Blogging FAIL

OK, so I've pretty much given up on this blog for the time being. Blogging is one of those things I go through phases with, so I'll probably start up again at some point. In the meantime, you can follow my Twitter feed, which I'm only marginally better at updating. I'd really like to start a blog that's more topical. There's just something face-slappingly, why-didn't-I-think-of-that appealing about starting something seemingly inane that, just for a moment, brushes up against the cultural zeitgeist. And then there is the fact that I really should spend more time doing the things I've been telling myself I should do, like taking up yoga, cooking more or decorating the apartment that I'm moving into with alex in Jersey City.

Yes. I'm moving again. This time, with a boy.

Jersey City, because it's cheaper than Hoboken, and parking is within the realm of the possible. And I can still take the train to work and get there faster than I would living in most parts of manhattan. But more on that after we sign the papers for the apartment, since I don't want to jinx anything.

On second thought, you may hear from me again soon. Moving is a pain, and blogging is a nice antidote, or a distraction at least.

Places I've Been: Long Time Gone Blowout Edition

I've been on a little hiatus from this blog, as you've probably noticed. It started when my former Spain roommate and traveling partner Erin came to visit me a few weeks back, and it just spiraled from there. (Haven't made it to the gym much either lately. Oink.) But in the meantime, I've been to lots of amazing restaurants and bars that you should consider popping into if you're ever in town:

RESTAURANTS
Serendipity 3, on 60th Street between 2nd and 3rd avenues (Upper East Side), is the restaurant from the movie "Serendipity." The place is filled with Tiffany lamps and there's an extremely random gift shop. Their specialty, pictured above, is frozen hot chocolate. Don't ask. Just drink.

UN Delegates' Dining Room, at the UN headquarters, 46th Street and 1st (Midtown East), is a good place to go if you're a tourist but don't want to feel touristy. Serves food from around the world, and the dessert table alone is worth the $20 buffet price tag. A good view of the river, plus you can eavesdrop on important people having important conversations. Reservations and dressing up are required. Get there at least half an hour early because you have to go through security.

Meson Sevilla, on 46th between 8th and 9th (Hell's Kitchen), is a tapas bar that has most of the good stuff I remember from Spain (mainly, tortilla and croquetas). But more importantly, there's cafe con leche — the champagne of coffees — and, naturally, sangria.

Veselka, at 9th Street and 2nd Avenue (East Village), is open all night. The service is terrible, but it's cheapish for manhattan. And there are pierogies. Like ten different kinds of them.

L'Express, at Park Avenue and 20th Street, is a French restaurant that's open all night. Menu has one page of food, three pages of beer and wine. I wasn't terribly impressed with the food (I had calamari), but hey, it's open all night. Also, probably the only French restaurant where you can hear "Ice, Ice Baby."

BARS
Ulysses, on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, is what CitySearch calls a gold-diggers' goldmine, and they are not making it up. If you want to meet yourself a hedge-fund sugar daddy, this is the place to be. And it's open until 4 a.m. every night, so take your time and be picky.

I'm not quite as impressed with Beauty Bar (14th St between 2nd and 3rd, East Village) now that I know it's a chain. But it's a cute little place, with old hair-dryer chairs and a dance floor. Go there to get a martini and a manicure for $10. Hospital-grade sterilization it's not, but I didn't get eaten alive by fungi and the polish lasted me a good week.

SUSHI
As I mentioned in an earlier post, there is a certain subset of New Yorkers who love their sushi. And since that same subset tends to settle in Hoboken, there are more sushi places here than you can possibly imagine. On Hudson Street is Sushi Lounge, as well as a place directly across the street. Pretty self-explanatory: eat sushi, listen to lounge music. But if you want better sushi, head a few blocks down to Sushi House, at 1st and Bloomfield (There's one around 14th and Washington too, but I've never been there).

Not Kidnapped

For those of you still reading this after I vanished for two weeks, you rock.

These ads popped up around hoboken a few weeks ago (around the time of the Georgia craziness):



Makes me sort of want to buy a bottle of svedka out of respect for their well-timed and just subtle enough hippieness.

All Hail the Chunk (or he will sit on you)

This 44-pond cat, found wandering around after his owner abandoned him when her home was foreclosed on, is currently the biggest story in New Jersey. Thinking he was a girl, the shelter nicknamed him Princess Chunk; the former owner has since come forward and said he's a boy named Powder. More than 200 people have applied to adopt him. Here's a video.

And the biggest story in New York right now? Click here. I dare you.

Fotos!

Today being my day off (yay!) I laid out in the park by the river and then took some pictures.

The only thing better than laying out in the sun when it's nice out is laying out in the sun when it's nice out and you have a panoramic view of Manhattan.

Here's downtown ...

and midtown.

Here's Hoboken along the riverfront. there's a walking and bike path that connects to another pier with its own park. (The rest of the city looks more packed-in East Coast townlike, but all the commuters were coming back so I couldn't get a very good picture.)

Some of the older buildings on Washington Street still have street signs on the sides. 

Some more things you may not know about Hoboken:

• The hipsters/artists/yuppies started coming here from Manhattan in the late 80s, before which it was pretty industrial and somewhat dangerous. Around 2000 they rezoned a bunch of old industrial space and turned it into condos and artist lofts (most of the artists have since moved on to Jersey City).
• Hoboken is a little over a mile square and has about 40,000 residents — including a concentration of immediately post-college people that borders on the ridiculous.
• Frank Sinatra was from here, but disowned Hoboken after facing nasty heckling here early in his career. Even though they named a street after him (there's also a store on Washington Street called Spreading the News.)
• Some people claim baseball originated here.
• Hoboken was most likely named after a city in Belgium. There is a story saying that that city was named when a little boy dropped a sandwich in the river and shouted "Ho, boken!" ("Stop, sandwich!" in some Dutch dialect). 
• Hoboken has the occasional chicken emergency.