Does anyone still blog anymore, or is it too 2006?

I think I am an adrenaline junkie and I've definitely had my fill this spring. The schedule has been packed but luckily the love is still flowing. Jack and I decided to get married and we are in the process of getting it all together. We will hopefully have a date soon! What we do have is a blog so it's a start. www.rachthevogt.blogspot.com

oh, and I chose a dress :)
Lisa

ps. what I mean is not just any dress, I mean THE dress that most little girls (except for me) dream about.

Yo! I got a video from the Faithless show up. You'll have to scroll back down to April 25 to see it. The sound recording is awful but you can see how close we were, and the crowd behind us.

The day of the Ball's!
We had arranged to meet up with Isabel and Mike Ball for a lovely Sunday brunch and walk in the park. Isabel was my co-worker for nearly a year in Japan and I have missed seeing her everyday. The last time we met up was in 2002 for her wedding....FIVE YEARS AGO!!! Way too long! The two have since created a lovely child by the name of Isis and she was a treat. By the end of our time together she was genuinely sad to see us go.
The whole family came from New Jersey to see us and the journey ended up taking longer than we had anticipated. The visit was way too short so I've told myself it was just a trial run for the next time we meet up. Having said that, the next time we see the Balls, 3 will have become 4. Izzy is 5 months (I think) pregnant with boy. :)

Our time together ended when we had to rush off to the airport to catch our flight. Caught the wrong train back to the hotel which put us about 30min behind schedule. Arrived at the airport in decent time, only to learn that our flight was 3 hours delayed. This meant that we would miss our connecting flight in Chicago and they wanted to re-schedule our return home. Any thoughts of heading back to Manhattan to catch Izzy, Mike and Isis were quickly dashed as we waited for an hour as a very patient man tried to get us on a flight back to Winnipeg. I knew there would only be a handful of flights coming in to Winnipeg Sunday night and that it would be next to impossible to get us on one. We were then given a hotel voucher for a hotel across the street from the airport and told we would fly out at 6am going through Denver. It wasn't even 4pm at this point so chances of a fun evening seemed possible. Unfortunately our troubles had just begun. The hotel did not want to accept the voucher from United Airlines and thus began the THREE HOUR SAGA!!! which involved going to the hotel, back to the airport and back to the hotel. At 7pm we were in our room and completely worn down.

Took a little walk through the Queens neighborhood that borders La Guardia. Lot's of kids were out on the street and some girls were having a dance-off. Back at the hotel it was room service in bed while watching The Bone Collector, a pretty good movie set in New York City.

Saturday - Traipsing I had hoped to avoid walking much more as my feet were in a serious state from the previous 3 days. This did not really happen. We went down to Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan and ended up walking all over the city once again.This sculpture was in the courtyard between the twin towers representing world peace. It was salvaged after September 11 and put in Battery Park a couple of years ago.
Ground Zero is essentially a hole in the ground.

In the evening we were back in the East Village where I really enjoyed the range of authentic and everyday Japanese restaurants. No sushi here my friends.
Cassis Oolong!!!

Museum Day

3 museums were on the agenda but we only had success with one. Heading out on foot in the pouring rain and rumbley stomachs led to some anxious moments as we tried to find a place to sit down. One of the cool things about being out in the morning is seeing all the grates in the sidewalk open up for restocking of shops and restaurants. Have not seen this in any other city.Our walk took us through Central Park on our way to 'Museum Mile'.

Finally stopped at this luncheonette for a little breakfast at the counter. This place has been in operation since 1925 and I can imagine that not much has changed.The Met was crawling with school groups so we decided to keep going to the Guggenheim. Let me tell you, it was not as simple as Carrie Bradshaw made it seem when she just breezed in during season 5. The lineup went around the block, most of it in the rain. The famous exterior was also under construction. Feeling frustrated we jumped on a train to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) were G was going to meet us. It took less than 2 minutes to get tickets and we were in. Success! The museum had lots of interesting pieces of art work as well as functional design pieces. G came over to me and said "There's weird stuff in here. They have a Massive Attack album in a display over there." Indeed there was, as part of a corner devoted to the Helvetica typeface.



The space has been redesigned and there were some stunning city views.I began to embrace my inner tourist.One of the coolest things was this ongoing installation. We saw the artist lifted near the top to do the latest drawing. Each one was a witty social commentary. Does anyone know how to click on this picture to open it as it's full size?
Leaving the museum we had dinner in Little Italy. I thought I might fall asleep at that point but I stayed awake for another 9 hours as we enjoyed a gallivant around the city and plenty of drinks. If anyone wants to know where you can by $9 pitchers in NYC, I now know the place! In the end, G was the most drunk of us all. We put him on a train back to Queens and waited for our train to arrive.

Shopping and Exploring
Jack and I were pumped to get out and explore the city... see all the places that we'd only read about...Greenwich Village, Soho, Tribeca, East Village etc. We started out early (10am or so) and discovered the streets to be quiet...quaint even. In Greenwich Village we were approached by a French woman who asked us where all the artists were. We didn't know. The only thing I could see was Chow, the restaurant found at the start of many a magazine article. For example: 'I'm sitting in Chow in Greenwich Village waiting for Lindsey Lohan. She rushes in, apologizing profusely for the delay. Her Chihuahua has the flu.'
When we got the the shops we had a fantastic time looking around and treating ourselves to a couple of things. I've got to say, I was a bit surprised that we didn't really run across many stores other than the big name stores that we could have seen at Mall of America. We didn't walk down every street but we definitely covered a lot of ground - which required rest stops like this one in Tribeca.
Soon work was getting out and there were suddenly people everywhere. We had to fight through H&M to look at everything, let alone the half hour line up at the change room. By the time we were done my feet were screaming in agony. I was wearing flats but they had absolutely no support and we had just walked all over lower Manhattan. I had to fulfill my mission of new shoes by the end of the day. Luckily I succeed and got some lovely new trainers.Back at the hotel we discover that our shopping trip had made us 110% tardy for our dinner date with G so we had to reschedule. I continued to feel the shock of my trainers purchase. When was the last time anyone saw me in shoes like these? Yet to be honest, I felt like I fit in more wearing these shoes in NYC than I would have in Manola Blahniks. New York is, after all, in America.
We head out into the Upper West Side area where we are staying and luckily find the East Indian cuisine we are craving. Interestingly, the guy at the table next to us was Canadian and our server had lived in Winnipeg for 4 years on Ellice Avenue.

With tasty food in belly we jumped on the train to Times Square. Times Square looks similar to Tokyo, except there's nothing to really do in Times Square. It's a huge tourist trap. There are 2 Applebees, an M&M's store, an Olive Garden and dodgy flyer-hander-outer people. Still I definitely enjoyed basking in the glow of the neon. Nothing gives me more energy than neon.





And then it was good night.

Journey
The magical day for our trip to New York arrived and I was still struggling with stupid excess acid in my stomach. I packed a bag of Kaishi cereal, fearing that I may not be able to eat anything else on the trip, but thinking I might save a lot of money living off whole wheat cereal. Flew through Toronto to get to NYC and enjoyed seatback tv and video selection on both flights, which I have to mention because it was really nice. The Toronto airport terminal was new and we enjoyed this very cool installation piece.


Arrival
Took a cab to the super budget hotel in the Upper West Side where we were staying. The ride through the Upper East and West Sides, plus Central Park was beautiful. We were immediately impressed by lovely brownstone buildings, with Huxtable-esque steps and quaint streets running off bustling thoroughfares. The hotel was fine, no complaints, especially since it was basically free given the package price we paid. We soon hit the town to go meet G for dinner and drinks before the Faithless concert. It had been over 3 years since we had seen G, who was our "flatmate" in Brighton. Dinner was at a lovely place called Cafe Brahma in the East village. The owners were Polish and they gave me some herbal remedy used by Polish monks for my stomach. The bitter liquid...along with the doctors prescription, Advil and liquid Maalox... seemed to do the trick because I felt ok throughout the evening and woke up feeling much better.
Faithless Concert
G had made friends with Monika who works at Cafe Brahma and she came to the show with us. We went into Webster Hall and discovered that the first room was dedicated to rollerskating. Yes, rollerskating. Some of the oldest patrons in the room seemed to be in their 70's with shorts pulled up high and saggy boobs (they were men). We stood there in awe imagining that every Wednesday for the past 40+ years, Webster Hall had been hosting rollerskating. The lights were flashing and the music was pumping. We tried to get a good photo with a long exposure but found it hard to capture any skaters.
Waiting for the concert to begin I was surprised to find a complete lack of scene-sters, or the usual funk-ed up people that show up at concerts. My experience with shows in Vancouver and Winnipeg is that people wearing the coolest outfits come crawling out of the woodwork and you wonder where these people usually hang out. Here everyone was so normal. Jeans and a t-shirt normal. The opening dj totally hit my fancy and I was pleased to hear artists like Tracey Thorn and Erlend Oye being played in public.
When the show began, the floor was shaking so much from the weight of people jumping up and down, I thought we might fall in. Maxi Jazz is rapping, there are bongo drums and 2 guitars, while Sister Bliss with 6 keyboards to pound out the tunes that Faithless is famous for. The room is not that big and though it was full, it was not even sold out. In Europe they sell out stadiums. Luckily I had seen a video of a live performance so I knew that Maxi Jazz live would be raspier and more sped up compared to the album sound I was used to. We started out very close to the front but by the end I was dead front and centre. I've read some other blogs on the show and everyone seemed to be impressed at the amount of dancing that was going on. Apparently it was unusual for a New York show. See pictures below.



Of course it was over way too fast and we were back out on the street with ringing ears. We went for slice pizza and learned that New York style pizza is thin with a crispy bottom and very little grease. In other words...tasty! G and Monika are enjoying their slices below. Spent a bit of time at a bar called Tribe! (so Grade 8 perfume huh ladies?) before taking a cab to the hotel.
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My name is Maxi Jazz and I ain't no joke
I'll make you choke on the mike when I go for broke
when I come into a jam I tear off my shirt
I have no knowledge of fear 'cause I'm here to do work



Quiet, still, you feel there's nothing going on
Until you realize the space behind your eyes
Is filling up with something like peace
As your thoughts cease and
Pleasure grows in your soul.