Thanksgiving Week: The Abriged Version

It's been an unprecedented week and a half of greatness around here lately - and it didn't even include computers! Okay, I lied, there was some nerdliss bliss going on as well as some other awesome things. Such as:

• I caved in and took Erika to see a sigh-fi movie (pun intended). I am not the biggest fan of these movies and the thought of paying $30 for tickets and a drink to see "2012" is not ideal. It is, however, acceptable if you watch "2012" and a second movie on her agenda ("New Moon") is conveniently starting right when we walk out of the theater - and a double-feature night was on. Okay, so we were stuck in the first row, but it was too good of a deal to pass up!
• Thanksgiving week is always awesome because it's a short work week and there is plenty of weight to be gained (in the wrong parts). But what makes it even more awesome is when a friend comes to town from Slovakia! Roland rolled into town on Tuesday, and it was on! 
• Roland and I always get into some kind of trouble together, usually involving car accidents. But with no cars in my household, Roland found other ways to accomplish this. I'll spare the details, but suffice to say that bright and early on Thanksgiving morning, I was going across the street to White Castle to see if they had a plunger I could use. They didn't, but luckily the grocery store was open and they did! Why does this stuff always happen on the holidays, just like when I locked myself out of my apartment on the 4th of July, when my super was out of town for two weeks?
  
• Since I am rarely in town during Thanksgiving (unless I'm recovering from jaw-surgery and eating liquids), we made plans to actually fight the crowds and watch the spectacle that is the Macy's Parade in mid-town. And by watching, I mean getting there about 10 minutes before the final float passed by. I'm not a big parade guy, but the other members of my household are, so we hit that. 
• We followed the parade up with a stroll down 5th Avenue and, much to my surprise, many of the stores were already hawking their goods at Black Friday prices. Much to my chagrin, Roland forced us to go into Armani Exchange, which I consider to be one of the least likely places for me to enter due to their ginourmous "A|X" labels on everything they sell. Or so I thought. The place actually rocked my world in terms of style ingenuity. Wow, where has this store been in my life?? I still didn't buy anything, but there was plenty of eyeballing going on in that store. Vas shoved it in my face by modeling in and buying half the store - but at outrageously reduced prices!
• We arrived home and realized that we still had to cook. Ughhh....actually I was in a productive mood so I went to work on prepping the goods and stressing Erika out to the point that she went and took a nap. Rachel Ray promised that it would take only 60 minutes to make this meal and I was dead set on getting it done within an hour and a half - at which I failed! But, damn, did we do well. Of course, I realized at the end that I forgot to make the mashed potatoes, so I put Vas to work grating the 1/2 pound of manchego while I quickly boiled the Yukon Golds and everything came out just perfect. We followed that up by sobering up from the pre-meal aperitif(s) and delicious Hungarian white wine and watching "Pelham 123", which was predictable but alright. 
  

The succulent fowl breasteses

Justin as a sous-chef in 1997 (Italy)                                              vs.                                                 2009 (NY)

• We decided to do the Black Friday thing in Manhattan since Erika and I had to go to the city at the plumber-crack of dawn anyway and Roland wanted to hit the town early and do his shopping. We did marginally well at getting to our appointment on time while Roland worked at his pace and eventually arrived at 11:00 ;o). We all did pretty good at saving some cash and Vas found the caloric love of his life at Pax - Wholesome Foods. But this day is just exhausting here, dealing with the throngs of people fighting for clothes on sale.  I think that Macy's on Black Friday is something everyone should experience once in their lifetime - for the pure frustration of it all.

The first floor at Macy's in Herald Square on Black Friday

• Saturday was our lazy day of recovery from Black Friday. The apartment was trashed, but Roland and I rolled out at about 3:00 to go eat some bagels and leave Erika to her homework. It was nice to have some one-on-one time with the guy that I consider one of my best friends in the world and talk about life and normal random scheisse that we don't get to talk about when we're busy traveling with six other friends to the heights of Machu Picchu, remote beaches in Brazil, or packed into a rental car en route to Berlin for the World Cup final. We strolled around Central Park and returned in time to relax some more and get ready for the evening's main-event at a world-renowned night club - Pacha NYC.
• The last time that Vas and Csilla came to NY, we were too beat to make it to a disco and I promised him that this time would be different. We missed a world-class DJ in David Guetta by one painful day, but the local guy who was spinning that night did the job as we arrived lubricated with Vilmos at around 12:30 at night with two of Erika's friends. The place was hopping and it was definitely one of the most epic nights in recent memory since we didn't return home from "brunch" at Sanford's until almost 6:00am! I realize now that I'm too old for that since I still haven't recovered from that night! 

•  Sunday was Roland's last full day in town and he had some additional items that he needed to purchase before heading home - including a new piece of luggage that he totally got ripped off on in midtown. I probably should have mentioned that he can negotiate on those prices before he wiped out the credit card. This thing he bought was just completed ridiculous and felt like it would fall apart without even putting one of his 97 bags (give or take a few) of Abercrombie & Fitch clothes in it. He recovered from that purchase well, however, when we did a final supper of Astoria-fresh sushi at Watawa on Ditmars. The place was packed on a late Sunday night, but it was pretty good stuff, even if it wasn't as good as the first sushi place he visited shortly after arriving (Bistro 33)
  

J. Riley, after family, friends are the next best thing to have at Thanksgiving!!

Another Year, Another Beer Garden

See what I did there? I love Google Reader, but I also love seeing my hit counter go up on the blog - self gratification or something like that. So now you have to click on the blog link from Reader to read it all. If I could add a link to Facebook to do the same (rather than posting the whole blog), I would do the same thing - force people to click on the link, increase my counter by one, and increment ye old counter.

Anyway, as everyone knows (thanks to Facebook), it's my birthday on Friday. Strange, I never really celebrated my birthday much during adolescence or college, but I enjoy doing something here in New York.
I think my first out-of-body/outer-borough experience was on my birthday, when I visited the (now local) Czech beer garden. I remember it well....Susannah was too cool to come on time and arrived just before we were leaving and all my friends except Melissa bailed on me just because I wanted to go dancing at some non-reputable Polish disco in dirty Greenpoint. But I'm not still bitter about that! ;o)

Well, I'll turn a new year in a few days, so I've turned a new leaf and will be going to Radegast in the hipster safe-haven of Billyburg for this year's birthday. Having a birthday that is around the day that Oktoberfest commences is a great benefit (and so is having a Name Day around the start of the summer). So all you New Yorker friends of mine, I expect to see you on Friday night next to me with a liter of German beer in one hand and a bratwurst in your other! Whether I decide to go back to the nearby Polish disco or not remains to be determined!

Just a note: how not to celebrate my birthday (yes, this is how my cube looked when I came back from lunch. This will be removed tomorrow morning):

J. Riley, my foam mattress topper arrived today (finally)!!!

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....

Parties in the Hood

Erika and I had a nice couple days planned for last weekend. It all started out by making homemade pizzas on Friday night coupled with some movies on a disgustingly humid night. I hadn't made homemade pizzas before, and since I don't have a pizza stone, I wasn't exactly sure how the crust was going to work out. We ended up using whole-wheat pita bread with tomato sauce, a bunch of vegetables, and topped off with cheese. They actually turned out pretty good, as did the movie!

For the weekend, we had some options on the table. We could take a road (train) trip to the beach for one day or we could walk from Central Park to the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday when they closed down Park Avenue for this purpose. Or we could do both. Or we could do neither. Which we did.

The forecast for Saturday was gloomy. 70% chance of torrential downpour, a light-show in the sky with a booming orchestra, and hot & steamy temperature when it wasn't raining.

Although a five mile walk from the park to the bridge on hot concrete and little shade sounded like pigs in mud, considering the weather we decided to pass on that this time around and instead dedicated the day to the indoors, doing laundry, watching football, and trying to stay dry.

Amazingly, we did stay dry. Probably because it never rained, not even a drop! No lightning, no thunder, nothing. Just hot, humid, disgusting temperatures. By 10:30 at night, I had a case of cabin fever and was cursing the gods for not quenching my thirst for water from the sky. I decided that maybe we should take up Wunderbar, our local German drinking hole, on their offer of drink specials and live music. I figured we could go there, have a delectable, frothy, imported beverage, check out the music scene with the bountiful hipsters, and then retire home to my residence at a reasonable hour.

There's only one problem with going to Wunderbar - it's in the G-to-the-hetto. There's nothing around this place except possibly abandoned warehouses, projects, chop-shops - and a library. I scavenged through my meager belongings and couldn't find a suitable self-defense weapon (my nunchucks were buried somewhere in the back of my closet), so I decided to rely on my awesome capoeira skills and also to wear my running shoes. Because, uhh, you know, I can do the best capoeira jengas with those on. I told Erika to prepare to go to downtown Lima, which means no necklaces, no earrings, no weddings rings, no wallets, etc.

Anyway, we made it safe to the beer hall, I went to the bathroom, Erika got hit on (I believe the term "sausage fest" would be an ideal term for the place), we drank some refreshing liquids that comply with the German beer purity law Rheinheitsgebost, and we downed a savory bratwurst with sauerkraut while trying to shield our ears from the horrendous screaming that came from the rock-band singer's amplified voice. Judging by the increasing number of people that joined us
outside the place, I don't think anyone was left inside by the time the band finished playing. Yikes!

On the way back, we heard something that sounded like Brazilian music outside, which is odd considering there is nothing else around the beer garden. We decided to walk around and try to see where the music was coming from and came across a group of younger people who were walking into a building of some sort. So, we followed them up the stairs like nobody's business and low and behold, we were on the roof of a building where a Brazilian party was going down! We just missed the live music, but a DJ was spinning it up, drinks were being served (due to the above traveling restrictions, I carried no cash), and several barbecues were in effect. It was completely random, but completely awesome at the same time. We hung out there for a while and did some dancing and were completely anti-social as usual, so we decided to head home after a while and see if this is something that was going on every week or what. We found no evidence of this party whatsoever on Google.

J. Riley, and on Sunday, I was so sure that the rain would catch up to us, that we stayed inside. And it didn't rain.

Outer Borough Tour

Last week I was watching the latest No Reservations from Anthony Bourdain, when he was traveling with his crew to Melbourne, the city that I consider "forgotten" in Australia. I really don't know anything about the place, which is why I found this particular episode intriguing. What I didn't realize is that Melbourne is a huge melting pot that he described as the San Francisco of Australia. So he waltzed around sampling the local fare (and tasty beverages) like he typically does on his show and then he hit up a simple, back-street Szechuan restaurant. The food that he had there looked absolutely amazing and loaded with hot chili peppers. He commented that it is hard to find amazing Szechuan Chinese food even in a place like New York, which I mildly scoffed at - until I remembered that I can no longer consider myself a Manhattan snob anymore, considering I am the Jack of Queens (get it?). I have heard about some diverse food out in Flushing, Queens, which sounds like a disgusting place to me. Flushing, as in a toilet. Flushing, as in a part of the sound where all the pollution ends up. Flushing, as in a melting pot to where you can take a $2 shuttle from Manhattan Chinatown to. Wait, what was that?

So, Friday night after work, it was on; destination neighborhood: Flushing; destination cuisine: legit Szechuan Chinese; restaurant name: "Spicy and Tasty"; ethnicities represented in the discovering party: Latina, Gringo, and Indo-Caribbean; number of ethnicites other than Chinese in "Spicy and Tasty": 0. That's right, Erika, Priya, and I landed in a hotbed (pun intended) of spicy and tasty Szechuan cuisine. In Queens. That amazing part about this neighborhood is that I got off on the last stop on the 7 train and was immediately transported to Chinatown's Canal St, only with a few more buses (commuter, not tourist). It was jam packed with a wide variety of ethnicities and there were a ton of places to go eating. This is actually a legitimately sweet neighborhood, I could say.

Spicy and Tasty did not tell a lie about their food. The appetizers were being made at the counter next to the entrance and they were already prepared, so we knew that we were getting the spicy goods that couldn't be watered down like our entrees would be. They produced an inferno for my taste buds, but I couldn't get enough of the bamboo shoots and the bean curd? Amazing. Bean curd, who the hell eats bean curd. I didn't even know what bean curd was, but I couldn't understand what the waitress was saying so I said "yea, we'll take that one". Bean curd is like tofu, except it's more firm and tastes like CHEESE! Awesom stuff, I ate every last sliver of it.

After a dinner of double-cooked pork bellies (like a plate of thick bacon and veggies), spicy shrimp (juicy), and lamb home-style (blazing and succulent), we were all fat and happy and had enough left over to feed us for the next two days. But, being in this neck of the woods, we couldn't just go home without getting some legit boba tea. Question: why is boba tea so expensive? Those tapioca balls can't be that expensive to make, and surely the tea is cheap. Whatever, it's still great to drink and to introduce to the eager-to-try, easy-to-please wife :o).

Next stop: Priya's new apartment in Jackson Heights. Well, technically it's a year old and we visited it last year after she bought it and it was completely empty. And MASSIVE. It's now nicely furnished and is still the biggest one bedroom apartment I've seen in my life and is located in a very charming, historically protected neighborhood where something like 180 languages are spoken. Slightly diverse. Priya is awesome to hang out with and like a true Trini (from Trinidad), she busted out a bottle of quality rum (which was actually from Guayana) to treat us to some stiff rum and cokes. Just the smell of rum brough me back to the days of Bacardi-induced hangovers. But quality liquor never does that to you, so I got to enjoy some risk-free Cuba Libres for the evening. Before we knew it, it was 2:00am and we had to get home since we were planning on exploring Brooklyn the next day (in a blog to be named later). But we have lots of plans for hanging out with Priya this summer, like hitting up some clubs, eating some home-cooked caribbean food, getting her to come to our salsa classes, and drinking some more of that goooood rum!

J. Riley, a $10 taxi ride and we are home!

Summer Starts....Now!

Scientists haven't figured out why yet, but lately I've been....motivated. It's really weird. I am not sure what it was that flipped the switch for me - among other things, it could have been the realization that I will most likely live until I'm only 60, it could have been the wife telling me that I should try to accomplish more things with my plethora of free time, it could be the start of summertime in Astoria, or it could have been the new book that I'm reading that has opened my eyes and my mind to what is there for me to experience.

So on the weekends, I've started exploring my living environment - destination unknown. Well, that's not totally true. Last weekend, out of sheer boredom, I decided that I had to experience an article that I read when I first moved to this hood: The Top 5 Sandwiches in Astoria. Sandwiches? Really? It sounds kind of boring in light of the fact that we live in a crazily diverse area, but I decided that it would be a worthwhile adventure to undertake on a beautiful weekend. Unfortunately, I didn't start until Saturday evening on the 4th of July, so I only got through two of them - last weekend. The first one I hit was the one with the most consonants and the fewest vowels on the list: Cevapdzinica Sarajevo. Apparently Google Maps can't figure out our weird hyphenated addresses any better than me, so it was quite an experience finding this place. Was it worth the journey? Yes, because I got to see a new neighborhood and found some cool looking places to hang out and eat. But the Cevapi were a little bit fatty/greasy for my taste. But at least it was interesting!

The next day, I was going to hit up Sal, Kris & Charlie's Deli on my way to the park after stopping by the office to pick up my sunglasses. On my five minute walk to the office from the bus, I came across a gem among the chop-shops and warehouses that line the roads near my office: A newly opened dance studio that has lessons nightly on Latin dancing! Wholly crap, I had totally been thinking about taking some lessons with Erika when she gets back, and this place is like 5 minutes from work with reasonable rates and probably no customers! More on this later...

So after snatching my glasses, I headed to the deli to get me a monster 'which. I was cracking up because this deli is just that - a typical New York bodega-style deli, but they were packed with customers ordering artery clogging meat between two slices of bread. This thing probably had more calories than I had eaten in a week but, you know, I didn't really care! For the first time, I had a sandwich in my hands that brought me back to the epic meals I used to eat on the weekends in SLO-town during college. I mean, look at this thing!


Anyway, after spending the day basking in the sun and digesting five pounds of processed meat, cheese, and bread, I came home with my next mission in mind. The community college next to my office offers Spanish conversation courses that I neglected to enroll in a few months back due to me being lazy and assuming that I shouldn't have to pay for something that Erika can do for free. I found out how well that worked when I went to Peru last month and was more mute than at any period in the past! So I checked into it again and found that a class that offers two hours of lessons two days a week is going to be starting in August. I figured that I could enroll in Spanish II since I'm not completely hopeless in Spanish, but Erika insists I need to enroll in Spanish I. I guess I should have figured that out after being out of my league in the free classes I took in the past :o/ .

So, this summer is shaping up nicely. I took my first Salsa class last night (free every Thursday night) and, as expected, I was the only student who showed up. This place is fresh off the boat, so that didn't really surprise me. But it turned out to be brilliant - personal classes are normally expensive and I got a lesson customized to me! I was actually surprised at how my limited knowledge of the basic salsa step and rhythm carried over to the moves that I learned. I had an awesome time though and pretty much quadrupled the number of steps and moves that I can break out on the dance-floor now :o). Erika and I will certainly be attending a plethora of these classes starting Sunday!

Of course, I'm going to have to try to fit those classes in between the other events going on this summer, though, such as the free movies in the parks that are starting this week. Free mainstream DVDs in Astoria Park on Monday nights followed by independent foreign films at Socrates park on Wednesday nights. So it looks like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights are scheduled. We've gotta take Salsa lessons somewhere in between, though!

The J. Riley, taking full advantage of the summer this year!

Pizza Hut

Last night, much to my chagrin, we ate at a Pizza Hut in Peru, which is decorated to be an "elegant" restaurant here, albeit with the same greasy pies as we have in the United States. It's neighbor, KFC, was even much fancier than what we have in the States. The pizza was okay, but I was impressed with the fact that they brought out aji (hot sauce) as a condiment for the pizza. After complaining about the perfection of the machine made pizza, I told Erika it was not bad for a Pizza Hut. She said "It's because Peru has better produce/topping quality than in the US". Ha! I won the bet after confirming that the produce/toppings/cheese, etc. are all from the US.

J. Riley, the hot pepper was a little different, too. A bit more regional, thank god...

Twick or Tweet?

So I went and researched my options for getting my next dental adventure (two crowns) done down in Peru. It looks like they will likely cost me about a quarter to half the cost by going to one of the best doctors in Lima, plus my insurance will cover 50% of the work done (even in a foreign country, they'll even translate documents!!), so that will be half of THAT cost! So now I just have to figure out how to get it all done, logistically, and talk with the doctor about some more details (oh yea, he speaks fluent English, of course). I wonder if he'll have the awesome DVD goggles to keep me entertained while he's giving me new teeth....

Summer seems to have arrived - at least it did last weekend. So, we celebrated it in style, starting immediately at 5:00pm on Friday. We headed down to Brooklyn to catch a sushi dinner a theater performance with some friends of ours. I thought it was some nice classical music performance, and it was Bach, which was impressive. It was St. Matthew, the Divine. Ever seen Passion of the Christ? Yea, it was like the movie. Only it was all done in opera style, and there was no acting :o|. Three hours of chorus singing interspersed with solo performances, and only one intermission. Yikes, it was rough. No wonder two of the four of us fell asleep (not me, I survived through it, counting down each minute).

Saturday, we slept in a bit until 9:45, when I had to get up to hook my laptop up to my TV and watch the Liverpool game. There's been some pretty crazy games with them lately, unfortunately not in their favor, but they did the job on Saturday, knocking around the opposition in a 3-1 fashion. Afterwards, Erika went to get her haircut for the first time in the US. Being that we live in a heavily Euro/Brazilian immigrant neighborhood, she got a referral from one of her friends to get her haircut at a super-Euro, Croatian place called Gigi. It was great, full of fashionable gay guys with mohawks, techno music blasting, wine or beverages available to the guests and clients. And, to top it off, Erika got a great haircut and walked out looking like Paula Abdul. Which is not a bad thing!

We had some free time then, and it was hot out, so we decided it would be great to take a mass-transit road trip to check out some beaches. Three subways, one express bus, and two hours later, we ended up at the Far Rockaways, where we were met with cold gusts of wind and NO heat! We were lost in the middle of nowhere after cruising through some serious ghettos to get there. Every other building was either shuttered, an African braid salon, or a laundromat. Thank got I live in Astoria! We got off the bus and started walking and asked a guy we were walking by, "Where's the beach?". Of course, he didn't speak English. Having about seven languages covered between the two of us, we asked him what language he wanted to converse in and he said "Russian". We started doing hand-hyrogliphics and using words like "water", "beach", and "why don't you know English, you live in freakin Far Rockaway!" Anyway, after a very anti-climactic visit to a cold beach, we got back on the local bus and I proceeded to fall asleep until we got back - to Jamaica, Queens (another ghetto-fantastic neighborhood). That's a long ass trip home!

Well, at least there was one positive thing to do on the way home. Since we were taking the E-train home, we got off in Jackson Heights to try to find our Peruvian Restaurant of choice - Pio Pio. There are several elusive restaurants that we tried to find using phone-a-friend, but Jackson Heights is in desperate need for jacksonheights.citysearch.com . We walked all over JH trying to find Pio Pio and ended up really enjoying the neighborhoods there. Big, roomy, historically protected apartments, leafy streets, 182 languages spoken (fact!), more restaurants than you can imagine from more countries than you can imagine, and still relatively close to NYC. I think we decided that if we were going to settle down in the NY area (a BIG if), it would probably be somewhere like JH. A pitcher of sangria and a pollo a la brasa later, we were feeling good, so we got on another bus that took us to the ghettos of Astoria, from where we could walk home and crash after a long day.

Sunday was even hotter than Saturday, reaching a full 90 degrees! It was gorgeous, as was our plan for the day - entertaining out of town Vince by giving him a whirlwind tour of some of what Astoria offers the occasional tourist. Naturally, we started off with pitchers of imported Czech beer at the very popular Czech beer garden. There must have been at least 600 people there with the sun shining through the giant, overhanging Euro trees that provide just enough shade to prevent my chalky skin from changing into a pigment of red. Further stops included a self-proclaimed Greek-fusion restaurant for Greek beer, and a hip burger cafe aptly named Fatty's for some righteous, original burger flavors (that would provide me with 2:30am heartburn) and some fresh German hefe-weissen to whet my whistle (that would provide me with a 9:00pm bedtime).

A glorious weekend it was. And now, onto the subject of this blog. Twitter. Do I need it? No. Really, who cares what I'm doing every day? Who wants to read, "wow, just read an interesting article about industrial espionage" (besides Ryan), or "I just found out that E*Trade is paying 2% on their savings accounts" (besides Cathy and Melissa), or "Sweet, Adriano is going back to Flamengo!" (besides Daniel), or "Stefan just bought a new computer to install Linux on so that I can install an awesome photo album software" (besides Roland), or "Just finished an hour of downward dogs" (besides Paul). Really, do people want to read my "tweets"? If the masses want it, it will come! Comments please....

J. Riley, "just finished writing my blog"

T Minus Six Days

I totally fell off the wagon last week, just in time for my trip to Peru. It all started with the fact that my company is broke and didn't have any money for a Christmas party - not a free one anyway. They had plenty of other parties, most of which we had to pay for ourselves (lame). But there were some departments that bought some stuff, so we used to find out who and were and get our fix. But it became too much and I had to cut back due to health concerns. I mean, the body can only take so much before it starts breaking down.

Last week, we had an after-work engagement, so we sat around filling our bellies. I resisted for a while before I gave in and said "I'll just have one"...which turned into two. After our activity, we had some left over so everyone loaded me up with it since I live the closest to work and could probably get away with finishing it off since Erika is out of town.

So, I pretty much had one or two a night until Friday, when it was finished off. It was cheap stuff, so it wasn't exactly "good" but it was there and easily available so I couldn't resist a cold one at night, despite the weather. Saturday rolls around and I had to get up early due to a volunteer activity (that will soon cease to exist after three years of trusty and faithful leadership ;o) and I was jimmying for another one, but I had already finished it off and made a smoothy instead, hoping to cleanse my body of impurities digested during the previous week's binge. After the activity, we took the kids across the street from the cathedral where we were going to have lunch and seeing it right when we walked in, I knew that I was going to have to go for one.

And maybe it's only because of the low quality stuff I'd been downing all week, but damn, once it hits your lips, it's so good! But, I swear, I will never eat pizza again! I've just had too much!!!!

In other news, I had a nice little weekend planned. Mostly it centered around the volunteer event, celebrating Liverpool's inevitable win, and a birthday party at SOB's nightclub Saturday night. I got invited to go out to dinner, but I just didn't know if I would have the TIME. But since it was going to be in the same neighborhood as SOB's, I obliged and joined them at Philip Marie, which had one of the best menus and food that I've had in a long, long time, no small words for a foodie in New York. Everything on the menu seriously had something that I fiercely desired, and the quality (and value, really) was immaculate. Not bad for a place that I had bypassed a few years back in lieu of eating some cheap Asian noodles across the street (not by my choice).

After getting home at 4:00am from SOB's on Sunday morning (god, I love that place), I spent the rest of the weekend pretty much glued to my TV, watching the PBS show Frontline, which, like all PBS shows, is available via their website for free. I learned about Afghanistan and the Iraq war fiasco (Bush's War, highly recommended) before I finally burned out on too many documentaries....

J. Riley, two days til liftoff...

While I'm At It...

Did I tell anyone that I went to Charleston, South Carolina two weekends ago? I bet you knew if you were on Facebook and you saw all of my pictures. Or if you have a Google account and happen to have me listed as a Favorite in your Picasa and saw that I just posted pictures.

So, yea, I had the first vacation I've had since February, not including my trip to Cali for my wedding. That's a long freakin time for me to go without taking a major trip! And a domestic vacation - I don't even remember the last domestic vacation I took.

This doesn't really count as a "major" vacation, but it was one anyway - and a damn good one, at that. Does anyone even know anything about this city? I certainly didn't, but came home with a thirst for history books on this city, because it was magnificent. It was Jeff's wedding that weekend and since his wife comes from an aristocratic city, we figured it would be a great one to attend. Plus, Paul, Cathy, Ryan, and his Peruvian wife - good friends with my wife, and in fact how I met mine! - were all attending!

Being tight with the wallet these days, we flew into Charlotte, North Carolina (ironically the city were the acquisition target of the bank that I'm working for is located), rented a car, and drove three hours South to Charlotte. I was thinking that it would be all scenic since it's fall and I knew there were lots of trees. No, it was just solid green, since I guess it rains a lot and is semi-tropical in those parts.

Funny story about South Carolina that maybe you haven't heard. Erika had actually been to South Carolina seven years ago when she came to the States to work at some ski resort for a few weeks. She shows up at the ski resort with her Peruvian friends, doesn't speak a lick of English, but finds out that the Russian owners/coordinators of this "job" actually take the workers' passports and lock them in huge communal bedrooms at night with no access to phones or anything. Well, she and her friends decided to escape right after they got there and took their luggage and started walking down the road to nowhere, since they were in the mountains. They ended up getting a ride from a guy who took them to a hotel in town and paid for their room, brought them food, etc. until they could get the hell out of dodge. Somehow, the Russians found them there and the guy who picked them up happened to be coming to the hotel to check on them and more or less "saved" them again.

So Erika was checking out the map but had no idea what city she stayed in and stuff, but told me that it was on "Jackson Heights" Avenue (JH is a neighboring neighborhood that has lots of Latinos, and is the location of the infamous "putaria". Sure enough, we came across an exit for a Jackson Avenue (close, Erika :) and it was actually the place where she had been seven years ago! We took pictures of her hotel there, of the $5 Chinese buffet place they ate at everyday, etc. before eating some South Carolina (mustard-style) BBQ (tough choice, that or a million other chain restaurants).

Anyway, we made it to Charleston and checked into our hotel shortly before Ryan and his wife arrived. It was raining of course, but we all decided to attend the "cocktail party" at one of Jeff's in-laws many houses in downtown Charleston. And what an amazing house it was! We had a few beers and then headed to the bar/restaurant area to get some real food. The four of us ate at a Brewery nearby the upper-echelon bar that Jeff parked his party at and experienced absolutely phenemonal food, one of the best meals in my life. They were encrusted scallops over grits with a bunch of veggies that was just to die for. I don't know how else to explain them because the taste and textures were very complex and the golden palate was pleased, indeed.

The next morning, we went on a Patriot tour of Charleston to learn about it's role in the Revolutionary War, which I didn't even realize happened down there. Apparently Charles Towne, as it was known, was one of the richest cities in the colonies and according to the guide, more battles were fought in Charleston than in any other place in America. Interesting fact...

So we saw tombs of our founding fathers, we went to churches that Washington himself went to, we saw landmarks, toured the Exchange that 3/4 of all slaves in the US went through, learned about South Carolina's pirate problem with Blackbeard and the others, etc. etc. before finding a divey, but local, bar to eat at for lunch. The tour was interesting, but there were more places to see in the beautiful city with horrible weather at the time. We walked along the ocean-facing street to watch the waves crash against the sea-wall with beautiful, Victorian mansions overlooking all the way down to the battery park that had cannons used to defend the city and beautiful, huge, oak trees. It was just breathtaking, this city.

We decided to buy a ghost package for the night, featuring a ghoulish theater and ghost carriage tour since evereyone else was going to the rehearsal dinner. The theater show was pretty creepy and very well done. Usually those things are kinda childish and boring, but Erika screamed out loud at one point when a loud ghost cry screamed behind us. It's a good thing her big husband was there to comfort her. Or was it the other way around ;o) ?

The carriage tour was a joke since nobody was at the carriage departure site. We decided to use it on Monday morning instead and headed down to meet up with the rest of the group who were eating downtown. We ate at a crab-joint with live music next door while waiting for them to finish. I love me some crab, but not so much blue crab. They're tool small and it takes too much effort to get skimpy pieces of meat. I'll stick with Christmas Eve Dungeness next time, thank you very much.

Afterwards, we made a brief appearance at the after party at a nightclub before calling it a night since it was late and I was golfing with the boys the next morning. Golfing with Paul and Ryan behind the Buxtons was a blast, mostly since we had golf carts :) and I managed to hit the ball straight pretty consistently, even if it only went 25 yards. My grandpa would be proud :). I heard stories of Jeff's bachelor party in SLO with the golf-carts with incidents like driving up and down stairs, getting coolers confiscated, etc. etc. Jeff + Coors Light + toys = trouble and a lot of fun :o) . But, he was well-behaved on this day since he was recovering from five days of drinking and getting married later in the day.

After golfing, we met up with the girls who were shopping downtown and we had lunch with Paul & Cathy at a conspiculously named oyster placed called A.W. Shucks. The name alone sent shivers down my neck and I cringed at the thought that this place must be a chain with a name like that. But, I honestly think it was local, since it was downtown, and I in my memories of the place, I will always think of it as local. At least I didn't see it on any of the highway exit signs along with Bob Evans, Waffle House, Shoneys, and Bojangles!

After lunch, back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. Most of the pack had to be down there early since they were in the wedding, so Erika and I had some free time to watch TV while I monitored the ocuppied, free PC downstairs so I could learn how to tie a fancy knot, since I can never seem to get it right. Of course, it was ocuppied all night and I ended up with a horrible knot, as you can see in my pictures. Damn you, half-windsor!!! Guess I should practice it more than once a year :o/ .

The wedding was nice, featuring a gospel choir and, best of all, these amazing Sweat-tea vodka and cranberry drinks that I could have drinken all night if they weren't produced in limited quantities. It was probably better that night since I was driving! The wedding itself was held outside an old mansion that was owned by one of the founders of the transatlantic railroad. I'm sure he died a pauper :o| .

After the wedding, of course, everyone went to a complete dive bar around the corner that was occupied by some kids that looked like they were 15 before the artistocracy from the wedding overthrew them. We played some pool, chit-chatted, and had $1.50 drinks for a while before finishing up and heading home.

Monday, we slept in and checked out with Ryan and Lili before going to a place Anthony Bourdain visited called Hominy Grill, which is rumored to be historic, but I'm not sure why. The breakfast was traditional except for my meal, which was traditional shrimp and cheese grits - and tasty vegetables on top. Wow, I was digging the food down south - although the the chainy BBQ experienced a few days prior never did sit right.

We followed breakfast up with a carriage tour of the city that was the highlight and required activity. We had a free-lovin' hipster type of tour guide in his twenties who knew just about everything about everything and had lived in Peru, West Africa, Bolivia, and countless other places. He told us about little details in the houses like the color on the ceiling of the verandas and why they use it, the type of wood used and why the paint was peeling, why houses damaged in the Great Earthquake had steel rods put all the way through the house to the other side, why some verandas had doors and some didn't, and of course who lived in which house.

So, I can't talk about all of the details because we only had three and a half days and could easily have spent a week there, but you get the idea about Charleston. If you have friends in the area (and I know Graham does) or you ever find yourself within driving distance of the city, you should really check it out.

J. Riley, highly recommend Charleston, even if we hardly scratched the surface.

Surprise!

So last week I was getting a year older, turning the big 31. I had told Erika, mostly rhetorically, a few weeks back that she should organize a birthday party for me and my friends, since we haven't all gotten together much lately. She could surprise me with the location. She doesn't know much about the restaurants in New York or how to research them, so early last week I blasted my friends with some spam about how I'd like to get together with them for my birthday and go out to dinner at a self-proclaimed "California" Mexican restaurant. I know better than to eat at Mexican restaurants anywhere outside of Cali since they always seriously disappoint, but this place calls itself legit and I've wanted to try it out. I joked with Erika that I was looking forward to receiving all of the "sorry, I can't make it" emails. 

Well, they quickly enough started trickling in, but it was worse than expected. Over the next few days leading up to my birthday, people had school, were traveling for work, going to a hockey game, had a business dinner (typical Sean, scheduling it on a day I told him to reserve),  and the best was "School nights are really tough for me to make it to the city", by the father of a child less than a year old 8-| etc. etc. and I was thinking...geez, has my life really dwindled down to this? 

Well, luckily, my always faithful friend Melissa was available as was Erika's new Italian friend from school Roberta. It wasn't exactly the crowd that I was hoping for and since everyone else said they could do it the following week, I was thinking of just cancelling. Erika wasn't having any of that since birthdays are HUGE in Peru. 

She aptly demonstrated starting at 6:00am in the morning (I usually wake up at 7:15am) by waking my tired ass up and bringing in my birthday cupcake. It was very cute because she didn't have a candle, so she spent almost a whole boxes of matches trying to light a toothpick on fire so that I could blow something out :o) . This was followed by a post-it-note trail that led me around the house until I finally ended up looking in the bottom drawer of the dressor, where she had an awesome new shirt for me. She had apparently been saving all of the money that I had been giving her so that she could buy me a birthday present (other than the Liverpool shorts that I got hooked up with!). I was happy and tired, so she said that we could sleep for another 30 minutes, which we did until her PARENTS called me at 6:45am (5:45AM in Peru) to talk to me and tell me Happy Birthday. And her cousin of course was already there too (she sounded like she just woke up). Geez, do I really deserve all of this??? It was very nice, despite the lack of sleep....

So, I agreed we would go out and try to have fun that night. But, truthfully, I was really bummed that only ONE person would make it. I put on my new shirt and a happy face for the wife though and we headed downtown. We get to the Mexican place, and it was already surprisingly packed. There were some small tables by the windows though, so we asked if we could sit there and have some drinks while waiting for the other person to show up. Of course she gave me the typical attitude that we could sit there but if someone else came before my friends, we would have to vacate. "Are you serious?" was my response, although this is common practice in New York. I didn't care though, it was my birthday damnit! And I was not in the mood to get shuffled around just because we were waiting for one person to show up. "Okay, then there's just the two of us. Can we sit there now?". Of course, no problem. So stupid...

So we're sitting there drinking our drinks and eating chips and salsa when a bigger table opens up in the back of the tiny place and she says we can move back there if we want since the table we were at was basically joined at the hip with the bar and was too cramped. I thought it was strange that she would let us sit at a table that would fit about 6 people, but the place was clearing out a bit so I didn't think anything of it. Melissa finally got there, and I was thinking it was going to be awkward because the table was so big. She would either have to be waaaaaay at the end or be sitting right next to me, which would be weird when the rest of the table was empty. 

But alas! Her boyfriend Jonathon made it! Oh good, I was thinking, he's always a fun guy and now the numbers would work well for the table. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad night afterall. But I was confused, with mouth ajar, because then I saw D and Cathy. I was seriously confused. And then Sean, and then Priya, and then Yinety, and then David, and then Rob, and then Sophy. Wholly crap! I just sat there with my mouth open, totally confused. Okay, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, I realize that. But how in the world did this happen? Erika, in cahoots with Melissa, totally, totally pulled the wool over my eyes on this one. Awesome! I have the best friends in the world! And the excuses were so on target and appropriate, it couldn't have been better planned. I guess that's what I get for marrying an event planner!

So we had some tasty beverages and decent, questionable Cali-quality food and I got to catch up with everyone that I hadn't seen in forever, so I was in a great mood. After a few drinks and a shot of tequila, a few of us headed down to SoHo to try to find somewhere to continue the party. Erika and Roberta wanted a place to dance, but there wasn't really much in that neck of the woods that we knew for dancing. 

I wanted to check out this Bulgarian nightclub that was rumored to be in the area, but we couldn't find it and it was raining, so we decided to follow all of our compasses, and head East. Whereupon, we arrived at the classic nightclub Le Souk. A classic enigmatic, eccentric, and ecclectic spot with belly-dancers, hookahs, Moroccan cuisine, and, downstairs a hot dance floor. Sean had had a few drinks by this point and was ready to party so he popped out the credit card and gave it to the vampire at the door. I'm serious, the bouncer had the vampire teeth, dreadlocks, sunglasses, and black trench-coat - gotta love NYC :) . It was cool being led through the crowds dancing to contemporary hip-hop upstairs by a freakin vampire, down the stairs, through the next crowd, and parking it at a table with a bottle of Ketel One. 

We all got our groove on and danced the night away with no worries that night. There were plenty of instances of, as my sister calls them, "shenanigans" as the Italian girl provided a double feature that night by first her losing balance (I have no idea WHY!) while dancing on the couch and face diving the table with the hookah and bottle of Ketel One, leading to the loss of significant amounts of vodka and an army of cleaning crews; and second by engaging in an endless lip lock with Sean by the end of the night. Standard operating procedures for a night out!

We finally got home at around 3:00am. Luckily, I had cut myself off earlier and was feeling fine when we climbed out of the cab. Erika, however, was a different story. Well, "disaster" would be more appropriate :). First, she left her wallet with all of her documentation in the cab (luckily he let us know before he took off so I could grab it) and then dropping my birthday bottle of wine on the concrete - luckily it was strong and resilient and saved for another night! 

We woke up four hours later with Erika getting ready for her school before calling it off for the day and me going to work for the whole day. Poor Erika suffered a nasty day though and couldn't keep anything down all day! I think my other half celebrated my birthday more than I did, but it was a legendary, legendary night. It was up there with The first-annual Anti-Valentine's Day!

J. Riley, pictures are available

NoKnow SoHo?

So my friend Sean just moved to a swanky new location in the city - SoHo, where he pays an exorbitant rent (by New York standards, no less) for a small studio. But that's not the point - he's in a HOT neighborhood! To "celebrate" his move, we decided to go down and visit him and go to dinner and "maybe" have some drinks. Sean is not known for being a penny pincher, so I knew that his move would definitely escalate my budget for dinners and nights out.

Now, I know SoHo. Not as well as other parts of town, but I've done plenty of brunches down there, eaten at some nice places down there, and have done plenty of shopping down there on Broadway. What I realized, though, is that I DON'T know SoHo! I've been there plenty of times, but I can count on one hand (or maybe three) the number of times I've gone out at night down there. And every time I've gone out to meals down there, it has almost exclusively been East of Broadway, which makes sense because there are plenty of magnets in the area directly to the East. But West of Broadway? No, I'm drawing a blank there.

So we head out for dinner, and Sean heads West from his apartment. Strange, I thought, there's nothing West of Mullberry, is there? He suggests that we do some Korean BBQ and that sounds good to us. I'm thinking that Little Korea isn't in this neighborhood, so where are we going? As we are walking around the Gotham-like streets in the western regions of SoHo, I notice just how many places there are to eat there - and I'm sure all of them are way out of my budget! But hey, we deserve one big night out, so we go to Woo Lae Oak, a super-duper snazzy place with appetizers and Korean BBQ out of this world! Sean just moved from Williamsburg and has a huge, nasty beard and uber-skinny jeans (yuck) with his black-rim glasses, and my style tends to lean to the east as well, and we TOTALLY didn't fit into this place. This, apparently, is a classy district, so it was interesting for people watching.

After dinner, we decided to explore the hood. We had mojitos at a few places and explored the bridge-and-tunnel fueled Bowery clubs and some standard (boring) bars before ending up at L'Orange Bleue, a Frenchy, North African type place playing funky African type music that seemed like a good place to park the bus for some Sangria and chit chat. The drinks were awesome there, it was exactly the type of place that I love, where you can spend hours just talking and sipping wonderfully tasty liquids. And that is exactly what we did!

J. Riley, A fun night despite the disgusting weather!

Flavor of the Week

This week I had my quad-annual retainer checkup at my orthodontist. In a show of confidence of my teeth, or lack thereof, I found out that He's going to try a new device that sounds like it's a mouthguard-type thing that will slowly move my teeth to the perfect location, since they are already falling out of alignment, as they have since I got the braces off. I am less than thrilled by this idea, although I don't object to getting my teeth in the right spot. I mean, having a retainer with a bridge across it is hard enough to communicate with, I can only imagine what it's going to be like with this new contraption, especially since I'm supposed to continue wearing it all day and night like I do with my retainer. But I'll give it a try since I don't have to pay for it. I'm starting to feel not just like a guinea pig, but like a guinea pig butterflied on a grill in a place like Peru with these teeth of mine!

Some of you know that I like to try out new ingredients in my kitchen sometimes. First there was quinoa, black rice, and other interesting graines that no one else has heard of. Well, lately I've been using a yummy, spicy, pepper-paste laden with various North African spices called harissa, which can be found in stores like Whole Foods, if you look REALLY hard. I had to find someone that fit the "Whole Foods Geek" mold - you know, the guys who know pretty much everything in the store - in order to find it. Here's a couple super-tasty recipes that I've made using this stuff:

• Harissa spaghetti
• Moroccan chicken
  

The latter, especially, is an awesome meal with a huge variety of flavors and textures!

J. Riley, I added some new blogs that I read to the bar on the right.....

Putaria

Last night, Erika and I decided to go downtown to do some perusing at Barnes and Noble, only to find that the East Village as I knew it has completely changed, I couldn't find anything that I knew used to be there, including the B&N! I guess that is how it works in New York, constant change and if you step off the island for a few months, it'll just pass you right by.

After doing some people-watching at our sidewalk-seating at a little cafe, eating some lobster ravioli, and drinking some sangria, Erika was up for a challenge and thought that we should head out to the dark depths of Queens to Jackson Heights, which is where a significant Latin community is and whose disco's I've gone to a few times, with mixed results. Well, we didn't have much else going on for the night, so why not? We figured that tonight could be a night of investigation, we could check out a bunch of different sketchy discos and hopefully find one half-way decent.

The first place that we went looked pretty nice on the outside and had a few big bouncers in front who insisted I talk to the manager before I go in (??). He told us that it was a salsa/merengue place and it had a nice looking dance-floor, certainly nicer than the other chorizo-fest place that I had been. We went in and checked it out and I was cool with it. It was about 9:30 at the time and, amazingly, there were already a bunch of girls there. Those of you who went out to Queens with me last time will realize that this is certainly unusual. The girls were all dressed with high-heels and short-short-short mini skirts and kind of standing around and Erika immediately identified this place as what she called a putaria (you know, like "tacquiera"), which I thought was hilarious (puta=prostitute). I almost laughed out loud, but I thought the place was going to be the best we could find in this part of town because the music was pretty good at the time. We checked out some other spots nearby, saw some hookers on the corner, and got some money at the bank before going back to the place, aptly called Chuptcha, which sounds an aweful lot like "chucha", probably one of the dirtiest words describing female genitalia. And queue one great Curb Your Enthusiam episode and why not the other as well.

Anyway, so we ended hanging out at this place, getting a table and having some cerveza and, mostly, people watching. The place wall really apalling, but we did manage to fit in some bachata dancing, despite being the only white person in the place. People watching was certainly worth the $5 beers, though. Most of the men were quite a few inches shorter than the woman (probably due to the high heels); when reggaeton started playing, the place was just like Santo Domingo, with girls holding onto a stage gyrating their huge asses up against the man of the moment - it reminded me of a men's room where there's a line of guys urinating (since it looked just like that); despite our table being about a foot above the dance floor, we could almost see underneath these girl's skirts; one fantastic male (I think) dancer who was really into the music and dancing, he was just a joy to watch, even if sometimes he would dry-hump a post(??); and special mention to the bleach blonde "girl" of questionable gender. As far as I could tell, we only saw 'benjamins being passed to the girls for these dirty dances, but who knows what happens when the place closes! When we left the place, the manager said "Did you guys have fund tonight" without a hint of irony. Yea, we said, with Erika laughing and saying "it was quite an experience" :o)

We topped the night off with carne asada tacos at a street-vendor which, still, didn't meet my high Mexican-food standards. They just can't seem to get it right out here!

Today, after a late start, we went and checked out the local free community swimming pool. I had visions of one of New York's free beach (Coney Island) and was thinking about how disgusting this pool would be, but I was in the exploring mood anyway. And the pool was actually halfway decent and seemed to be clean for the most part. But the rules - ohhh....the rules. This place was more strict than a concentration camp! We were told we couldn't go in because we didn't bring a lock (which wasn't mentioned on the website). But we could leave our bag outside with an attendant if we wanted to change outside first. No prob, we were already wearing our bathing suit. So Erica but her wrap thing on over her bathing suit. Sorry, they told her, you can't have a multi-colored wrap, solid colors only. We went inside and had to take a mandatory shower (again, the concentration camp illusion :o/ ), which was somewhat comforting so that people wouldn't take their first bath in a week at the pool. Inside, NY Parks people yelled at us for using a cell phone, saying they weren't allowed. And they yelled at people in the observation area above the pool area, saying "you can't stand there", etc. etc. etc. Of course, there was no problem with kids running around the pool at full speed. That was grounds for expulsion where I grew up! But, it was nice to take advantage of the free pool, even for just two hours or so on a Sunday night.

J. Riley, needless to say, Erika isn't really interested in going back to Jackson Heights for dancing, but I thought it was a great cultural event for a Saturday night :o).

Visa Interview, and All That Jazz....

This week has continued the chronological trajectory of the past few weeks of being both amazing and busy at the same time. I arrived back in Lima on Saturday morning with the ultimate goal of securing Erika's paperworks that will allow her to come to the United States on her 29th birthday, Friday 4/18.

Because of the short notice of the trip, and a suffering budget, I quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to get a private apartment for the week and thus decided to stay at her parent's house and work from her small bedroom, where her internet connection is. My boss was generous enough to allow me to work from Peru all week and allow me to continue my stingy-ness with vacation that was honed over the past few years when I had two weeks of vacation per year.

Saturday we had to run a few errands around town before the evening plans began, which were of course going out with her friends to some discos. Last month, I had done pretty much the same, going to an all-night party after arriving fresh off a red-eye flight and I was fearful of the same this time around. But this time, they decided they wanted to go to a karaoke bar after the first disco was found to be a dud. Normally I'm not opposed to karaoke bars (as some of you Def Leopard fans know) and this time I obliged again but something about the combination of a dark constrained atmosphere and songs in Spanish that I never even heard of and that all pretty much sounded the same caused me to hit a wall at about 1:00am. Somehow I suffered through two more hours at this location nearly falling off my chair sleeping a few times. I just didn't have it in me! I did manage to croon out Come Together from the Beatles which woke me up for a bit before I failed miserably at Jack Johnson's Flake to end the night. I guess I didn't realize how hard that song would be - notably the ending!:o/

Sunday had a lot in store for us. Besides missing Liverpool's game at 7:45am in order to get some extra sleep, we had an 11:30 meeting with our wedding planner so that I could meet her and, more importantly for her I suppose, so I could throw down some cash as a deposit for her services. For those who haven't heard, we have changed our wedding date to 2/14 to coincide with my sister's school schedule. As a coincidental, accidental bonus (not to manage the added cheese factor), this happens to be Valentine's Day which makes is great for all the bleeding-heart romantics!

Post wedding planner reservation, we headed back home where I was fed very well by her mom (not for the first time, I should add!) before we had to depart for the mammoth event of the day - for me anyway: Allianza Lima vs. Sporting Cristal soccer match at the natinoal stadium! I'd submitted my request to see a pro football match down here to Erika a few weeks back because I know the crowds are crazy and dangerous and that makes it pretty exciting! I was hoping to see gangs of hooligans roaming the streets striking fear into the fans of the opposing team, fights, police in riot gear charging the line of hooligans, etc. While the atmosphere was tense outside the stadium, it wasn't quite as volatile as I would have wanted, but there were plenty of riot police everywhere and we got to see a cracking game that included a comeback from behind by the home team (Erika's dad's favorite team) against the Allianza giants. I wanted to attend another one on Wednesday night, the "Classico" match featuring the two biggest teams in Peru that surely would have been volatile, but apparently the stadium hosting that match is in the ghetto of all ghettos and Erika won't let me go. She basically said that they would steal the shoes off your feet before you stepped onto the street getting off the "combi" bus - their version of public transportation. I'll let it slide this time, though I'd love to go still!

On Monday, I worked from home during the day and after I shut up shop at 4:00pm, Erika and I went to a giant shopping center so that she could try to find some new jeans. Given the substantial price difference between clothing here and in New York, I relented and agreed to buy her two pairs of jeans that she could bring to New York. Funny enough, spending the evening at the mall together felt like the first "date" event that we've ever had. It even included eating dinner at the food court, which isn't much different than any other food court at a mall in the states except that it featured "Bembo's", which is a Peruvian burger chain with some interesting combinations like the Hawaiian burger and the Lomo Saltado (a typical Peruvian meal) burger which I ate. They had things like fried plantains, fried eggs, and other various intersting things on the burgers, The meat itself was strangely quite tasty despite being grayish in color and of course we got fries to share and all meals came with a cup of Inca Kola. I could eat at Bembos every once in a while though I'm sure it violates even more social responsibility rules than McD's or Burger King (both of which were also at the food court, of course!).

Tuesday morning I got woken up at 6:30am and I just did not want to wake up. I was soooo tired and slightly grumpy, so all the horn honking, rooster crowing, blasting reggaeton music and dog barking that defines this neighborhood wasn't the ideal way to wake up. But this was the most important day of the trip, the interview for Erika's visa at the US Embassy. So we crowded into the combi-bus at peak rush hour time, which meant that I was hanging onto a bar of questionable strength inside the bus with half my body inches away from the street on the outside of the doorway. Gotta love Lima! In any case, we made it to the embassy with all of our paperwork in hand just in time. The interview was going fine until the interviewer looked at my passport and asked what happened to my past passport (with which I had an incident last year where I kind of left it in my pants when I Washed them). I got amazingly nervous at that moment when she stared straight at me with a death-stare and said nothing for what seemed like five minutes after I told her my story. Apparently the National PAssport Agency had stamped "Replacement for a lost of stolen passport" in my new passport. Gee, thanks for the accurate statement, US Government. After taking about five minutes for me to stop sweating all over my body (and presumptively changing my skin tone from bright red to white again), things went fine and she was cordial, telling us stories about her experience with people "losing" (i.e. selling) their passports to drug dealers and stuff like that. But everything went on without a hitch and an hour later Erika's visa was approved and we were home free!!!


To celebrate after working the rest of the afternoon, we went to Miraflores that evening to try to find that second pair of elusive jeans (black) and I ended up buying her some footwear and then at Ripley bought myself an awesome spring/fall jacket and a wonderful, quality shirt for work that were both quite cheap. We went to a few more stores, but still could not find those black jeans, but we'll save that struggle for another day I guess. For now, it's back to work for your's truely!

J. Riley, Erika is out trying to find those jeans as I type!

House Parties and Holidays and Homicides, Oh My!

I've been getting verbally body-slammed about the fact that I had absolutely no time to update my blog while I was in Peru and I've been so busy in the one, err.....two weeks I've been back that I haven't been able to update my blog. Or, I haven't created the time to update el blogo. So, here's a run-down, bulleted style for Cathy.

A. Conclusion to Peru

1. My parents arrived in Peru about five days after the party. Erika and I showed them around the city, going to the downtown area and running around town trying to find the best food to eat in the short amount of time that we had. Sometimes things don't go as planned and you end up finding the best surprises that way, such as the ceviche restaurant that we went to on their second day there. Because of an earlier delay, our lunch schedule got pushed back...to about 5:00! We ran around Lima spending a good hour and a half and $8 in cab fares and found all three of the places that we wanted to eat at closed. We ended up on a quiet street (Nueva York St., as it were) eating at an awesome place in a small corner with the most AMAZING ceviche I've ever had. There are pictures of the food on my picture site.
2. On Saturday, we did a meeting of the families by having lunch at Erika's family's house. I should have known when I was instructed to wear pants to the event (though it was hot and sunny outside) and told to bring my proposal speech in Spanish. But, I was foolish enough to think that I'd get away easy with the proposal the week before. Oh no, I had to do the thing ALL OVER AGAIN, and worse yet, it was in front of HER parents, MY parents, her aunt, and her cousin! It's nerve wracking enough proposing, but to have to do it twice, in front of everyone? I really didn't want to, but in the end it was the right thing to do, the traditional thing to do. And I was happy that her dad was there this time around! Her mom made an amazing lunch for us and I could tell that it was a big event for them, as it was for my parents. Despite the language barrier, we could all somehow communicate and everyone had so much fun, laughing at the pronunciation of my dad's name: "Doug? Like Hot Dog? We call that 'pancho' in Spanish", and a new nickname for my dad was borne!
   
3. That night we took their, and my, parents to Brisas de Titicaca, a show demonstrating many of the traditional dances of Peru. Dancing is a big part of their culture and in a country steeped with so much history and ancient civilizations, it was fun to see. Her dad had never even been to the show, so it was fun that they could dress up for a night and have fun out on the town, something they don't normally get to experience.
   
4. I went to Cusco again! Despite being there twice before, I wanted to take Erika and my parents since they hadn't been there before.
   
5. The first day, we sucked down the mate de coca tea (from which cocaine is made) to help give us relief from the 12,000 feet altitude. The second day we wandered around slowly and met up with an acquantince that I had met the year before. She took a 2-hour bus ride to meet us and show us around town to some places I hadn't even seen before. We got the local tour of the giant market place with all the fresh food, some typical streets, some ancient buildings from the Incas, and ended up at the Inca fortress Sachsahuayman (sp.) at the end of the day before taking our guide to a fancy dinner before her bus left. We are very greatful to her for her time!
6. The second day, we had a private tour of the Sacred Valley, Pisaq, and Ollyatatumbo. We had a great deal from a tourist company for the trip, paying $60 for the day. Well, you get what you pay for! We had a tour guide who's English was poor and who basically knew very little. I was a better tour guide based on my previous trips than he was! The hiking around the Pisaq ruins brought back memories of my first trip with my friends, but this trip will always remind me that my dad is in way better shape than me, trudging up the hills carrying his tripod and massive SLR camera on his shoulder! I didn't do too bad on the hills, Erika was surpisingly fit (it must be her Inca lungs!), and even my mom did all of the hills!
   
7. The third day was the long trip to Machu Picchu on the train, leaving at 6:30am. Machu Picchu is not something you can get old of, but note to self: next time pay the $50 and hire a guide! You really can't appreciate everything without a guide telling you what each piece means. We got stuck on an early (and more expensive) train home but it wasn't a bad thing because it had started raining and you couldn't see anything after that. Next time, I recommend staying in Aguas Calientes (the town below the mountain) for at least a day so you can get a whole day on the mountain!
8. The fourth day, which I was bracing for the whole week, turned out to possibly be my favorite day - since I've seen all the tourist stuff before. The day of shopping! My wallet was already light from the trip and my mom had been teaching Erika the art of spending-your-significant-other's-money all too well. We ended up aimlessly wandering around the San Blas neighborhood of Cusco looking at jewelry shops and clothing stores, finding amazing views of the city, quiet, scenic cobblestone streets, a few good deals and unique items, and more than one hippyish cafes to stop and have some corn-based chicha morrada to drink. I didn't mind spending money on some of the jewelry, purses, and other things for Erika, she deserves it all and I loved shopping with her.
   
9. The next day, we headed back to Lima and bid my parents goodbye as they travelled back to the states. It was a very fun trip with them, like always, and it's good to know that they appreciate the gem that I have in this girl and that she loves them as much as they love her!
   

B. House Parties

1. Five days after I got back, Melissa had a small house / dinner party to celebrate my engagement! Everyone wanted all the details about my trip and to know about what's going to happen in the future with our wedding!
2. Speaking of weddings, I didn't have many of your email addresses in my email address book! If you didn't get my "guaging the interest of attending my wedding March 28th, 2009 in Lima, Peru", you might want to send me an email so that I can invite you! If you don't know my email address, send an email to my parents, who will forward on to me. I don't publish my email address for many reasons.....nevermind, I don't have time to digress on information security!

C. Holidays

1. Monday was St. Patrick's Day, the day for drinking significant quantities of beer, wearing lots of green, and eating too much marginal corned beef and cabbage. Paul brought up a good point: why should we go eat marginal Irish food just for the holiday's sake? Why not go out for a good dinner?
2. Good point Paul! So, it was off to the Meatpacking District, and under-appreciated neighbohood in our culinary repository, where we ate "Pan-African" food at Merkato 55 and dessert at the neighboring Italian, former-butcher-warehouse restaurant. Naturally, we had a lot of fun and had a few Irish beverages to boot!
3. Sean Murphy, as Irish as he name indicates, was conveniently born on St. Patrick's Day, so last night we celebrated his birthday with a "company party" (i.e. I don't have to pay nothing) at his Williamsburg, Brooklyn neighborly beer garden Radegast. They served up some wicked wursts, had a plethora of stellar imported beers including a rare breed of Schlenferla Rauchbier from Alex's town of Bamberg in Germany. The dinner was marginal, but the beers were great and the Hipster/Jewish music band was certainly interesting.
   

D. Homicides

1. As in, there was one. Close to me.
   
2. The scene: My apartment in the Bronx.
3. The situation: Me, Melissa and Jonathon were waiting for the crew to show up for our dinner party. Then, out of nowhere, we hear BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG very close to our apartment, followed by screeching tires and a minute later, sirens. The crew entered our apartment a minute later, having been in our elevator on the way to our apartment! We rubbernecked out of our 11th floor apartment and heard many sirens from the po-po and ambulances show up right next to our apartment.
4. The Resolution: The next day, we see on the news that a 19 year-old was shot three times in the chest and were looking for suspects! Today, I saw a HOMICIDE poster in the subway station with the suspect's mug-shot.
5. What did I do with that list of people that were going to visit me??
   

J. Riley, caught up, mostly!

Visiting an Institution

Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I continued my geographic traversals by flying out to San Diego to meet my new nephew Ryder and visit my brother, sister-in-law, niece, and Faryn, who drove down from Los Angeles. It was a classical San Diego weekend with time spent playing with my niece at the playground and briefly at the beach, sunny, warm weather, lots of eating - including an awesome Peruvian lunch in Encinitas and a Thai dish that we made at home that I take credit for....picking out ;o), plenty of Pike's coffee, breakfast burritos, and fish tacos - and a case of bronchitis for my poor niece, and therefore my poor brother and sister-in-law. The house was a pool of germs by the time I left and it seems as though I contracted something myself that has caught up to me now, hence the reason for me sitting at home blogging when I should be at the gym :o) !! I still had a great time, as it's always fun to sit around and chit chat or watch TV with my siblings. And my nephew? He is very cute and has Graham's perma-scowl :) !

This weekend I woke up with a scratchy throat on Saturday, but endeavored to go bowling with my volunteer group and a bunch of kids regardless. I must say that I am working on my form and I'm making some serious progress on my curve-ball - when it's not in the gutter :o) . Since I was bowling with kids, I went ahead and used bumpers once. I have no doubt that the Upper East Side volunteers thought much less of their leader once they saw me bouncing off those a few times!

Sunday, after brunch at amazingly (geographically and demographically) local Uptown near Paul and Cathy's with their friends Alicia and Erika, I hit the town on a mission: to find new jeans! I'm of the opinion, rightly or wrongly, that bootcut jeans are on their way out but that seems to be the only thing I can find these days in the chain stores that I hit on the way to Macy's, the holy grail of jeans shopping. It's very hard to find slim-cut jeans with regular legs that are not ultra-low rise. That is, until I found them at Macy's, of course the very last pair that I tried on! They fit me like a glove!

On my way home, it was dinner time so I wanted to find a place in the area to eat before heading back to the restaurant-dry neighborhood that I live in. I settled on a place of New York folklore, an institution standing alone amongst the modern buildings in Murray Hill - the Second Avenue Deli, which was recently, and controversially, shuttered in it's original location in the East Village and relocated uptown a bit. This place is a famous deli serving up gynormous pastrami sandwiches and a million other traditional Jewish dishes.

When I sat down to eat at the counter, I found myself in the middle of two worlds - quite literally. To my left were two recently-graduated college kids with their Blackberries and their voracious post-hangover appetities ordering many a thing from the gentleman behind the counter taking our orders. To my right, a cranky old Jewish couple with the man with a serious scowl on his face, thrusting his bowl of soup at the waiter because he didn't like it and the woman complaining about the fact she didn't get her fries immediately after she ordered them. It was a great experience to sit and observe these two pairs while eating my meatloaf (which they both looked at rather jealously).

After they left and I was alone with the waiter behind the counter, who's service was awesome despite the hectic nature of the place. I asked him frankly "Do you just get numb to the number of people that you churn through here?" He told me that sometimes you get customers like the ones to my right who want to be served immediately despite the crowds and aren't happy with anything, but you just have to take it and do your best to smile. It was a great New York moment, but you just had to be there to experience it :o) !

J. Riley, back to my wheezing and sniffling

Reverse Commute

This weekend I did the unthinkable. No, I'm not talking about the poker game that I actually was the first one eliminated from. I fought, I twisted arms, I slyly coerced my friends from Manhattan into coming to the Bronx - three of them!

The strategy was three fold: First, Melissa and I offered an evening of poker on her new set. Obviously everyone was angling to get their money back that I easily swept from them a fortnight ago, so it wasn't much of a stretch. Then, we offered to make them dinner. Dinner and poker? Who could resist? Finally, we pulled a bait and switch and offered an olive branch in the form of olive oil - we would take them to the irreverable (sp.? thesaurus?), infamous Little Italy - in the Bronx! It worked like a charm, they were sold! To add a cherry on top, they even coerced D into driving us up from midtown so that we didn't have to take the subway on a chilly evening!

And the night was splendid. Well, the meal was anyway - poker was a disaster for me. After a plethora of research, we decided to hit up Roberto's on Crescent Avenue. We went for an early dinner because the last time I went, the area was packed and the waits were long. Roberto's didn't let us down - it was packed with an "older" crowd - most likely from further uptown in the suburbs - while most other restaurants were empty. But, my oh my was it worth the wait. Fabulous food, a greeting from Roberto himself (the chef), and comments from the Manhattanites like "wow, this is probably one of the best Italian meals, best surprises that I've had in a long long time". That's right, that's how we role in the Bronx - legit fo' sho'!

Today as I was waiting at the back of the train platform for a subway to arrive - forever - I remembered the first time that Paul and left our safety zone soon after I arrived in New York and - shocker - rode in the VERY LAST CAR of the train all the way to Brooklyn. Talk about being sheltered! Now, it's the ONLY place I go ;o).

J. Riley, I have restarted my Spanish lessons in preparation for February!