Bright and early on the 15th we headed to Long Island, NY, because after watching Revenge and the Barefoot Contessa, I HAD to see the Hampton’s and it’s so close to New York, so why not, right? Well, we encountered some of the nastiest storms I have ever seen, and while driving on the Interstate, with no visibility. Thank god Rick likes to drive, because, this was horrific. First off, thank you again, Steve and Linda, for lending us your spare EZ Pass-every time we go through a toll booth, we both say “Thank you Steve and Linda!” It has made life so much easier, not having to get in those long toll lines-especially in the rain. Once we hit the Cross Bronx Expressway, we were at a standstill at the Jerome underpass. There was a Cadillac sedan literally floating in the water. Luckily an ambulance needed to get through and we were able to get around, up and over and head back on to the road on the other side. When we checked in to our hotel Rick wanted to see the local news, and sure enough the lead story showed the exact underpass mentioned above. It turns out New York got 2.5 inches that afternoon. You will notice virtually no pictures taken on Long Island. This is because the rain did not let up until late on Wednesday. We still enjoyed it, but everything was gray and damp-which to a desert rat, is a thing of pure beauty, but still not that great for picture taking and sight-seeing. As beautiful as the Hampton’s were, the ridiculous traffic, made it less so. We wanted to go out to Montauk, but we were unable to break 15 mph and mostly just stop and go. We turned around and went back and ate lunch in Southhampton.

Rick decided he didn’t want to drive in to the city, nor did he want to fork out the $55 a day for parking our car in the garage there. We took the Long Island Railroad in, which was really a leap of faith. As we were contemplating our trip, the MTA and LIRR were in discussions regarding a possible strike which was to go in to effect at 12:01 Sunday morning and of course, we were due to leave Sunday afternoon. So, I was very apprehensive of this plan. Rick was fairly certain they would work it out. Off we went on Thursday morning and sure enough, on Friday morning the two parties came to an agreement and I was able to relax about it. He was right again.

We had an amazing few days in the city. The first day is always a little overwhelming, and then you kind of fall in to the natural pace of the city. Did I mention that I love New York City? God, I really do! On Thursday evening we walked around a bit and had dinner at one of our favorite places, The Grand Central Oyster Bar, which sadly was not quite up to par, and a total rip-off this time. And the Albanian server who has waited on us every time before, was kind of a jerk. But, holy cow, a pretty great martini was involved. So, that helped.

Friday morning we were off to buy our tickets to the Broadway play If/Then, with Idina Menzel. She could seriously sing names from a phonebook, and it would be phenomenal, but a story and songs make it all the better. She never misses a note. God, she’s good! We proceeded, tickets in hand, to Trattoria Dell’Arte, for a fabulous lunch and then off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a little culture and some great art. Later that night the play. We planned to stop in at the Pig and Whistle, where we usually go for a late night beverage and some live music, and lo and behold it has been replaced with some night club which looked heavily populated by your basic thugs and a pounding bass sound. Oh well. And this after realizing earlier in the day, that our old standby for hot pastrami and New York cheesecake, Roxy, has been replaced by a Radio Shack. This kind of change sucks.

On Saturday we had Asian day (Pho and Sushi in the same day!). First to a great little Vietnamese place for Pho (OBAO) and then we took the train down to the World Trade Center Memorial. Pretty powerful stuff. The last time we saw it, was in November of 2001. They have accomplished a lot here in so many ways. Our last planned event, turned out to be the very best one. We met my brother, Neal, in the East Village for an amazing night that included some great Sushi at Takahachi and a couple of bars in the area. At the end of the evening we went to a quiet little bar called Quartino and talked for hours. We enjoyed visiting with him so much, that I just didn’t want the evening to end, and was totally sad when it did. Every time I spend time with Neal I wonder why we don’t see more of each other (living so far apart doesn’t help). The first time I saw him he was just a few months old and I did not see him again until he was 17. But from that moment, we hit it off. We grew up far apart, with only a father in common (and I use the word father loosely in this case), but we seem to think and feel so similar about many things. He is just so amazing! Anyway, sometime after 1:00 a.m. Neal walked us to the subway and we made it back to our hotel around 1:30. My favorite quote of the evening was what Rick said when we walked out of the subway station at Lexington and 51st, “I get emotionally involved with the people around me-I’m worried about the girl next to me on the subway-her boyfriend is a dick.” Kind of sweet……

I did not enjoy packing our stuff up and leaving. Even Rick said he was sad to head out. I know we have more adventures ahead of us……till then