glass and plants

Today we went to the New York Botanical Garden in The Bronx to see the Dale Chihuly installation. He is an artist that works in blown glass and he had thousands of pieces placed throughout the garden among the plants. Some were large, some were small. Unfortunately, the show has been up since the summer and today was the last day, so we can't really recommend any one go, but I'm very glad we did!





This isn't glass, it was a really neat cactus that I liked because it looked like it was painted!

botanical garden

We really enjoyed walking around the rest of the garden on this beautiful fall day. It was like a mini vacation from the city.






The garden is really an oasis in the middle of the Bronx. It's quite obvious you're back in the city.

my hero!

This afternoon David got to be a local hero. He was coming home from kicking footbag and was walking up the step to our building when a girl on the street pointed out a window on the 3rd floor of our building, and said "you might want to do something about that." She was referring to a pot on the stove that was on fire. David went up to the apartment and no one was home, so he knocked on the neighbors door to let her know to get out, and they called the fire department. It turned out not to be a big deal, but who knows if the girl on the street and David had not acted as they each did, the fire could have quickly gotten a lot worse.
As you can tell from the firemen standing around chatting, the situation was not serious:
The fire was in the same apartment we have, but 2 floors below, so after David had alerted the neighbor and fire department, he called me. Well, I wasn't home. I had just popped out for 10 minutes to the bookstore, and I had actually left the oven on because I was roasting beets! So, his call freaked me out at first because I thought it was my oven. Luckily it wasn't, but I'm not taking this as a mere coincidence. Rather, as a big fat red flag not to leave things cooking while I'm not home. So, let this story be a reminder to everyone, and a lesson that it's good to peer into windows from the street!

Reconnecting with the city

Our friend Liz from Austria came to visit us last weekend. We walked ALL OVER the city with her. It was great because David and I needed to "reconnect" with the city after a year away. The weather was beautiful!!! We explored Central Park...


Walked through the canyons of Midtown...

Survived the mayhem of Times Square...
Saw some famous landmarks. Here is the Chrysler Building:
The reality is that ground zero has become a tourist destination. However, It is a very powerful, meaningful destination that really helps people to understand the scope of what happened.
An old gravestone in the financial district. I loved the way they spelled "lies" as "lyes", and "eight" as "eighte".
We took the Staten Island commuter ferry to get a *free* view of New York Harbor.
Ellis Island:
The Statue of Liberty:
The Verrazano Bridge marks the entrance to New York Harbor from the Atlantic Ocean. The water is very busy with cargo ships.

The southern end of Manhattan (the Financial District):
The bridges connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn over the East River:
old piers in the Hudson River:


We ate dinner at The Corner Bistro in the West Village. They have the best burgers in NYC (although I cannot personally attest to that as I don't eat cows), but everyone who eats them loves them.
We had lunch in the park in DUMBO overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge...
... and then walked across the bridge back into Manhattan.
We are all now totally exhausted! It was a fantastic weekend. Thanks for your visit Liz!

leaf peeping

This weekend we went up to Hillsdale with uncle Elliot and aunt Mary to their country home in the Berkshires (where we had our wedding). Robin's dad, David, also came out from Boston for the weekend. We had amazing fall weather and the leaves were beautiful! We went on 2 hikes and ate lots of good food. Ahhhh, it's so nice to get out of the city.
We ate breakfast and lunch on the terrace.







We made grilled salmon and tuna for dinner on Saturday. Here are the mushrooms we got to go with the fish. They fondly reminded David and I of the time we went mushroom hunting in Austria. These mushrooms we did not pick, but we did get them from the local farmer's market.