely impressed by how courteous and friendly New Yorkers were. In one morning we saw an elderly woman dash to hold open a door for a lady with a stroller, a man pick up a random bicycle that was blown over by the wind (the bike was not his), a fellow in a suit trip while crossing the road only to have an onlooker rush to his aid, and time after time on the subway people were offering their seats to others. People we met off the street were ultra nice (they were not even trying to sell us crap), and no one was pushy or creepy, like the stereotypes would have you would expect. Even the runners and dog-walkers in Central Park at 7am were greeting us and smiling. Not even the Christmas Spirit can invoke this sort of compassion from Florentines or Bostonians, or the "cheery" Aussies.
