dchenes | Road Trip as she is properly spoke

Saturday:

whuffle and I leave Boston at 2:30ish, and drive to Brooklyn. This involves almost exactly four hours, a whole freakin' lot of I-95 South, directions that actually worked (the only turn we missed was because we couldn't see the street sign until after we'd passed it), some Tom Lehrer, some trail mix, and some random silliness.

Once in Brooklyn, we check into the hotel (I had reserved a non-smoking room, and didn't get one, but we coped), call our friend D and make plans to meet in Times Square for dinner. The stairs for the subway are directly in front of the hotel parking lot (I had no idea that was the case when I booked the room in that hotel; I win). So we get on the subway and proceed to Times Square, figuring the subway system out on the way.

Once in Times Square, we get turned around and go in every possible direction but the right one, encountering huge masses of people, a troop of Hare Krishnas dancing on the sidewalk, a couple of five-seater bicycles (still not sure how those work), and a Hello Kitty store (scary. And pink. And scary.) By the time we find the pub and D finds us, it's after 9:00 and we're starving because all we've eaten so far that day is trail mix. Dinner is had (sea bass is good stuff), and beer is had, and we adjourn to the bar and have another drink or so, and wander back to the subway, and get back to Brooklyn at 1:30 in the morning.

Sunday:

We get up at about 9:00, having both not slept quite as well as we'd like, and manage to miss everything but the coffee of the hotel's breakfast service. (Not missing much, apparently, based on the leftover bagels.) We get on the subway to go to Central Park by way of Times Square, and decide on the fly to get off the subway at 6th Av. We decide this so on the fly that

whuffle manages to get off the train, but the door slams in my face. I get off at 8th Av., wait for the next train, don't see her on it, go up to the street, call her, get voicemail, go back down into the station again, get stuck in the turnstile and have to pay twice, wait for the next train, don't see her on it, go up to the street again, discover that now I've got voicemail, discover that she went to Times Square (because we didn't have time to specify which "there" we each meant when we said "I'll meet you there"), go downstairs again, get on the train to the Port Authority, hike up to Times Square, call and find out exactly what's going on, meet up with her, and we go off and get breakfast (consisting of spinach pie, in my case.)

After breakfast we tromp around the theater district for a while and go put ourselves in the lottery for Wicked. We don't win any tickets, but we do get into a conversation with a couple from Brainerd who are in line with their chihuahua. They tell us about the marvelous dinner they had at a place on West 47th, and give us the card for the restaurant.

We tromp off to Central Park by way of a camera store, where I indulge in a new battery for the camera I didn't bring with me (I didn't bring it because its existing battery is terrible). Once in Central Park, we walk around for a little while, and then discover where all the horse-drawn carriages are coming from, and decide we want a carriage ride. While we wait for a carriage, somebody lets go of a horse, which starts moving forward, and the carriage said horse is attached to takes the bumper and part of the front quarter panel off a Mercedes. Literally. *CRUNCH*, and there's the bumper lying in the street. (Even though it was the horse handler's fault, that's what you get for parking a car made of plastic right next to a carriage stand.) Anyway, we get into a carriage and take a ride around, and enjoy it. Then we walk down to the zoo, and amuse ourselves taking pictures of penguins ("Leave me alone, I'm molting!"), polar bears ("I'm going to get this plastic barrel to sink if I have to stand on it!" *SPLOOSH*), river otters (who had decided it was nap time), snow monkeys, red pandas (for whom it was also nap time) and sea lions. Then we hike all the way across the park and back, sort of by accident, and go ride the carousel once we find that, and get some ice cream.

Then we decide that since it's a little after 5:00, we'll walk back down to West 47th and try to find this here now restaurant we have the card for. We do that by way of 6th Ave, and pass a store that has a display of netsuke in the window. So we go in to browse and find that the rest of the store is full of foyer-decoration-type statues and chandeliers and other such stuff neither of us would have any use for at all, and wander out again, and detour through the American Folk Art Museum store, and get back to West 47th and find ourselves at the beginning of it. Between there and the restaurant we're looking for is a place called Dervish, which is a Turkish restaurant, and we debate about just going there, but we don't, and we end up at Scarlatto. (They do have a web site, but it plays music, so I won't link to it.)

Ye GODS was that good! I had pappardelle with venison, and

whuffle had linguine with lamb, and we split a poached-pear-and-port-sauce dessert. The only problem was that we had a terrible time getting the waiter to remember we were there, which meant we sat around waiting for the dessert and the check for quite a while. (Not that sitting was a bad thing, by that point in the day, mind you.) After dinner we decide that we've had enough for the day, thanks, and go back to Brooklyn and laze around for a while, and then crash.

Monday:

We get up at 9:00, get showered and packed up and check out, buy a map at the gas station across the street from the hotel, and drive down to Park Slope to meet a couple of

whuffle's friends for brunch. Brunch and conversation are had, and we get directions to the Cloisters from Park Slope, and off we go. I manage to navigate us there without getting us lost (much; the signage for the Battery Tunnel suffered from road construction in one place, so we ended up getting off the BQE by accident. Thank goodness we bought a map), but unfortunately since it's Monday, the Cloisters museum is closed. The Met itself is not, and we play with the idea of going there, but we end up in the Upper West Side instead, and find Zabar's and the H&H Bagel bakery, and go to both of those.

We leave NYC at about 2:15 and drive back to Boston, which involves a whole freakin' lot of I-95 North, chocolate-covered blackberries, most of the contents of my iPod that could be construed as driving music, periodic slow sections of traffic for no discernible reason, three or four different ways to go to Woonsocket, RI (none of which we want, thank you, so stop offering!), and various other amusements. We get back to Boston at about 6:30.

So, it was a good weekend, and we've decided we have to do it again. (I have to bring my camera next time, now that it has a decent battery, and go take pictures of the bronze sculptures in the 8th Av. subway station. Some of them are very silly.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Last-minute train hops are often causes for disaster, hilarity, or both.

That pear and port thingy sounded really tasty.

I think this one falls under "oops, I guess we should've had a plan", but it worked.

The pear and port thing was quite nice. I had eaten too much dinner and didn't want a whole lot by way of dessert.

Road Trip as she is properly spoke

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