NYC Part Two

As you know, NYC is a melting pot of all different races, languages, cultures, young, old, sane, crazy, fashionistas and fashion challenged. All seem to coexist and do their own thing without anyone bothering or judging them. At least it seemed that way to me. There were many pictures I wanted to take of different people but couldn't manage do it surreptitiously.

Take these boots for instance. I thought they were cool. Had I been 30 years younger I may have worn them myself. I fall somewhere between the skull and crossbone boots and the old lady shoes next to him. I took this pic while pretending to take a picture of my son.



My youngest son has his own unique sense of fashion. He bought these Nike shoes in the East Village, maybe the West Village, perhaps Greenwich Village, I don't know, we were in all of those villages as well as Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho, Times Square, Midtown, Upper East Side, Harlem and Washington Heights. The island of Manhattan is only about 23 square miles big but I swear we walked more than that over the few days we were there.

Nurse Jackie is a series on Showtime and here it is on a larger than life billboard in Times Square. I like the catch phrase for the show.

This little bar on the corner is used for filming bar scenes for the show and it just happens to be a block down from my son's apartment in Astoria, Queens. I can tell he's turning into a real New Yorker because he hates film crews in the city. Traffic is always tied up when they're around.

One thing that amazes me about NYC is the amount of restaurants there. There are some chains like TGIF's and Ruby Tuesdays to name just a few but for the most part they are independently owned little ones. How do people find them? I don't know how they stay in business but they do. We went toa little one (and I mean little, maybe eight small round tables and maybe the size of my living room and kitchen combined) called Las Ramblas, serving Spanish fare tapas style. Above is our plate of muscles. I'm not a shell fish lover except for scallops and crab but these were delish and the sangria was oh, so good too!

After gorging ourselves at Las Ramblas we went to Magnolia's Bakery. It was made famous by a little show called Sex in the City and also featured in a Saturday Night Live short called Lazy Sunday. Yummy cupcakes but sticker shock. A three bite cupcake=three bucks.

Whenever I'm down in the city I ask my son to take us to his hospital but he never wants to. It's a long subway ride on three different trains; 50 minutes and that's if they're running on time. This time he took us. Here he is up on his floor. He's a cardiac RN in the cath lab and works nights 7 PM - 7 AM.

His hosptial, New York Presbyterian Columbia, ranked sixth in the nation for heart health. His goal is to become a nurse practioner which requires another two years of schooling to get his masters. The hospital will pay for that at Columbia University but for every 10 grand they pay, you must work at the hospital for one year. Hmmm, a masters degree from an Ivy League university doesn't come cheap, he'd have to work there for eight more years. I don't think NYC is in his plans for that long.