Disneyland, Google Style

Monday through Wednesday, Googlers from the West Coast offices headed down to Anaheim for a visit to place of a 'million dreams.' Suffice it to say, it was an incredible experience. I got to go on rides I had gone on over 10 years ago - including Space Mountain, Matterhorn, and Star Tours. And, I got to ride the new rides - California Soarin', California Screamin', Buzz Lightyear, and Indiana Jones. From 8pm-1am, the park was open only to Googlers, with our very own fireworks show and no waits in the lines. I'm still recovering from a long day of travel to get back. More details to come...

Success! Traveling and Presenting

I had posted last week that I had purchased a pair of noise canceling headphones. During my flight to Chicago they turned out to be a blessing. My flight was delayed about 4 hours, so I sat in the airport and read the Kite Runner while having the noise canceling activated. It allowed me to concentrate better, and I think prevented me from being as fatigued because I didn't have to constantly hear all of the airport noise. So I highly recommend noise canceling headphones!

Of course, the transition from Chicago to St. Louis was a little hectic. We landed at 10:20 and my flight out to St. Louis was supposed to depart at 10:50. Once we landed I rushed out to my plane, running through the terminal as fast as I could. I had my backpack and carry-on bag with me, and got tired pretty quickly. But, when I turned the corner and saw the terminal lined with cots and people already getting ready to sleep, resigned to the fact that they would be spending the night there, I decided that there would be no way that I would spend the night in Chicago. So I ran and caught my plane - but of course, it wouldn't leave for another 45 minutes due to additional boarding of late passengers and bad weather.

Christmas was the first time our family had been together since June, and the first time I had been home to St. Louis since last December. Plenty of things had changed - the roads, the things in my home. Nonetheless, it was nice to catch up. My family loved the Google gear I got them =) So it was a successful holiday! And back to work on Thurdsay.

<3 my new headphones

Oh hell yes. I finally got noise canceling headphones. This was something I've wanted for many years, especially after taking countless plane rides during college from Stanford to St. Louis, and getting off the plane really grumpy because some baby was crying and because the plane engine is just so noisy! I guess it really does drive me a little nuts when a middle school group traveling to China runs up and down the aisles while you're trying to rest. So, in preparation for my next trip home, I finally pulled the trigger and bought some Audio-Technica noise canceling headphones:


And already after one day of work, I can tell they make a huge difference. At work I felt more productive, and less distracted from the noise around me. I think it was really good, because I sit right next to a busy meeting room, where the constant in and out of people causes me to always look up and see what's going on. It's my instinct to look around to see what's happening, but now that there's no noise to cue me, I can pay attention to my work. Flying is never something I enjoy, but I know it will be 10 times better now that I don't have to listen to lots of background noise when I fly back to St. Louis.

Of course, my manager had to wave for a few seconds to get my attention at the end of the day. I expect to get hit a few times for people to get my attention. =)

Thanksgiving Recap

Awesome things I did in Hawaii:

- Attended the Triple Crown Surfing competition in the North Shore of Haleiwa. The waves were killer - 10-15 feet high.

- Ate at Kua'aina burger. 1/3 burger with 1/2 an avocado on top. And fries. Best. Burger. Ever.

- Ate at Alan Wong's. Menu included:

• Baked Lobster Mousse Wrapped in Nori with Crab Avocado Stuffing
• Steamed Clams with Kalua Pig, Shiitake Mushrooms in a Foil Bag
• Hamakua Springs Whole Tomato Salad with Li Hing Mui Ume Vinaigrette
• Maui Cattle Company “Garlic Steak” - Pipikaula Potato Gratin, Boursin Goat Cheese, Roasted Vegetables, Red Wine and Shallot Glaze
• Waialua Chocolate Sampler

- Shave ice at Wailoa Shave Ice. Green tea and strawberry. Yum!

- Watched Kicking and Screaming and Blades of Glory.

- And spent time with family :)

Thankgiving

I flew out this morning to Honolulu for Thanksgiving. Surprisingly, the drive to the airport (granted, at 6am) was nice and quick and getting through security to the gate was also quick. Plus, the flight itself was quiet (no kids or high school groups to annoy me). I watched Transformers, which was pretty bad but passed the time.

Seeing family in Hawaii is always nice. We had a very nice Thanksgiving dinner. I will be spend the next few days relaxing on the beach and at home!

Time to Start Fresh

First things first - my trip to China and Thailand was incredible. I took plenty of pictures, which you can view here or on Facebook. I could go on and on about the experience, about what I learned about Chinese or Thai cultures, the food I ate, the sights I saw, and everything in between, but my trip was packed in with only a few days of downtime before work.

So for a little background information, I have moved into a house with three other housemates in East Palo Alto. I live in the master bedroom. I'm starting work at Google tomorrow, as part of their Search Quality Evaluator team. When people have asked me what the job entails, to be honest, I haven't been told much. It has something to do with rating web pages for quality and content. It has something to do with filtering out spoof sites. It has something to do with basic HTML. So, with my limited knowledge, I'm somewhat worried about tomorrow. But, my jitters are typical for any new experience. Will the people like me? Will I ask too many questions? Will I break any unspoken rules? Will I learn things quick enough?

In the past, I've usually been okay handling new situations, but this is my first time experiencing full employment, so it's a different environment entirely. I did, however, pick Google because of its laid-back environment. And I hope that holds true.

Luckily, I have not been hit with much jet-lag. I got a lot of sleep on the plane back so I've transitioned well back to Pacific Time. Staying occupied, however, has been somewhat difficult. Leaving Stanford is like leaving an entire community and since my house is pretty empty right now (only 1 other person living in it), I've had to keep busy by cooking for myself and making some big but long-term investments in my new dependent lifestyle. For example, I spent $200 at Target today, purchasing bathroom cleaning supplies, pots and pans, and kitchen utensils. All of the things I've taken for granted, I now need. But, thankfully it is not a sunk cost, because when the toilet clogs or I need to cook, I'm ready for it!

Finally, after watching a few stages of the Tour de France in Hong Kong, I was pretty excited to come back and bike around the Bay. I've gone out twice with Wilmot, and gotten beat pretty badly. Guess I have a lot more work to go.

More reports after my first day of work tomorrow!

China and Thailand

I'm going to China and Thailand from June 26 to July 12th. Not that I haven't posted much recently, but I hope after I come back I can post some of my travel blog entries and start blogging before work starts at Google on July 16th.

Shots really aren't that bad

I used to have a horrible fear of shots. I hadn't gotten one since 2000 and even seeing those needles or thinking about one going into my arm just gave me goosebumps. This summer, Jenny and I are going to China and Thailand, and it was recommended that I get shots to prevent Hepatitis A and Typhoid. No matter how much I didn't want a shot, I came to terms with knowing that I'd rather have a shot than get these horrible diseases. So last week I made my way up to San Francisco to get my shots.

My nurse was a kind lady in her late forties, volunteering at the clinic to provide low-cost health care to travel patients. She seemed just as excited as I did about traveling to China and Thailand, and even recalled fond memories of her time in Thailand. But, she was also realistic about the need for my immunizations - "One can never be too careful," she said. I agreed to the immunizations, paid the money, and sat back in the chair, waiting for the shots. I watched her fill two long needles with the fluid, realizing that all of that would soon enter my body.

She swabbed my arm. I turned away. I felt a slight prick. Then another. She slapped on two band-aids, said I was done and smiled. Turns out, shots really aren't that bad. All of my worrying was for naught. I guess I've built this whole shot thing up for 7 years. Now I know not to be afraid next time.

March Madness

It's a shame I haven't been updating my blog, since so much has been going on in the world. Most recently, Jenny and I roadtripped down to Los Angeles to see the Pac-10 Men's Basketball tournament. We made it just in time for the tip-off of Stanford v. USC on Thursday. Unfortunately, we lost the game in overtime, putting Stanford's NCAA tournament hopes in jeopardy. Since we had tickets for the rest of the games, we went to Friday's semifinal games, watching Oregon dominate Kal and USC stifle Washington State. Luckily, we sold our tickets for the Championship match, which turned out to be an excellent choice, since USC got completely dominated by Bryce Taylor's amazing 11-11 shooting (32 pts) and Oregon. Instead, we went over to Pasedena and met up with some friends to go to Ding Tai Fung, one of the best dumpling houses ever! For the 6 of us, we ordered about 80 dumplings. :D

Anyway, I was elated to hear that Stanford was an 11th seed for the tournament and spent a majority of Sunday and Monday reading all of the commentary about the seeding, potential upsets, and cinderella stories. Having filled out a bracket, I feel pretty confident about a few upsets:

VCU over Duke - Duke, dealing with its lowest seed in 11 years, just does not have enough maturity or a go-to shooter. Much of this game will depend on if Paulus will show-up, but VCU (having beaten George Mason to win the Colonial Athletic championship and could thus be this year's George Mason), has more upperclassmen and quality wins against Albany and Old Dominion, two other potential sleepers in the tournament. I don't see them going past the second round because Pittsburgh always finds a way to score, but a probably upset against Duke.

Oral Roberts over Washington State - Having seen Washington State play in the semifinals at the Pac-10 tournament, I'm hesitant if Kyle Weaver and Derrick Low adequately penetrate to the hoop, especially against a defensive Oral Roberts team. It's a stretch, since this is a 14th seed knocking off a 3 seed, but if there was one game in the tournament where it could happen, this would be it. Tony Bennett showed he couldn't provide an answer for USC last Friday, and I'm not sure he will be able to in the Big Dance either.

Arkansas over USC - I just want this to happen so bad, since USC beat Stanford in the Pac-1o tournament.

Stanford over Louisville - This would make my week. Stanford certainly has a size advantage and great perimeter shooting with Goods and Hill, but when Brook and Robin get in foul trouble, and Stanford gets in turnover trouble (they had the highest turnover to assist ratio in the Pac-10), one starts to wonder. Plus, Louisville will be playing in their back yard in Lexington, so the home court advantage might help, especially since Stanford does not have quality wins on the road, with the exception of Virginia and Texas Tech (on neutral territory). Regardless, I don't see either team beating Texas A&M, but getting to the second round for Stanford would prove that they deserved to play in the Big Dance.

Final Four:
Florida (1) over UCLA (2) - A rematch of last year's Final game, where Noah and co. prove that coming back for another year was worth it.

Texas (4) over Texas A&M (3) - Texas A&M, still reeling from their 2OT loss to Texas in the regular season, still has no answer for Durant. Law IV is clutch, but not enough to stop Texas.

Final:
Texas (4) over Florida (1) - Similar to Syracuse's champsionship with Carmelo Anthony, Durant takes over and scores 30+ points and grabs 10+ boards in a game for the ages. Texas goes crazy while Florida misses a chance to win the NCAA Football and Basketball Championship in the same year.

My predictions, however, seem to change every 4 hours, so I'll post any final changes on Thursday. The only difference I see is if I become more confident about Ohio State over Texas A&M (which I'm currently not), or see Purdue (9) over Arizona (8) or similarly, BYU (8) losing to Xavier (9). UNC also has a chance to go really deep and they could even take out Texas in the Sweet Sixteen, and I'll have to think long and hard about that one too. Texas vs. UNC in the Sweet Sixteen? The matches this year are going to be AMAZING.

Tahoe, January 19-21, 2007

It's an annual tradition for dorms at Stanford to head up to Tahoe during the first few weeks of Winter Quarter. I've been on one each of my four years at Stanford, and each was plagued, in my opinion, by numerous problems or complaints. For example, Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior year snow-trips had numerous complaints - 1) Too many people crammed in a house, 2) Having to sleep on a hardwood floor due to #1, 3) No food because the dining hall messed up our order, 4) No time to ski since rentals took so long to get, and 5) Headaches from the high altitude/falling/sun/dehydration. So, as an RA, I finally was responsible for helping plan one of these events, and for what it's worth, I give credit for anyone who takes the time and effort to plan such a trip. It's quite and undertaking and something you wouldn't realize until you did it yourself. We had originally delegated responsibility to a snow-trip committee, which did do a great job ordering food, a bus, a house to stay in, and group lift tickets and rentals. Unfortunately, in the final few days before the trip began, I suddenly became responsible for making sure everyone signed waivers, paid money for lift tickets and rentals, and was where they needed to be every hour of the day. And that took a long time, but in the end, we had a gorgeous house to stay in that was carpeted with plenty of sleeping space, the weather was beautiful, we had plenty of good food, and no hiccups with the bus, lift tickets, or rentals.

Logistics aside, skiing was great. I hadn't gone since last year and I try to make the most of my day, skiing from 9AM-4PM. I hit up plenty of advanced slopes and had plenty of fun flying down the mountainside at breakneck speed. The weather was beautiful - in the upper 40s and clear skies, but there wasn't a lot of snow on the ground, meaning some areas were a bit icy while other black diamond runs were closed all together. Also, I decided to take my camera up on the slopes of Heavenly. Unfortunately, my camera battery was already on its last breath, so I only took a few pictures. Although pictures are supposed to capture the essence of a place, the view of Lake Tahoe from Heavenly and being 10,000 feet above sea level is an experience that cannot be captured on film. The crisp, cold air, the smell of evergreen trees, the panoramic view of Tahoe. Here's a shot of the sunrise from our house:

A view of Lake Tahoe from the slopes:


A wider shot from the same location:

Los Angeles

After flying into SFO, Jenny and I drove down to Los Angeles to spend the weekend with one of Jenny's friends. We stayed in her apartment in West Hollywood, and spent the evening checking out a local bar, called "The Dime." (Read a review about it from Citysearch here). It was a small bar, but they played good music, although there was no real dance floor. The drinks were especially strong, which was a nice change from the many watered-down drinks I've had before.

On Saturday we spent some time touring the local area, visiting the famed cupcake story Sprinkles. It definitely competes on the same level as Magnolia Bakery in New York, but with an approach that sides on gourmet and a focus on satisfying the affluent Beverly Hills residents it serves (cupcake treat for your dog, sprinkles shirt for your dog, etc). Anyway, the cupcakes were so large you had to eat them with a fork!


We then spent the next day touring the Getty. I've never been to the museum, but the architecture is beautiful and it only costs $8 per car (admission is free) to go. They had some amazing exhibits while I was there, including "Icons from Sinai," which featured priceless icons and books from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, the oldest in the world. Also interesting was a photography collection entitled, "Where we live," which depicted life in America from all parts of the country. As an interested photographer, it reminded me that even taking pictures of storefront churches in Chicago could be an interesting subject matter. Unfortunately, I couldn't take photos of these exhibits. However, I did take some pictures of the beautiful gardens outside the exhibits:






After visiting the Getty, we drove back to Stanford. Now I'm back at school, starting what will be my final quarter here! More updates soon, I promise!

New York City!

I was fortunate enough to spend 6 days in the Big Apple, and after navigating the subway, stuffing myself with food, and managing to not get too lost, I'm happy to be back at Stanford. I'd like to share a textual and pictorial account of my trip to New York. Since our itinerary centered primarily on food, don't read this unless you're hungry.

December 31st, 2006

Flew from St. Louis to Chicago to New York. Met up with Jenny at JFK and took a cab to my sister's apartment, located in the Upper East Side of Manhatten. We grabbed a bite to eat at Papaya King. They're known for a delicious papaya drink and great hot dogs. The former was not so good, but the hot dogs were excellent, although not as good as Top Dog, a Berkeley based hot dog vendor. We ate dinner at Mark Joseph Steakhouse, which is #1 rated steakhouse in NYC. Jenny and I shared the porterhouse for 2, which was more than enough. The steak was fantastic! Juicy, tender, and mighty tasty. These pictures don't do it justice, but it really was the best steak I'd ever eaten. Along with the steak, we got an order of tomatoes and onions, which was exactly what was written on our menu (we expected a salad), and a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse, a dry white wine from France that my Dad had recommended I get whenever I had the chance. For dessert, we shared key lime pie, which was a very nice light sweet after all of the steak. I highly recommend Mark Joseph to anyone looking for a quality steakhouse in New York.


The outside of Mark Joseph. They had decorated for the Holidays and the place was packed on New Year's Eve.


Slices from our porterhouse for two. This steak was so good!


Our bottle of wine with dinner. :) After Mark Joseph, we met up with my sister and her boyfriend. It was already 10:30 and people were milling around the Times Square area. The police had barricaded the entire area, and were only letting in people with reservations at the $200+ club parties. Given the choice between going back to a house party that my sister's friend was having or seeing the ball drop over twenty blocks away from Times Square, the choice was obvious. So we watched the ball drop on TV yet again, but after seeing how hard it was to get to Times Square, the whole idea of standing out there seems a bit overrated. The people in the front were there in the late afternoon, and we wanted no part of that. Either way, we had 2007 in New York and our trip was off to an excellent start!

January 1, 2007

Things almost got off to a bad start, since we were supposed to have gone to the Dumpling House in Chinatown. Unfortunately, all of the area was closed. Our itinerary switched a bit, as we made our way to Carnegie Deli on Broadway. Here's some pictures from our lunch at the Deli:


As you can see, the Carnegie Deli is quite popular. Nonetheless, they seat people very quickly, in part because you're crammed in a small two person table shoulder to shoulder with people on either side of you. So while this is not a good first date spot, who cares? It's all about the food here!


The infamous "Woody Allen." Half pastrami, half corned beef. Piled high. I don't know how one person can eat this. We shared it and we were still stuffed.

We spent the afternoon walking around Rockefeller Center and 5th Avenue, checking out the sales but refraining from purchasing anything. Of course, I had to take an obligatory photo of the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center:


And when we got to Times Square and Grand Central Station, I had to take pictures:


In this picture, I tried to play with the shutter speed, keeping it low to try and depict the terminal without artificial flash. The result was blurred people who were walking, contrasted by others who were standing still. I found that best depicted in one section of the photo, which I zoomed in on below:

For dinner we traveled to Brooklyn to Grimaldi's Pizzeria, which had been the #1 rated pizzeria in NYC. It definitely lived up to our expectations. The dough was tossed fresh in front of us and our pizza was topped with fresh mozzarella cheese and sausage and mushroom. The slices were large, the crust was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and not dry at all. It was definitely one of the best pizzas I've had, but it took us over an hour to get there from the Upper East Side, and since they don't do delivery, I'd imagine that I wouldn't go here very often, since it's so out of the way.



This photo doesn't do our pizza justice. It was so yummy!



Being in Brooklyn offered us a chance to admire the NY skyline. There was light rain earlier in the day, and the remaining storm clouds provided some interesting lighting for this picture.


I like this photo because while I focused on Anthony in this picture, the slow shutter speed allowed me to show the fast moving train that we were waiting for.


Cones is one of the best ice cream parlors in New York. Located in Greenwich Village, they make all of their ice cream and gelato on site, and they have a bevy of flavors. Although I went with the typical chocolate, I'd definitely recommend coming back here again and again to try all of their desserts. Rich and creamy. Try it!

January 2, 2007

For brunch, we headed to H&H Midtown Bagels East, where we had their famed bagels with cream cheese and lox. It definitely lived up to the hype. The bagels are warm and chewy on the inside, the lox was fresh, and a large glob of cream cheese was smeared all over the bagel.



So good. We then went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art:


And saw a lot of art:


And the Tomb of Perneb

After some channel surfing, we settled on watching The Longest Yard, which was a total copy of the British version called Mean Machine which I had seen in December. But, it killed the time and we made our way down to Greenwich Village and ate at Mario Batali's restaurant, Babbo. Babbo only takes reservations one month to the day, and it's one of the toughest restaurants to get a table in, but Jenny woke up at 7am to try, and we were able to get in! We had a wonderful meal:

Our first course was Warm Lamb’s Tongue Vinaigrette with Chanterelles and a 3-Minute Egg:


Followed by Beef Cheek Ravioli with Crushed Squab Liver and Black Truffles


And our main courses, Fennel Dusted Sweetbreads with Sweet and Sour Onions, Duck Bacon and Membrillo Vinegar and Grilled Lamb Chops “Scottadita” with Eggplant “in Scapece” and Lemon Yogurt. The lamb was excellent, but the sweetbread was a little too unfamiliar and I would have preferred to have gotten something else. Nonetheless, an excellent meal. Oh yeah, and we had our meal with an accompanying bottle of Zuani Bianco, which was an Italian wine that blended pinot grigio, tocai, chardonnay, and savingnon in a very fruity and refreshing mix.


For dessert was a chocolate hazelnut cake with hazelnut gelato. Not surprisingly, the gelato was a tasteful accompaniment to the cake.


Here's a picture of the front of Babbo restaurante.


January 4, 2007

Jenny and I were up early and headed down to the TKTS booth in the South Seaport area to get tickets to see "Spring Awakening." TKTS is great, because you can get tickets for a show that same day for 50% off. Shows that might otherwise have empty seats can now be sold out. So, after waiting in a long line and getting our tickets, we were off to the SoHo area of New York, where we did some hardcore shopping. It just so happened that today there was no sales tax, so that probably stimulated a lot of purchasing (there would have been a lot anyway - there were so many sales). We went to a lot of the typical stores - FCUK, Express, BCBG, Guess, Banana Republic, etc, and checked out some of the higher end boutiques, but they were all so expensive! I wanted this sweater at Ben Sherman, but they didn't have my size (and apparently they don't online either).

So after some shopping, we went over to Russ and Daughters and Katz's Deli:



Russ and Daughters is a great family owned specialty food store, with wonderful fish, cheeses, and as we found, bagels and roe:


Since we didn't want to get a whole fish, one of the workers suggested we try an onion bagel with horseradish cream cheese and flying fish roe with wasabi. Definitely not something you would pick up everyday, but we gave it a shot. And it was delicious!


We then went over to Katz's, which is probably best known outside of New York for being the place where Meg Ryan had a fake orgasm. But, it has one of the best pastrami sandwiches. After going to Carnegie Deli, and having Katz's version, I think I'd vote for Katz's as my favorite sandwich. The difference between the two seems to be that Katz's gives you thick, fatty slices of pastrami, while Carnegie Deli gives you slices that are thin and lean. For my tastes, I prefer Katz's. I mean, how could you not like a sandwich like this?


Even though we were quite full, we still had dinner reservations at Le Gigot, a small 12 table restaurant in the Village. The small restaurant atmosphere was quite romantic, although being the only couple in the entire restaurant was a bit weird, since the waiter staff outnumbered us. Nonetheless, our food was excellent. We started off with a crabcake salad:

Followed by seared sea diver scallops for Jenny:

And their venison special for myself:


After that, we headed over to Broadway where we watched "Spring Awakening." It definitely was not a typical Broadway musical - Duncan Sheik wrote the score, resulting in a lot of rock-type songs. But, the singing and acting was top notch, although the storyline was somewhat contrived and not completely resolved by the end. I guess for NY theater buffs, the musical was something new and refreshing compared to a classic like Mama Mia!, but for someone expecting conservative plot lines, they need look elsewhere. But, it was quite fun to see the musical. And since it was the "Best Musical of the Year" by NYT, USA Today, and the New York Post, I guess we saw something that will be talked about for year's to come.

January 4, 2007

Our last day in New York. We spent the morning in Central Park, allowing me to fool around with my camera tripod. The water in the lake of Central Park was quite gorgeous today:

A shot of the Belvedere Castle, which we later walked to and took pictures from.


A shot from atop Belvedere Castle, overlooking the Great Lawn on the left:

Here's a view of some buildings on the Upper West Side:


So after spending some time in the Upper West Side, admiring the architecture of the buildings and grabbing two hot dogs at Gray's Papaya, which basically tasted the same as Papaya King, we headed south to The Shops at Columbus Circle, where we did some shopping at A|X and J Crew. I found the hanging lights in the lobby quite pretty:


They also changed color, which was pretty nifty.



For a quick snack before dinner, we headed to the Village and checked out Pearl's Oyster Bar. Pearl's is actually located at the same address as Le Gigot, which we went to the night before. As a result, when I took a picture of the entrance, the man on the left was waiter we had the night before. I wonder if he recognized me.


For starters, we shared fried oysters. Oh my, they were good!


Any well-doer needs to get this lobster roll. It is the reason why Pearl's is so popular. It is a reason to visit New York alone. Well, maybe not, but it's so good! Just show up early, since we arrived at 5:45 and there were already people lined up to get inside at 6pm. They don't take reservations, so come early and get this!


We then walked over to Magnolia Bakery to have their famed cupcakes. As you can see, they have delicious frosting and a great cake texture, making them truly amazing.

Finally, we had our real dinner at Lupa, another restaurant that Mario Batali owns. For starters, we began with spaghetti with garlic, oil, and tomato. That might sound somewhat boring, but believe me, it was one of the best pastas I've ever tasted. The pasta was al dente, and the tomatoes, garlic, and oil were mixed to perfection. We also had an order of prosciutto, which was thinly sliced but really tasty. Everyone got a main course dish, which I did not get pictures of, so I'll just leave it to your imagination. It was one of my favorite meals in New York and I highly recommend going here if you want a moderately priced Italian meal.


And oh my goodness, after all of that food, my sister insisted on taking us to Pommes Frites, where they have Belgian Fries that you can dip in many different sauces. For example, we got an order of fries with mango curry sauce. The fries are really crispy and the sauces taste great, but we had finally eaten too much that day and could not finish the fries. We rode home on the subway and bus in food comas.

Jenny and I headed out the following morning and needless to say, it was quite a memorable trip. The weather was warm and we successfully navigated the subway and bus routes. Our meals were memorable and so were the few tourist things we did. I couldn't have asked for a better trip, although it wasn't really a relaxing experience. New York is a busy place, especially with all of the people running around. It's nice experience that for just a little bit before coming back to a quieter environment like school. On the other hand, I have plenty of cause to come back - more shows to see, more places to visit, and of course, more restaurants to visit!