Grandmother's Choice BOW 8 & 9

BOW #8 was revealed while we were in NYC, so it had to wait a bit. I ended up using some of the scraps from earlier blocks to piece the striped portion of the block.

This block was easy to cut and piece using Marti Michell templates (blue squares and smaller outer triangles). I drafted it in EQ7 and used paper templates for the large triangle and the rectangles. All caught up.

New York City vacation part 4

Day 5: Sunday This morning we took the subway to Brooklyn, specifically to the Brooklyn Bridge stop. We walked down to DUMBO and found Buddy’s for brunch. There was a park along the East river with a carousel. That area also had several art galleries and some great photo opportunities of the NY skyline.

Then we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge to Manhatten. Not a bad walk, but narrow with bicycles and other pedestrians. Then we headed uptown to get tickets to a show, we picked Spiderman at the TKTS booth. Today was our last opportunity to go to the Cloisters, so we hopped on another subway and headed up to the northern edge of Manhatten, almost, the 190th St station. We walked from there through Fort Tryon Park, along the Hudson, very scenic. The Cloisters is a composite of various monestaries, religious artifacts and tapestries. The Unicorn Tapestries are the big draw for me, but there are others as well.

The M4 stops at the Cloisters, so we took that back towards midtown, getting off at Columbia University area and had a snack, then caught the subway back home to drop off the camera before heading back to the Theatre district to see Spiderman. While our seats were in the 4th row, and at the extreme left edge, we could see pretty well. Farther back would have been better. The flying around the theatre encompassed the balcony to the stage, so we twisted a lot! fun show. When it was over we headed to Katz’s Deli for more pastrami sandwiches, actually we shared one, very good¸ and Coney Island beer, a good choice to go with the pastrami sandwich. Day 6: Monday This was our last full day, and most of the things on our list were done. So we decided to do a self-guided walking tour of Greenwich Village. We’d been on its outskirts all week, but hadn’t really gone there. So we used the AAA tour book as our guide and walked around.

We started off in Washington Park, roamed around looking at lots of buildings, including one 10 ½ feet wide, or should that be skinny?

As we roamed around we discovered an Italian restaurant for lunch, some more very good pizza. We also investigated a Public Library, to check-in and get line assignments for our flight the next day. Worked a treat, even got them printed out. We decided we had time to visit one more museum, the Guggenheim, so headed uptown on the subway, and took a bus over to Central park. It had mostly Picasso paintings on display, and being tired, didn’t appreciate it as much as it deserved. The building was a Frank Lloyd Wright design.

After leaving we walked across Central Park, got a little lost (not really lost, just it was wider than we anticipated), and finally found a subway to home.

Our last dinner was at Crispo’s (another Corey recommendation), Italian, delicious, just around the corner from our hotel.

New York City vacation part 3

Day 3:
Dawned gray and dreary, with drizzling skies that opened up later. We got to the Metropolitan Museum of Art before the downpour, and left when it was over.

Our brains were saturated with loveliness.
That evening we went to the Four Seasons for dinner, a disappointment to say the least. I did not like my dinner, left most of it on the plate.
Then we headed over to see “The Heiress” featuring Jessica Chastain, David Straithern, Dan Stevens and others. It was still in previews, and had a few (very few) kinks to work out, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Day 4:
On tap for Saturday was the Food on Foot tour. We headed over to Grand Central Station, the meeting point, got there early so wondered around looking at architecture.

There was a photo shoot in the terminal, a bride with a lovely dress was on the stairs at one end of the terminal.
We met up with Corey, our intrepid tour guide for several hours of good, inexpensive food down in the East village.

Our first stop was dumplings (gyozu or pot stickers). We got a small vegie with whole wheat and shared it. Then on to some of the best pizza I’ve had, artichoke spinach with a creamy sauce, again we shared one slice.

Then we went to This Little Piggie had Roast Beef, we shared a pastrami sandwich on rye with coleslaw (in the sandwich), hand sliced thick slices of pastrami were fabulous.

The Puddin’ Shop was next, with the pudding being rich, and delicious. We shared a small cup that had chocolate and coffee flavored puddin’.

We were still full by the time we got to the hot dog shop, which had quite a variety of dogs, but we passed. Others in the tour enjoyed them.

Our final stop was Veniero’s Pasticceria, we got several small sweets, canolli and tarts and a gluten free, no sugar cheesecake that you would swear wasn’t. We took these home for later, a couple of nice snacks for later.

Corey gave us some recommendations for later that worked out well.
Not having other plans we decided to do the Circle Line twilight cruise, so headed back uptown on the subway to 42nd Street and then a bus to the piers. After getting our tickets we headed over to the Intrepid aircraft carrier museum a pier away.

The flight deck was full of various aircraft including a Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft, a Blue Angels Hornet, a Tomcat, and others. The hanger deck had even more, with wings up, barely clearing the ceiling. There was a museum on that deck, and a kid’s hands-on area. The kids all looked like they were having a ball. We didn’t have time to see the Enterprise shuttle because we didn’t want to miss our boat. So we walked back to the loading pier and got on the Circle Line boat. We traveled down the Hudson and then up the East River.

We headed back home and tried out the Corner Bistro (burgers and beer) recommended by Corey, a winner. Not being too late yet we decided to go to the Empire State Building.

It doesn’t close until 2am, but the NY sky ride (think theme park ride with moving (stationary) chairs and a large screen) closed earlier, so we did that first. It took us all over NYC, showing us places we hadn’t seen yet. Then to the 86th floor and observation deck. It was cold out there!

New York City vacation part 2

We started out our second day in NYC heading down to Ground Zero and the 9-11 memorial. Very moving

Then we headed over to Statue of Liberty, not quite finished with its renovation and closed to the public, except the land around it and Ellis Island, which had a great museum of its time as an immigration center. Fraunces Tavern Museum is the oldest tavern in New York and has a museum upstairs dedicated to the Revolutionary War. George Washington bade farewell to his Continental Army there. That night we went to see “Grace”, a black comedy starring Paul Rudd, Michael Shannon, Kate Arrington and Ed Asner. A young couple moves to Florida to open a faith based hotel, but runs into problems. Very good. After the play we went to Joe Allen for dinner, fabulous!

New York City Vacation - Day 1

On my bucket list was a visit to New York City - checked off. We had quite a busy 6 days there! The first night we just checked into our small hotel/guest house in the West Village and then walked around the area. We also got our Metro Cards for 7 days of unlimited subway and bus use - and we certainly used them a lot! Our hotel was a few minutes’ walk from a subway station, one that had both North/South (Uptown/Downtown) lines and a cross-town line, very convenient. In between the subway and our hotel were several coffee places, we ended up patronizing Think coffee for our afternoon coffee rest. There was also a small convenience store where we got our morning bananas. First thing the next morning we headed over to pick up our New York Passes - which enabled us to get through the rest of our stay without constantly handing over cash - we did that before we left home. I think we saved money, and we definitely went to a lot of things we might have passed on without it. Museum of Modern Art – Spent a few hours here, and once I got to the fourth floor I was glad we had. I got to see one of my favorite pictures - "Starry Night" by Vincent VanGogh!

Then we walked around the area, arriving at Rockefeller Center, so went up to the Top of the Rock. There was a Jimmyjib on the top, waiting for a photo shoot for a promo spot later that day. It was a beautiful day, we could see a long way.

Across from rockefeller Center was Radio City Music Hall. Loved the building art on its side.

Then we walked over to St Patrick's Cathedral - surrounded by scaffolding (there was a lot of renovation work being done all over the city).

We walked up to a craft museum that was featuring tinsel art (think aluminum foil in various colors). I was hoping for quilts, but not to be. That night we went to see "Silence: the musical", a parody of Silence of the Lambs, very funny. And for dinner we went to Guy Fieri's American Kitchen and Bar.