strands of macaroni

this weekend after zach recuperated from his trip to los angeles, we took a little trip down to nyu area/ the east village. we did a little window shopping/ browsing through several stores... but amazingly i went to both dsw and filene's basement and did not buy a thing! how is it that living in new york i buy less clothes? this photo is walking up the stairs at strand books. somehow we also went to strand and zach didn't buy a book! what the heck is going on here? :)

we followed up our little walk with an excessive amount of macaroni and cheese at s'mac. it was delicious, they had so many options to choose from! next time, however, i think we'll be splitting a dish- there is actually such a thing as too much macaroni and cheese. maybe next weekend we'll head to peanut butter and co, to indulge in another comfort food restaurant.

walking the brooklyn bridge

this weekend was filled with walks. on saturday afternoon we took a long walk through central park. we started at columbus circle, and walked up the mall. we hadn't been to this park, and were pleasantly surprised with this part, lined with statues, that reminded us of the champs elysees. we continued up past the bandshell, and turned around at the nature observatory. we back tracked along the east side, and walked through the zoo area. we caught a glimpse of a polar bear, but didn't see any other animals.
we walked back through the lower, upper west side and dropped in at a farmers market to pick up a few veggies for the turkey that we had decided to make on sunday.
on sunday we decided to walk across the brooklyn bridge, and walk around in dumbo and brooklyn heights for a bit. the walk was quite nice, with beautiful views along the way. its amazing how many people are on the bridge, and how many walk it each day. we visited jacques torres for a shared cup of hot chocolate, and perused a book store. after a walk through brooklyn heights and along the promenade, we decided to head home and make some soup. the temperature has dropped quite a lot today, and we are hoping that we get some of this snow that all of the weather people have been talking about. the forecast right now stands between one and three inches tonight...

laundry lady

so far we have resisted the typical new york laundry habits- the wash and fold service. we'll see how long this continues. this is a photo from inside our laundromat. i was spoiled from laundry in richmond- its expensive to be clean in new york! compared to 75 cent washers and dryers in richmond, here a small washer is $2.50 and a large one is $5.00! the quarter slots are even set up that each holds two quarters! the positive side of laundry is that the people watching is always quite interesting, and it gives me a bit of quiet time to read. i'm thinking between this and the subway, i am going to have read more this year than in the last several years.

birdies

this is the pigeon that is sitting on the window sill that i can see from my desk at work. there is another bird that comes sometimes as well. they are pretty cool.

while not at work...

zach and i had the week off for the holidays, and had a nice time in the city. for new year's eve we decided to go ice skating at bryant park. the line was super long, but the skating was fun. it is a similar experience to skating on railroad tracks full of people! we also walked over to grand central station to check out the light show and the christmas train display in the transit museum. we discovered that this is where they sell the credit card sized subway maps, but unfortunately they were sold out. oh well, we'll check back another day.
this is one of the many christmas tree stands in the city. you can see the remnants of snow on the street too.
i made chocolate chip cookies on christmas eve, i thought that i would test out the kitchen, and do a little baking. the cookies turned out well, i don't think i can remember the last time i made cookies from scratch. we had a nice quiet christmas day at the apartment opening presents and making breakfast and a roast for dinner. dash enjoyed helping assembling the muji storage containers.
my family came to visit at the end of the week. we walked around the typical city sites, and then went to moma's free friday nights, to show them some of the modern art galleries. on saturday, we stood in line at tkts to get half price tickets to Mamma Mia. (featuring the music of abba) the show was good, there is one scene where the guys are wearing wetsuits and dancing in flippers which is hillarious!
new year's was a fun time, hanging out with friends. unfortunately our firework view was blocked by buildings, but we still had the countdown. at 2am we went to a les savy fav show at the bowery ballroom which was excellent. i didn't really know what to anticipate, but it was quite a show. we managed to get home after five am, we took the subway, which was still bustling even at that time. we had decided to avoid the crowds of times square, and steer clear of that area for the whole day! (i also had an exciting afternoon of doing laundry before all this.)happy 2008!