Graduation Day

Today we went to Erin’s graduation, which was held at the Grand Hyatt near Grand Central. Before the ceremony it was utter chaos, with grads and family / friends / others running around like chickens with their heads cut off and trying to take pictures, coordinate post-ceremony rendezvous, etc. Here are some pictures.

The ceremony itself was very efficient and the guest speaker – Melanne Verveer, the U. S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues – had a very nice speech.

I was even able to get some good shots of Erin. And unlike the countless others who decided to blatantly disregard the “stay in your seat and take pictures after the ceremony” instructions, I actually showed some respect for the other graduates / attendees by staying put.










After the ceremony there was a nice reception at the hotel with food and drinks. It was a bit of a madhouse, though, and at times looked more like farm animals rushing to their troughs to feed. Some people have no shame when it comes to free food – a few even used the buffet tables as their headquarters and more or less ate straight off the serving plates. Perhaps some were simply trying to recoup some of the money they had just invested in their children’s education.

Later in the afternoon we headed to a second reception specific to Erin’s department. It was held in the Woolworth building, which is in Lower Manhattan not far from the World Trade site. This reception was much more tame given the smaller size and reduced appetizer presence. And there were a couple of student speeches that were very nice.

For dinner I headed off on my own in order to meet up with my good friend Shannon from business school. It was great to see her again, reminisce about old times and catch up on new developments. She’s definitely winning on the new developments front, as she recently welcomed her first baby into the world. Here’s a picture of Scarlett – definitely a cute baby girl.

Chelsea and The Jersey Boys

The nice weather seems to have left us behind, as we awoke today to a very cold and windy morning. My mom, Erin and I began the day by heading down to the Chelsea Market with the Reikens, Whites and Sussie. I had never been there when I lived in NYC and it was interesting to see the various fresh food and produce shops.

We then walked to the High Line, which is a relatively new park in Chelsea and the Meatpacking District that was constructed on the old elevated rail line. The development of the park is ongoing, and by 2011 it will extend even further up to 30th street.










It’s pretty neat to walk above the streets of Manhattan along a minute strip of tranquility. And the history of the park in quite interesting given that the railway was scheduled for demolition until a community-based non-profit formed and fought to save it for public use. Here’s a link to the website…

http://www.thehighline.org/design/high-line-design

There was even a nice view of the Empire State Building...

After visiting the park, we walked up to the theater district to see an afternoon showing of Jersey Boys. The performance was very good and gave me vivid flashbacks to my childhood, when my mom would listen to K-Earth 101 (“oldies but goodies”) on the radio while driving in our blue Chevy stationwagon.

Here's another picture of (the top of) the Empire State Building that I took during the walk back to the hotel...

Pastrami on Rye, Bamboo and Carmine's

Today my mom, Erin, Christian, Caitlin (Erin’s roommate) and I went down to Katz’ Deli for lunch to have a true NYC tourist experience (Katz’ is the famous deli well known for being the site of Meg Ryan’s orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally).

I had never eaten there during my four years living in NYC, but it was definitely worth the visit. The hot pastrami on rye was easily one of the best sandwiches that I’ve ever had…ever. The ordering process is a bit chaotic, though, so it definitely helps to go with someone who knows what s/he is doing if it's busy.

We then headed to the Met to see a bamboo exhibit that was being constructed on the roof. Here’s the link to a related NY Times article online for those who are unfamiliar with it (I was).

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/arts/design/12vogel.html?_r=1

One of the side benefits of seeing the exhibit was being able to relax on the roof patio of the Met and enjoy the views of Central Park amidst the beautiful weather. Here are some of the pictures of the park. Somehow I failed to take any pictures of the exhibit itself.



















After the museum we walked back to the hotel to meet up with the Reikens and the Whites -- who were also joining for Erin’s graduation -- before heading to dinner reservations at Carmine’s in Times Square for a celebratory dinner. We were joined there by Christian, Rick and Serge, as well as Sussie Oates, who arrived straight from the airport (baggage and all) after a delayed flight from Europe.

While Times Square is probably my least favorite location in NYC, every meal that I’ve ever had at Carmine’s has made the brief visit the city’s tourist mecca well worth it. The restaurant is great for large groups, the food always tastes good, and the family-style servings allows you to try a lot of different things. And unlike when we ate there last time for my graduation, this time we actually ordered the appropriate amount of food.

Brooklyn Bound

We began the day by heading over to Brooklyn to visit Erin and see the neighborhood that she lives in – Greenpoint. It’s right on the other side of the East River and is easily accessible from Manhattan via the L train.

Her apartment is very nice and in the middle of a legitimately Polish-American neighborhood. It’s an interesting cultural island in that everything – from shop signs to window advertisements to local newspapers – is literally in Polish. Given the Polish heritage on my mom’s father’s side of the family, it was a very interesting place to visit. And if you need dried sausages, pickles or any type of Polish cuisine / ingredients, this is apparently the place to go.

Here are a couple of churches near Erin's apartment...















For lunch we ate at a small French restaurant that just opened up. In fact, it was so new that there were no menus and you had to consult the chalkboard that rested against the wall. What the restaurant lacked in terms of heritage, it made up for in terms of quality. I went with an omelet, my mom got the croque monsieur and Erin got the moules frites. My mom and Erin also got ice tea that was blended on-site and they loved it.

After lunch we were walking down the street that the restaurant is on and all of a sudden a guy started yelling at us. Literally yelling…in a New York accent thicker than any I’d ever heard in my years living in NYC. We initially had no clue that he was even yelling at us, but finally it became obvious. Not that this explained exactly why he was yelling at us.

As it turned out, there was a semi truck that had tried to turn too sharply on a corner and had hit a light post with its trailer. The light post was leaning against a wall in the direction that we were walking and the guy apparently felt that yelling at us irately (DO YOU GUYS WANT TO GET KILLED OR SOMETHING?!?!?!?!?) was the best way to get our attention so that we wouldn’t walk under the fallen post. Thanks buddy. A simple head’s up would have been sufficient since none of us were in imminent danger…

After our confrontational welcome to Brooklyn and in an effort to calm the nerves a bit, we decided to walk to a park along the East River that had views of the Manhattan skyline. It was very nice as can be seen from the pictures below. I definitely couldn’t complain about the weather – it was much nicer than the cold and damp clime that I had left in Switzerland.










After a return trip to Erin’s apartment for some water and a little time off our feet, we walked around some more so my mom could pick up local gifts for her friends. We then headed back to Manhattan and grabbed an afternoon drink at a Swedish restaurant in the West Village in order to cool down.

For dinner my mom, Erin and I met up with my cousins Christian and Rick, as well as Rick’s husband Serge. They made the trip from San Francisco and Montreal, respectively, and are joining for Erin’s grad-related celebrations. We ate at a tapas restaurant called Café Ronda on the UWS not far from my old apartment and it was a lot of fun catching up with everyone. And Rick could sympathize with respect to my frustrations over learning the French language -- he went through the same experience when he first moved to Montreal. But now he's fluent, so there is hope for me too...

The Big Apple

Today I arrived in NYC for Erin’s upcoming graduation from the master’s program at NYU. Fortunately I had a direct flight from Geneva, though my late check-in resulted in a sub-optimal seat location – it was literally the last seat on the plane right next to the rear galley. At least my seat reclined and there were no bathrooms in the rear of the plane. Otherwise the eight hour flight would have been a lot worse.

I took advantage of the long flight to catch up on some movies that I hadn’t seen: Crazyhorse (very good – particularly Jeff Bridges’ and Colin Farrell’s singing), Up in the Air (interesting but a bit depressing given the plot twist), It’s Complicated (entertaining) and Couples’ Retreat (perhaps one of the worst movies I’ve seen in quite a long time).

Upon arriving at JFK one of the first things that I saw was a Eurocafe. I’ve yet to actually see a Eurocafe in a European airport (perhaps I just don’t pay enough attention), but they’re apparently in the U.S…

We’re staying near Grand Central Station, which is convenient for getting around Manhattan. One downside, however, is that there aren’t really any nice neighborhood restaurants since the hotel is surrounded by a sea of office buildings. As a result, my mom and I walked around for quite a while before finding a place for dinner. In the end, we settled upon a standard NYC diner and it did the trick.

Bucharest - Part III

The balance of my time in Bucharest was spent primarily on work, but I was able to get out a little bit on Monday night. I went back to Caru cu Bere – the restaurant in the old town that I had found on Sunday – and it made for a very interesting meal.

My order turned out to be some sort of meat platter with more protein than I’d ever seen in my life, but it was actually quite tame compared to the “special” that my colleague ordered. I’ve provided multiple pictures below, as the “side” consisted of an entire plate in and of itself, and the meat portion more or less resembled a deep fried cow heart. Apparently it was quite good, though…

*******

Before heading home I tried to buy some souvenirs at the airport. One problem…most of the shops didn’t accept Romanian currency. They would only accept Euros. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond when the clerk said I couldn’t buy anything. It was the equivalent of departing from LAX and not being able to buy something with Dollars. Very bizarre. But then again, most of the souvenirs were Transylvania and Dracula-related gag gifts, so I guess I wasn’t missing out on anything. And at least the charity with the donation boxes in the lounge area could benefit from my predicament.

Bucharest – Part II

After finishing up with my work to-dos this morning, I finally had the opportunity to explore the city. I began by visiting the Parliament Palace, which is the second largest governmental building in the world (behind the Pentagon) and was constructed during the mid-eighties during Nicolae Ceausescu’s reign prior to the fall of communism.

The sheer size of the building was indeed impressive. It is 12 stories with over 3,000 rooms and covers approximately 3.5 million square feet. Apparently, roughly 1/10 of the city was razed in order to allow for the building’s development.










Here's the view looking back from the entrance...

Once inside the building, I was able to do a self-guided tour that more or less consisted of a one way funnel with numerous optional stops in selected rooms. My favorite room was definitely the parliamentary chamber, which you can see in the pictures below. The ceiling was particularly impressive.










Here are some more pictures from inside the building...



















After the visit, I walked back towards my hotel and toured the historical section of Bucharest, which was nearby. Based on the description in the guidebook and comments from the hotel concierge, I expected a complete disaster area that literally hadn’t been rebuilt following the devastation in WWII. But nonetheless I was intrigued and wanted to see what it was like.

Once I began to tour the streets of the old town, I could see that the picture that had been painted in my head was only partially true. Sure, there were some old apartment buildings that literally looked as though they had been deserted since WWII, but there were also plenty of lively shops, cafes and other businesses that blended rather seamlessly into the area. It was definitely an area in transition, but at the same time I found it to be a very interesting place to walk around.



















On one of the streets I found a restaurant with an interesting (and somewhat insecure) claim on the awning (see picture below). With my interest piqued, I decided to take a quick look inside and was very glad that I did as it turned out to be a pretty incredible place. Here are some pictures of the internal architecture / décor.



















I then walked around Revolution Square, a focal point of the Romanian Revolution in December 1989 where Ceausescu gave his last speech. (Apparently, Romania was the only former Eastern Bloc country that overthrew its communist government forcefully and executed its former leader…and his wife, for that matter.) The statue is of Iuliu Maniu, a former prime minister who died while imprisoned under the communist regime. The ruin that became of his life is represented by the adjacent statue of the tree with broken branches.










Next I went to the Romanian National Art museum, which was between the old town and my hotel. There were two primary collections to see – Romanian Art and European art – and I decided to go with the Romanian Art exhibition since there was only enough time to see one of them. Overall, I found it to be quite interesting – there was a lot of religious art in particular. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures aside from those taken outside the museum, though, as none were allowed unless you paid a hefty surcharge.










After the museum, I walked around some more and found a nice park not far from the hotel. There were plenty of people there enjoying the warm Spring weather and late-afternoon sun.










I also saw some interesting churches, which were all quite small, as well as the opera house…

Bucharest – Part I

I’m in Bucharest this week through Wednesday for work and decided to come early so I could explore the city over the weekend.

Upon my arrival, I headed for the taxi line and looked for an official airport taxi – apparently there’s only one official provider and I had been told to stick with it. Though I’ve taken countless “gypsy” cabs in NYC, I figured I’d go with the real thing given the unfamiliar environment.

The driver of the first taxi in the queue wasn’t very excited about this since he was one of the “entrepreneurial” taxi drivers. “What do you think…that this is Albania?” he said sternly. “You’re going to have to wait a long time for an airport taxis and they’re the same as mine,” he warned. Regardless, I replied that I was happy to wait and magically the second taxi in the queue (which was an official one) pulled right up to me and I was all set.

During the ride from the airport to the hotel, I definitely could see the former communist-era influence on the city around me. There were many wide avenues and large, plain buildings that likely housed some governmental department at a point in time. I also had the opportunity to get my first exposure to the Romanian language as the cab driver talked on the phone the whole time. It sounded familiar as a Romance language (perhaps closest to Italian), but I couldn’t understand one bit.

At one point we passed the “Arc de Triumphe”...

Unfortunately, my plan to explore the city today didn’t ultimately work out since I ended up working all day. It was my first weekend work in quite a long time and reminded me how nice it is to be free from the shackles of my former professional life. Nonetheless, I was able to learn something very important about the city from my hotel room – apparently its name is pronounced BOO-char-est and not BYOU-char-est.