The Gettysburger and Turkish Delight

This past weekend marked my parent's third trip out to New York to visit - but their first visit since I've lived outside of Manhattan. It was also going to be an interesting trip since they've seen the museums and the typical tourist stops and also because my mom wanted to drive through "the country" and see some landscapes, which would be the....second time I've made a trip outside of Manhattan since I arrived on these shores six years ago (slight exaggeration, but not by much).

My parents arrived Friday evening after a looong day of flying delayed - and feeling quite famished. Apparently, Delta's low-cost flights are self-subsidized by charging for the food and for "extra baggage" (i.e. everything not carried-on). We put that issue to bed by feeding them with a taste of Astoria: my famous (in my household of two) Harissa Spaghettini along with fresh, soft whole wheat pita breads and hummus - which I knew mom would love since she's a big fan of Greek food. Apparently they weren't kidding when they said they were famishes since we nearly polished off two pounds of whole wheat pasta between the four of us.

From there on out, we were non-stop for four days - although it really didn't seem too rushed. Let's break it down, bullet-point style...

New York:

• We woke up at the Haines/Salazar household version of the "butt-crack of dawn" for a Saturday - sometime around 8:00am - in order to fit our busy schedule into the day.
  
• Naturally, this started off with a mouthful of carbohydrates from the place that I consider to have the best bagel in New York - Brooklyn Bagel and Coffee Co., right here in Astoria. We were running late for the next planned event though, so we grabbed our bagelwiches and jauntied down to the subway - destination Union Square.
  
• We had a game to catch! It's been eons since I've made the road trips down to the 11th Street Bar to watch a Liverpool game, and dad was pretty stoked on trying one on for size, while the girls were perfectly happy to peruse the stores in Union Square rather than cram into the jam-packed bar at 10:00am. And, being one of the most important games of the season so far, it was a good day to be among Kopites as the Everton jeers were silenced by a 4-0 pounding of Burnley. I introduced dad to the folklore of the game, the stories and biographies behind the players, and the play-by-play & strategies of the game. I think dad has been converted ;o). The girls also scored with a hat-trick of their own by identifying plenty of things that they wanted to pick up the next day during their shopping blitzkrieg.
• We had no time to spare when we stopped for a brief grab and go lunch at Rice, because we had a Big Onion tour of NoLIta and SoHo to take. We were introduced to the cast-iron facade architecture of beautiful SoHo, the history of the buildings, and the location of 18th-century brothels before wandering over to the "other" St. Patrick's church to marvel at in NoLIta. It was a bit of a crowded tour considering the location, but it was interesting nonetheless.
  
• After marveling at Manhattan's first skyscraper (the Flatiron Building) and dropping of some papers in Chelsea, we slowed down and stopped to smell the flowe...-ing sewage at a small cafe to get our caffeine and sugar fix to keep us going. We didn't have much of a schedule to work off of at this point, so we loitered around, checked out furniture and the mattresses at Macy's (including the dreamy Tempur-pedic) and then headed off to dinner in Astoria with Shane-the-bitter-blue and Susannah at Mundo.
• Mundo is hot. This place serves crazy delicious Argentine and Turkish-influenced food that Susannah and Shane are willing to travel an hour for. The place just has a really friendly vibe and the Argentine host (his name is Willie, apparently) is an expert in all things Astoria. We dined on delicious conversation, platefuls of sultry food, and several pitchers of sangria before we decided to try a recommended night-cap at the nearby (and recently opened) Sweet Afton, which was packed at the early hour that we arrived. Willie highly recommended the Red Lemonade and he was on the money with that one. It was like drinking...red lemonade, except it lit you up pretty quick - just ask my mom ;o) !
• On Sunday, we slept in a bit and had a lazy morning, although it could have been more lazy after our second experience at hidden brunch-spot Elo. Erika and I had experience at this place with Summer and this time around wasn't much better. Last time, we waited almost an hour for the Sunday morning chef to show up before we bailed and this time wasn't much better. The food was solid, but nothing to write home about (except in a blog). Note-to-self: don't bother getting their til noon for brunch because the chef doesn't bother getting there until then either.
• The only location that we had scheduled to visit was picturesque Fort Tryon and the Cloisters. After a long and un-fruitfull walk through the LES to buy Teany tea (closed due to a fire), dad and I decided to stop into the newly opened (!!!) Topman in SoHo. I've browsed their website, but I didn't have any idea that they would open a US location until it was spotted on our tour the day before. It's a great place for a little Fort Tryon of our own - shoes! I've been looking for some new dual-purpose shoes to replace my aging Euro-pumas and I scored a pair for my birthday - but not before dad found a pair of Euro-treaded Plimsolls of his own liking :o).
• To wrap up the day (in Manhattan), we decided to take the train road-trip up to Fort Tryon Park for a walk despite the Cloisters being closed. With such magnificent weather, Fort Tryon was the only place to be with it's lovely views of the Hudson Valley and it's tree-shaded paths. If you've been-there-and-done-that in Manhattan, then it's worth a trip up to this corner of the city for some relaxation.
• One of the benefits of going all the way up to Fort Tryon Park is that you can also take a vaguely interesting tour of Washington Heights and Harlem from the safety of the MTA public buses on your way home. These colorful ethnic communities aren't normally visited by visitors to the city, so it was nice to see them although gentrification is definitely taking it's toll on these out-edges of Manhattan.
  
• The last stop of our day was going to be meeting Susannah at the Bohemian Beer Hall and Garden - definitely a place to stop for reasonable food and fare on a blissfully warm afternoon/evening. They have a whole hosts of beers that we partook in along with burgers, kielbasa, and bratwursts to fill our bellies.

At this point, the next stage of the journey began as my dad and I headed out to Laguardia Airport to pick up a rental car with GPS and everything. Miss Garmin was definitely a worthwhile investment for the trip, though she had some serious issues with airports. She did NOT like to go to Astoria (from Astoria) and did not like to go back to the airport in Astoria (from Astoria). Both trips took at least an hour each, even though upon further review I found that the airport was essentially right down the street from me. Luckily, everything in between was golden with this little beauty.

We didn't know much about what we were in for when we departed at 6:00am on Monday morning for a four hour drive to southern Pennsylvania, other than what dad found on the internet that morning while everyone was waking up and putting on their faces. All we and Miss Garmin knew is that we were heading for the Tourist Visitor Center: Gettysburg.

J. Riley, to be continued....