Emily and Justin's apartment

Their living room

 Macy and Gambit.  Gambit belongs to the roommate, Dan and is a very energetic dog. 

 From the kitchen looking toward the living room.  Dan's room is next followed by Emily and Justin's room.  It's called a railroad style apartment as you have to walk through one bedroom to get to the next one.

 Macy soon figured out that Gambit has had some discipline training.  The secret was to say 'Gambit sit' instead of just sit.  He could follow commands if you said his name first and Emily had some bologna she was willing to part with so Macy could give him a treat.

 The kitchen and the door to the small backyard they have.  It's completely enclosed so it makes a great space for Gambit.

 Emily and Justin at their kitchen table.  :-)

 Their front door

 Their apartment door is at the very end of the hallway under the stairs.

The outside of their apartment.

Hard to resist the giant love sign.

 

 

 
 There's always something goin on in Central Park and as we approached the angel fountain and bridge we realized there was a crowd gathered.  We had gotten there just in time for the I DO's of a wedding!!  Applause followed and then a string quartet started playing.  It was very cool.

 Bubble blowers always draw a crowd too.

 After a very long trek we finally found the Alice in Wonderland statue.  Emily and Justin wanted their picture taken with it but it was crawling with kids.  Macy did her best.

 The other destination was the Imagine mosiac in honor of John Lennon.  Luckily, Mayor Gary (mayor of Strawberry Fields) was there just about to give his speech.  We had great timing!! 

The MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) was on Macy's must see list.  One of her art books from school feature lots of works of art from the MoMA and it was fun to watch her dart from piece to piece.  We discovered that the very cool paintings by the very cool artists are on the 3rd and 4th floors so if we go back, or WHEN we go back, we'll start from the top and work our way down.  (there's a little museum tip for you)

Yes, I think these are ball sacks, for a lack of a better description.  Not sure why i took the picture except it's just so bizarre I couldn't leave without taking one.  Notice the next picture down is two old school shop vacs.  What immediately when through my mind was, ball sacks and shop vacs - what a great topper for a scrapbook page.  :-)  

 

 AND WE FOUND IT!!  The same Jackson Pollack painting that was at the MET and the same picture I took of Macy looking at the painting!!  Made my day!!

 And Monet - I LOVE Monet....

 This is an artist's conception of the Internet usage world wide.  On the left represents internet usage in 2002 or 2003??  and on the right is 2012.  It's exploded.  Good?  Bad??  only time will tell.

 The Scream by Edvard Munch. I'm pretty sure all three of my kids have done this painting in elementary school.

 Starry night by Van Gogh

 Olive Trees by Van Gogh

 Paul Cezanne.  Not that I'm ever going to own one but it sounds good if you can name it.

And of course Andy Warhol

Katz's Deli

Justin insisted we were going here before we went home and I'm really, really, glad we went!!  It's a famous deli that was featured in the movie, "When Harry met Sally" and there's a table that's marked from where the actors were sitting during the shooting.  The walls are full of framed photographs of the owner with famous actors and actresses who have been to the deli over the years. 

 Justin ordered us two pastrami sandwhichs that we shared along with some fries and a plate of pickles unlike any other pickles I've ever tasted.

 As we ordered at the counter the deli guy gave us a plate of pastrami to taste.  It was melt in your mouth good and when the deli guy asks if you want mustard, don't say no.  They frown on no mustard.

 Hungry yet??  mmmmm

 Tons of photographs!

 You are handed a ticket when you walk in.  This is what they write on when you order your food and you have to give this to the clerk on the way out so you can pay for your food.

 Very busy, very popular place.

 Unfortunately this table is always taken.  ha ha

Notice that if you don't give the ticket back, it's a $50 fine.  You definitely want to give the ticket back.

Supper in Little Italy!!

This was on my must do list.  Last time we were in NYC we walked through Little Italy and I was determined that I would eat there one day.  I told Emily that was something we HAD to do this trip and so we planned to be in that area for one of our meals.  We were looking for a restaurant that Emily and Justin had eaten at before and they didn't remember the name of it. As we walked up the street several restaurants had 'hosts' outside trying to get you to come into their establishment.  As we paused outside one of the restaurants, the guy was talking to me about the empty ice cream dish I was carrying.  That gave Emily and Justin time to figure out this was the one we wanted to go into so the guy took my trash and seated us at a table.  He said this was the best restaurant on the block and asked if I thought he looked like a lawyer - he wouldn't lie about his restaurant.  ha ha

 We started out with bruschetti.....

 And we all tasted each other's main dishes - Justin's was the best.  Some kind of chicken and spinach thing that literally melted in your mouth.  It was amazing.

 Emily had bow tie pasta and salmon.

 Macy had a hard time deciding because the menu looked so yummy so she went with a simple alfredo sauce and it was heavenly.

 I tried the rigatoni with salmon in vodka sauce.  Very good!!  The name of this restaurant is Lunella Ristorante and Justin remembered to 'check in' on Four Square when we were there so they would remember where we were.  Smart phones come in very handy!!

 We decided to have dessert at Caffe Roma - we ordered tiramisu, hot chocolate and espresso. Very tasty - you could tell the lady fingers were homemade, of course!!

Fortunately there was a comic book store across the street from the Shake Shack and both Macy and Justin wanted to go inside.  It was on the second floor and it was warm.  That's all I needed to hear!  We stayed a good while - long enought to get nice and toasty warm and listen to the employees banter back and forth.  They seem like really fun guys to hang around with and the atmosphere was just like what I would expect from the comic book store that's featured on "The Big Bang Theory" and it was fun to see it come to life.

 More waiting for the subway.  You will see plenty of subway pictures because I can't take enough pictures of my girls and the subway was a good place to do that.  :-)

 Looking over our new comics from the comic book store.

 One of the placed I wanted to go back to was Ferrara's bakery.  Mrs. Sunde had directed Macy and I to it on our last trip and I haven't forgotten the display case with the most amazing treats I've ever seen outside of a magazine ad.  As we were walking to China town that day, I happened to look up and saw this sign!!  We went in, of course!!

 



See what I mean??  Absolutely amazing!!

 I'll try all of them, please!

 We did get a box of goodies to go.  How could we walk out empty handed??