Weekends in NYC

The SO and I have been making sure that we take full advantage of our time in NYC. Thus, our weekends are quite busy. Since I've been bad at updating this post regularly, the following is a selection of our activities over the last month or so.

About three weeks ago we attended the Taste of Tribeca. A 70+ restaurant food festival to benefit two public schools in the Tribeca area. A bit ridiculous considering that the public schools in Tribeca probably don't really need additional funds.

I wish I had more pictures of the food but the SO and I were busy stuffing ourselves with food. We got two tickets that allowed us to have 10 plates. This ended up being about 7 lunch items and 3 dessert. I thought 2 desserts was enough but my SO vehemently voted for 1 more dessert.

To offset the gluttonous weekends that represents our typical weekend we decided to do something to satiate our cultural hunger instead of our food hunger. Because we're cheap and I want to make sure we milk the SO's work benefits as much as possible we went to the MoMa.



The SO is viewing a pictorial history of all the descendents of a particular person. I could've paid more attention to the description of exhibit but, well, I didn't.

I am not a big fan of modern art. I'm not creative or artistic enough to understand it. Reading this description for Jackson Pollock's work made me realize how much I don't understand it.

This painting is supposed to show his technical prowess? Calligraphic, looping cords of color animate and energize every inch of the composition? It looks like he just splattered paint everywhere and called it a day. Art is meant to invoke commentary and discourse. I get that. But come on. Does the fact that I'm blogging about it somehow validate the painting's appeal? I also blog about Steven Seagal. Does that validate his existence? Didn't think so.





Now for some reason at MoMa they had Van Gogh's Starry Night. I can actually appreciate this but it could also be that I've read and been taught more about it.

It looks like a cross? Bowing down to the Neon God?

This past weekend I went down to DC for a quick trip to say goodbye to one of my good friends from ESADE before he left for China.

The first thing that greeted me outside the DC Metro. I already felt welcomed. My friend said he saw that a car had plowed through the lobby of a building. He hypothesized that someone must've shot him while driving, he slumped over in the seat and proceeded to crash into the building. Or it could just have been that he had a heart attack and then plowed into the building but where's the fun in that explanation.

Since my bus got into DC about an hour late we had a later dinner at Zatinya, Jose Andres' take on Meditteranean cuisine. It was decent fare. Fairly inexpensive too. DC made me realize how freaking expensive NYC is. I love and hate you NYC.  

This bank right outside my hotel confused me. State Bank of India (California)? What are you? Okay Google had an answer. The State Bank of India is owned by the Government of India but the bank is headquartered in California to provide retail banking services in the US. I don't think the California is really necesssary.

The Washington Monument. The US's phallic momument to our First President. If I ever have a monument built to commemorate me I will definitely not choose a large, erect tower. I'm gonna go with a nice girthy round monument. Cuz you know, it's not the length of your monument it's the girth.

This is actually zoomed too. I always thought you could get closer to the White House but when I went they kept everyone about 1000 feet away.

I intended to visit some of the Smithsoniam Museums but the lines were ridiculous for some of the museums. Considering it was also 90+ degrees I had to settle for the less popular museums.

  

So, of course the Hirshhorn Musuem of Modern Art was empty. No lines whatsoever. No. Surprise. There. At least it was nicely air conditioned.

I saw that the Air and Space Museum was at the far end of the National Mall. I tried my luck and headed over to find that the line was only about 15 people deep. Score.

The main hall exhibited the pioneers of air and space travel.

They had a lunar module on display. So cool.

I was totally geeking out at seeing all the lunar modules and capsules from Apollo 11 and Apollo 17

They already had SpaceShip One, the first privately funded and managed space vehicle.

The Hubble telescope. Since the real Hubble telescope is still in space this is just a replica.

Some of the earlier rockets that propelled America to space. They had a very interesting exhibit about the Space War between the USSR and the US. Fascinating to learn that the reason the Russians couldn't get a human on the moon was because their rockets weren't powerful enough to propel the lunar modules far enough to get them on the tracjectory to the moon. USA USA USA!! 

Space suit.

Shuttle bathroom. I can't imagine the horror of zero gravity diarrhea. Am I the only one that worries about stuff like that?

The lunar module. They just took this from the set where they shot the moon landing.

Booster rocket. Power. Lots of power.

The white vest worn by Gene Kranz of Apollo 13 fame.

 Popularized by the great Ed Harris. The vests worn by Gene Kranz were hand knitted by his wife.

The instrument panel for the Apollo era lunar modules. It's a tad bit complicated.

The first speciments in space were monkeys. They supposedly all came back alive.  

The Spirit of St. Louis piloted by Charles Lindbergh. So much aeronautical history.

This B52 is only one of 10 B-52s left from WW2. It served in the European and Pacific theatres. The Smithsonian is currently building a bigger air and space museum. This B-52 will actually be fully reassembled when they move to the larger space.

The Mitsubishi Zero. Feared by Allied pilots during the initial stages of the Pacific War due to its maneuverability and speed. How were they so fast and versatile? The metallic skin of this plane was super thin leaving minimal protection for the pilot and plane. I guess useful when the Japanese resorted to kamikaze attacks.  

Is it bad that I kinda wanted this to hang in my apartment.

Before passengers were considered cattle by the airline industry.

This is the real Wright Bros. plane. The actual plane that flew in Kitty Hawk. I could not believe it. This is the first freaking plane. They re-canvassed the plane in the 90s so that's why it looks new.

A propeller from the original plane.

The historical significance of this plane and the fact that I got to see it in person was just pure historical ecstasy for me. I am such a nerd.

The underside of the Apollo 11 module.

I was in the Air and Space Museum for a good hour and a half and probably could've spent another hour there. The next time I'm in DC with the SO, I'll have to revisit.

The Capitol Building. Laws and filibusters and stuff

For my final meal in DC my friend took me to Henry's Soul Cafe to get some soul food. Mostly all fried foods. Good stuff.

I got the 1/2 friend chicken, stuffing and mac and cheese.

I was trying to not overeat.

I ate all of it.

After a weekend of fatty foods I thought to myself what could I do to balance out my weekend.

Big Apple BBQ Block Party of course.

Started off with some Salt and Pepper Beef Ribs. Beefy.  

Next up was the Smoked Sausage. Smoky.

Pulled Pork Shoulder. Porky.

So that completes an overview of our weekends. The SO has promised me that she will write a guest post so I'm anxiously waiting for her to submit the draft. It'll probably take me some time to translate the SO's written manuscript into something remotely close to the English language so we'll see when that will go up. July? August? 2013?