Overall, NYC was fun! Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, so no fun pictures. Oh well.

We got in Newark (where we were staying) in the early evening on Friday and planned to hear Richard Dawkins give a talk in NYC. However, traffic was nasty and we couldn’t get to the subway in enough time. We decided to blow that off and get food. Parking sucks in Newark, so we kind of took the car in circles until we could find a place with vegan food. We got Thai takeout and went back to the hotel. It was fun for us. We had takeout AND watched Sweeney Todd in a place where we didn’t have to do the dishes after OR cook the yummy food. Score.

The next morning, we slept in but I didn’t feel well when I finally moved. We stayed in bed a little longer then we should have, then headed out to the subway. We didn’t get into NYC until really late, so we missed out on meeting Jen. Ugh! That sucked. But we did see Ground Zero, which was really weird. We tried to see the Statue of Liberty, but we missed the last ferry but ONE MINUTE. So we walked up Broadway and just checked everything out.

Weirdest thing happened. I swear I walked straight by an old friend of mine from school, Justin Carter. I mean, I was in NYC and to happen to walk by someone I used to hang with in Iowa when I was a teenager…bizarre. I didn’t stop because I was a touch on the shocked side and now I have no way of contacting him to see if it was him. Last I heard from him he was living in Chicago, so it’s not a stretch that he might be in NYC or Brooklyn by now. Hmm. Hope he’s doing well. He was always a very sweet and talented person.

We decided to stop at Pure, a totally vegan and raw food restaurant. We ordered the five course dinner. At first we were really disappointed because we got dishes that had literally one or two bites to it. Although I realized it was a tasting menu, I thought there would be more. But over time, we found they were giving us more then five courses. We probably had more like eight courses, ending with a full dessert each. Yum! We liked it a lot, but probably not a place we would go to again. It was a tad on the expensive side for us. However, it was so interesting to see all of the amazing options for raw food.

After dinner, we went to see Doug Stanhope. If you didn’t hear, there was a horrible accident in the city that night. A crane fell and killed seven people and fifteen were injured. Because of the accident, the city was even more crazy then usual. It took us forever to get to the show and we walked in just as the show started. Unfortunately, two REALLY big jerks sat next to us. They talked all through Doug’s performance. Rob tried to get them to quiet down, but they were super rude and kept babbling. Apparently, they became argumentative at one point. We ended up leaving right after getting the check. I hate people that ruin your night and cause you to leave an awesome show.

So that was the weekend. Much more exciting then most of our weekends!

Work has been incredibly busy lately. We just started year two in our study, so that means I started traveling to universities to work on the study, meaning a long commute. The also means my hours have increased, which is a real drag. Since I’m a little burned out at the moment, and my birthday is next week, we decided to go to NYC for the weekend!

While we are there, we’re hoping to meet up with my friend, Jen. I don’t think I’ve seen her in two years! She moved to Albany with her boyfriend, Jake, to attend art school. Both are incredibly talented.Also while we’re there, Rob and I are going to see one of our favorite comedians,Doug Stanhope Seriously, check him out sometime. Awesome.