New York, Next-To-Last-Day (5?)

Can't I just go to sleep and awake at home? I'm sooooo tired. BUT!

Yesterday we visited Ellis Island, walked by the New York Stock Exchange, drove past Ground Zero, ate lunch in SoHo, and dined at the Gramercy Tavern.*

Today we trekked to MoMA**, lunched at The Modern, visited with my old, old friend Joel, rose to the Top of the Rock, walked down to Grand Central Station (bought a chocolate croissant from a place called - I kid you not - "Hot and Crusty"), popped into Vosges chocolate for some chocolate-covered bacon, slurped a Frostee at 7-11, then ordered Indian food into the apartment and watched a Men in Black marathon. Other groups went to Strawberry fields and the Dakota, shopped (more), and ordered sushi OR went to a Mets game and ate foot-long Nathan's hot dogs.

Whew! One more day. One more day. One more day.


* Party of five, round table, middle of the room. A truly spectacular experience, and big props to the Gramercy Tavern for treating a group of 17-year-olds with the respect any client deserves. When I explained that we could not order any alcohol, the captain offered me a full menu of non-alcoholic cocktails, cider, and beer. So my students thoroughly enjoyed having proper drinks before dinner.

We ate an amuse (a goat cheese puff), then the spring tasting menu (vegetarian for one young man). It included soft-shell crab, rabbit, venison, and trout. We shared a cheese platter with five cheeses - Italian, French, English and two American (one from New York, the other from Vermont). There was a dessert amuse as well, a tiny evocation of strawberry shortcake. Then we chose dessert from a French toast option and a chocolate banana option. After that, mignonettes (chocolate truffles, tiny chocolate mousse tarts, and weensy teensy macarons with black cherry filling), coffee and tea, and as a last (last) gift little bags of cinnamon coffee cake "for breakfast."

The only hilarious bit was the whenever we asked about the bathroom, someone insisted on leading us to it rather than telling us where it was. I went last, and I said "Will you take me to The Room That Cannot Be Named?" Our captain hardly blinked. He just said, "Of course, Madam."

** I'd just like to say that the photography exhibit at MoMA is extremely disturbing.