Happy St. Patty's Day!!

Okay, so I started this blog on St. Patrick's Day, but it has taken a week to really get it up. St. Patty's Day in New York City is certainly a unique experience. To start out my day, I equipped myself with some necessary celebration gear... ...It's too bad that I had to wear a coat, seeing as the snow storm the night before left more than a few inches on the ground. It was cold, but the sun came out during the parade. Luckily for me the parade was just on the other side of Central Park and not too many blocks down, so I decided to cut across the park and take in some of the beauty of Central Park in the snow. I wasn't the only one enjoying the snow. There were loads of kids sledding and a fair amount of people cross-country skiing. You can't see it very well, but these two women are skiing across the park.
I walked partly around the Jackie Kennedy Onassis Memorial reservoir on my way.

And I really liked this bridge. Apparently the road going underneath it is a bridle path.

So by the time I made my way through the park, the start of the parade had already passed, but not by much. And can you guess what the parade was full of? You got it...pipe bands! An entire 5 hour parade full of pipe bands. Okay, there were some normal high school marching bands, too. The interesting thing about this parade is that it's an entirely walking parade. No cars, no floats. Just a lot of people walking. A lot of Irish people walking...and New York City has a lot of Irish-Americans and their descendants.

So as I said, there were a lot of pipe bands...

In a variety of colors...

And everyone had a pipe band. The NYPD (pictured above), the NY Corrections Dept., the NY Fire Dept....

...even the Sanitation dept.!...

And then there were the societies representing each county in Ireland, like County Cork...
...County Dublin...

..County Tipperary...

...County Carlow...
...and County Clare, to name a few.
And, of course, there're the humorous elements...(okay so the one just below might not be funny to some, esp. the Irish)...

A few of the groups came directly from Ireland for the parade, like these young dancers...
And guess who I saw walking with his alma mater, Manhattan College...

...presidential candidate and former NYC mayor, Rudy Guliani.

What is going on with the weather here?

So after several days of wonderful 60-degree weather, a storm had to move in. Not just any storm....a snow storm that has left several inches of snow on the ground, with chances of more overnight. Back to the 30s it is, and it's sleeting now. Sure glad I'm not driving. Check this out:

The musical stylings of Josh Groban

Last Monday night I had the very great pleasure of going to see Josh Groban in concert at Madison Square Garden. I happened upon the ticket when I randomly decided to check ticketmaster to see if any were available, having previously found the concert sold out. The only downside was that it was a side stage ticket...a very side stage ticket...up on the top level of the arena. I made a diagram of where I sat in relation to the stage:

So I didn't really have a great view of the front of the stage, but at least I could see Josh during the whole concert, even if it was mostly his back and left (not a bad view, I'm not complaining). But he has an amazing voice, and the concert was fabulous!

I heard that Josh was disappointed that he wasn't able to find me. See....

Maybe if he had come up to the balcony instead of walking through the floor crowd....perhaps next time...

Here's a picture I found online from the concert

Weekend of new adventures

So this past weekend my mom, Jana and Alice, my sister-in-law, came to visit me here in the Big Apple. They flew in very late last Thursday night and left early Monday morning. We had a fun-filled weekend full of great adventures.

Here's a self-portrait of us on Friday waiting for the elevator:We started our weekend by taking a trip to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was freeeeeezing cold, only getting into the 30s plus the wind chill, but it was beautifully clear.
We had tickets to go inside the pedastal and museum

We had a look up into the statue...

... and were allowed to go to the observation desk.

It afforded a great view of the city!

This is of one of two "Graffiti posts" in the main building there at Ellis Island. According to a movie we watched, people who were going to be sent back to Europe wrote notes or drew pictures on the pillars.

For dinner that night we went to this Mexican place that's a few blocks from my apartment, called Mama Mexico. It was a fun place! The food was great and there was a live Mariachi band!! And there was a waiter there that whipped up some fresh guac in less than a minute. It was amazing to watch it!

Alice and I walking about after dinner. Mom and Jana were too tired and cold to join us.

Saturday morning we went to the temple, and then met Christine at Times Square to get tickets for a show. We ended up going to 'Beauty and the Beast'.

For dinner, I had looked up a couple of places that were near Times Square.

We decided to go to this place:

This restaurant ended being one the best parts of the weekend. When we got to the restaurant there was a doorman dressed up in Indian garb - including a turban. As it turned out, the menu was a bit more expensive than I had expected, but everyone was okay with it, and we weren't very hungry, having just come from the 'Little Pie Shop', so we decided to split a few entrees. When we walked into the restaurant, we saw that all the waiters were wearing tuxedos...I felt a little out of place in jeans, but thankfully we weren't the only ones. After we sat down, the waiters put our napkins into our laps for us, then gave us menus. We ordered, and when they brought our food out to us, they dished it all onto our plates for us! I expected them to set the dishes in the middle of our table, but not so. I've NEVER been anywhere that has done that. I think we all had wide-eyes watching them dish out the food. The meal was fabulous! I love indian food, but then the kicker came after we had finished. They brought us hot towels to wipe our hands! Alice's face was the best. She had the widest eyes and the most surprised look on her face. We all left amazed and our experience. It's probably the best dinner I've ever had!

Sunday afternoon we took a walk through Central Park. It was a lovely afternoon - warmer than Friday or Saturday. We stopped at the 'Alice in Wonderland' statue...

...and then at the Balto statue.

Then we went to the Empire State Building. After waiting in line for near an hour, we finally made it to the top, and in time for the sunset...

It was a bit windy up on the 86th floor!