usa part four: new york

Saturday May 16th I headed down to New York (took Amtrak instead of the bus this time – nice!!!). I had a kind of panic attack as my train pulled into Penn Station because my suitcases were SO heavy and I had no idea how I was going to get from the train platform up to the street and all the way to Sara’s house in Brooklyn and I think also visiting New York just kind of stresses me out now that I don’t live there anymore! It turned out to be no problem after all, I just took a taxi, easy peasy. Sara and Pete were very nice hosts, and Sara baked a delicious pineapple upside-down cake. On Sunday I went out to White Plains and had a wonderful brunch with Barbara and Lisa, and got to see Lisa’s vegetable patch in the community gardens which was pretty neat.

Spent most of the New York visit in design mode, window-shopping and researching, took lots of fun pictures!

Its always amazing to be back in Greenpoint, where I used to live almost TEN years ago! Everything has changed so much, there is so much more going on in Greenpoint now, but it’s still a really lovely little neighborhood and no longer feels as remote and disconnected as it did when I lived there. Anyway, it was fun to see this place totally unchanged:

they still have the same payphone that I always used to call up to my (then) boyfriend’s apartment to say come on downstairs and meet me!

Had a happy night out drinking beers at Botanica with New York friends, went to visit Ben’s backyard garden in Brooklyn, hung out at Emily’s house in the East Village, and on my last night went out to a Public Art Fund benefit dinner and bowling night in which I WON A BOWLING TROPHY in a fabulous surprise coup since I am usually a poor-to-horrible bowler. An excellent finish to my New York visit. This was the first time that I’ve gone back to visit New York and NOT gone in to work a bunch of hours while I’m there. It was a super short visit but I think it was a lot nicer not having to squeeze in long work days on top of visiting friends and everything.

Wednesday, May 20th: night flight back to Argentina, sad to leave behind friends and family but excited to get back to my work and routine, feeling homesick for my cozy house in Buenos Aires and Mike and dogs and studio etc…

usa part two: road trip!

monday morning, on the road again. We stopped first at Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor to get some crusty bread and other goodies for the road. They hand out all kinds of free samples in there! I tried a really interesting taste of salty chocolate, and the best thing we tried was this Agrodolce white balsamic vinegar. Then we headed out to meet Mike’s Bubi Goldie for brunch at a classic greek Coney Island diner (serving the Detroit specialty: Coney Dog, a hot dog smothered with meaty chili, diced onions and mustard). Judy tried the Coney Dog but I opted for a huge greek salad and a strawberry milkshake. yum.
and then back in the car, headed for Canada. I was excited to visit Canada but it was pretty featureless, really. I fell asleep and woke up at Niagara Falls! We stopped to eat our sandwiches and check it out.

I had never seen it before and it was absolutely lovely but kind of an anti-climax after seeing Argentina’s way-more-exciting Iguazu Falls. We stayed that night at a cute bed & breakfast in upstate New York, the Adams Basin Inn, an early-1800′s tavern which sits right on the banks of the Erie Canal. It turned out to be a beautiful, warm evening and after a long day in the car, we were psyched to head out to the gazebo on the riverbank with a cooler full of fancy cheeses and a bottle of Argentine malbec to watch the sun setting over the canal.

day two, we headed east towards Troy, New York, where we stopped to visit dear friends Andrew and Vickie. We rolled in around 5pm and picked up some groceries to cook a big tasty dinner together! It was exciting to check out the progress on Andrew and Vickie’s house, they are continually renovating/improving it in a totally DIY manner with lots of scavenged materials. Since last year they’d built a whole new bathroom and a greenhouse and some beautiful new vegetable beds in the Yarden. Best of all, they adopted Shae, this amazingly relaxed and benevolent little black pup, a lab mix who just lives to hang out and be cute and agreeable. The night flew by and we had such a nice time catching up with old friends, we forgot to take any pictures.

day three: more driving, headed East along the scenic route through the mountains, Vermont and then New Hampshire and then finally to Maine!

usa part one: Michigan

We flew into Detroit, arriving on Thursday morning April 23rd. As soon as we dropped off our luggage and got cleaned up, we headed out for thai food! which was the number one thing we’d been looking forward to eating on this trip. We spent a few lovely days visiting with all kinds of family. My parents had driven out from Maine for the wedding, and we also got to meet up with my uncle David and his girlfriend Liz, who live in Grand Rapids. Then we spent time with Mike’s dad Sandy and his wife Cheri and all their lovely family, and we met Mike’s adorable new niece Riley (three months old!) and of course we spent time with Mike’s mom Bonnie and her now-husband Les, whose wedding was the reason for our whole trip! and all of their families.

There were so many delicious and fun family dinners, it’s impossible to recount them all, hopefully it is sufficient to say that we were hospitably received and very well fed.

The wedding was lovely, it was held at an old arts club in downtown Detroit, called the Scarab Club, right next to the Detroit Institute of Arts. The upstairs club room is absolutely beautiful, an arts & crafts style lounge with awesome architectural details. The wooden beams have been signed by hundreds of artists who’ve come to visit Detroit since the club was opened in the 1920′s.

after the ceremony we had a delicious meal and a musical performance by two cello players.

Then we killed a few hours wandering around downtown Detroit (yikes!) in our wedding togs, until it was time to meet Sandy and Cheri and Robin for some delicious BBQ at the famous Slow’s Barbeque. It was totally awesome and delicious, as promised. (this was the other top food we’d been looking forward to eating in the USA!)