Trav'lin' Light --Part Two: NYC condensed soup

Please add one cup of job hunting, researching, and writing to dilute.

After a month in England and Slovenia, I found myself in another heaving metropolis with its own delights to tickle the taste buds, jam the ear canal, pique the olfactory.

Here's a concentrated wallop of NYC sensory snapshots in no particular order:

• Emily K. and Christopher as Lucy and Ricky for Halloween!
  
• Too much champagne poured at Tout Va Bien dinner for Ms. Meltesen's birthday.
• Decadent dessert before dinner at Cafe Lalo with Cynthia. And then eating bomb-ass Mexican mole chicken. The tacos there are good too.
  
• Watching the Cho Show for the first time. Super hilarious...Margaret Cho went back to Lowell High School to speak!
• Farmer's Markets: magenta ribbons running through green chard, tart orchard apples and homemade apple cider, hefty slices of stringy squash, long Chinese eggplant, rollie pollie brussels sprouts
  
• 2046: watched twice in a month. It doesn't get much better or more painful.
  
• Ashes of Time redux: Cheesy but stunning. The closest you will see Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung get to death metal hair.
  
• E.J.'s luncheonette (OMG homemade corned beef hash, sweet potato fries, formica and chrome--retro classique!) Em Kenney had a milkshake here even after her mondo breakfast cuz it was so righteous.
  
• 53rd & 6th: Meat and Rice at 2am, smelled from block away. Devoured while sitting curbside.
  
• Central Park promenade and vibrant autumnal gold
  
• Pan ya bakery: green tea lattes and curry buns
• Washington Square Park asylum: singers and music til midnight with the crazies. Who knew an overworked culinary student and a homeless guitar player with perfect pitch could create such sonic beauty?
  
• An economics camp reunion with Ryan, where we recalled a certain special mix tape. After all this time, he still thinks the Les Paul and Mary Ford duet is cool. We listened to Yann Tiersen's gorgeous score from Amelie and gushed about Jean Pierre Jeunet's films. Man, nine years pass and some things never change...
  
• Coziness in a borrowed oversized lambswool sweater whilst eating breakfast the morning after a strange jaunt to a futuristic bar in Koreatown.
  
• Hong Kong supermarket: 2 floors of Asian goodness. Cheaper than anywhere else!
  
• The wonderful drippiness of soup filled dumplings at Joe's Shanghai shared with a long lost friend from childhood.
• Looking at the bridges from DUMBO and eating gourmet chocolate with Simone, while the trains rattle by.
  
• Creating a confetti party in the subway with my Trader Joe's trail mix--accidentally!
• Reunion with Erica after 3 years. Hooray for our federal government which paid for the exquisite dinner at Public--it was like a private eye's office in a film noir. Clerking for a federal judge with a deep expense account has its perks it would seem. And so fun convincing her of the virtues of a terrific little purple dress.
• Kojo and me, a sequel to the London meet-up: pondering the pursuit of the PhD and just being happy we can hang out in twice on different continents after a 3 year absence post-college.
• Slurping ramen at Ippudo with Cynthia just to celebrate our respective fabulousness.
• Catching a sweet little jazz show at Smoke. Gotta show the love for Yosvany and Ambrose. Stanford Jazz, represent!
• First time playing Rock Band, talking interdisciplinarity, playing apples to apples, eating lamb burgers, and listening to the genius of Purple Rain with a bunch of cool, smart dudes.
  
• Congee Village with Ryan, and discovering the bakery with sponge cake wrapped in green tea pancake.
• Hagi with Mary and Simone. If it's good enough for Anthony Bourdain, it's good enough for us.
  
• Twirling in the season's first snows with Cynthia. In fancy dress, no less!
  
• I ran away from the NYC madness and spent a week in New Haven with Erica. Slumber party madness! We made green tea mochi, dumplings, and knitting projects.
  
• Spotting the cute guy from Lipstick Jungle at Dean and Delucca on Broadway. He's from Claremont!

Here are some pictures from my friends copied off facebook from my time in NYC (thanks guys!):

Cynthia and me at Zum Schneider beer garden

Em and Em on Halloween: She was Lucy, I was a washed up music prodigy

Erica and Me: rockin' the side part

Christopher, Emily, Jean-Francois, and me: Celebrating Em K's b-day at Sway

In Central Park

For the Thanksgiving trip to Boston and Cape Cod, please see Trav'lin' Light Part Three. Sorry for the messy chronology. Part Four will have Slovenia pics.

After nearly three months in New York, the holidays were fast approaching, I had ridden my last wave of couch surfing, and there was no reason to stick around as my bank account dwindled. So I headed back to home to San Francisco, where the warmth of the sun shone unseasonably, family was abundant, and the Christmas feast (with goose no less) was bountiful. And here I remain. For now...