24 hours in NYC

Hello everyone! It's Saturday today, but I'm going to tell you a bit about this previous Wednesday and Thursday! My mother and I, en route to Barcelona, made a 24 hour stop in NYC to visit my great Aunt Hilda and my darling friend Alie! We flew in Wednesday night and checked into a really nice hotel on 79th and Broadway. After about an hour of resting we made our way down to Lincoln Center for their first night of their Out of Doors concert series, stopping at your typical upper west side gourmet grocery store to put together a picnic dinner. Man I love those places! Anyways we settled down on a bench and ate our dinner to the opening act - some Arabic jazz fusion band - while we waited for the main act to begin, Dave Brubeck Quartet!

Dave Brubeck Quartet at the Lincoln Out of Doors 50th Anniversary

When they started to play, every person there was TOTALLY captivated! All 4 of them are really old, but they rocked sooo hard. Towards the end of their set they brought out a man from Pakistan for some more Arab jazz fusion, but for the last song he wielded a violin. The first part of the last song was a duel type thing between the resident saxophone player and this new violinist and it was amazing - both these instruments were just whining and screaming into the open air, and every person in the crowd was just silent. The violin solo was even more spectacular as the player took a simple jazz riff and twisted and turned it into an unbelieveable journey and then in true jazz style brought the whole thing back in just a few notes to close out the night, and the concert, in the most classic jazz you've ever heard. I guess what I'm trying to say is it was pretty damn awesome. As we were leaving we happened upon Dave Brubeck himself leaving the building and joined in with a handfull of others to offer him another round of applause. A very great night.

The next day, after the continental breakfast circus mess the hotel offered (6 small tables between 200 guests), we stopped for coffee and went to see Hilda for a very nice lunch. She's 93 years old and sharp as a tack, it's really so much fun to spend time with her. We then met Alie, whose birthday was the day before, literally on the street and went to get our nails done (in true New York fashion).


Black is the new black.

We stopped at a little bar place for a glass of wine (or a mojito, in my mom's case), wished Alie a happy birthday, and headed out to JFK for the next leg of our journey.

Aww! Happy Birthday, Alie!

Mom, a mojito, and some Willy Wonka glasses.

I was hoping I would be able to upload pictures to share every other day or so, but the guy we are staying with is really uptight about his computer, so it's just less stressfull to post from my phone. Hopefully I will find a place to upload at least a few photos before my adventure is over. Alright, gotta go, tapas and sangria await!