Better late than never: My New York trip

Outside the hotel, March 12, originally uploaded by Halfway Hip.

I'll again have to rely on ye olde bullet format to recall info that's gone a bit stale!

Air Travel Lots of factors came together in a perfect storm on Friday, which caused multiple delays all day long. Almost nothing about my travel day on the way there went smoothly. I left my house at 7am and arrived at Hotel Chelsea at 10:30pm, about 5 hours late. I wrote down a blow-by-blow account of the day in my paper journal, but I will spare you. Luckily, my flights back on Wednesday were the complete opposite.

Trade Show Basically, for me, this meant a lot of sitting and/or standing around and/or fetching things since it wasn't my line of work. By the last day, I felt like my brain had been turned off a little too long, and I was ready to return to my own planet. It was really interesting, though, to see what my best friend goes through in her working life. I'm really grateful, too, for the fact that I could come along on the company's dime. I would have easily traded that, though, for five days of freedom to roam the city.

The City Unfortunately, the trade show stuff kept us from seeing a lot. We got the experience, but there wasn't a lot of time for the serendipitous roaming around that I crave when I travel. We did slack off on Monday afternoon, and it was the best day, by far. We went to SoHo for lunch (the only bad meal we had there) and a little shopping. Most of the shops were way out of my league, but it was fun to dream. I've decided that I want to shop at DKNY when I grow up. I had a real New York Moment when I said, "I could go for a coffee and cookie right now," and found that we were across the street from a cool, TINY shop. I almost killed myself on a student's power cord in there, but the coffee was divine.

I was continually amazed at how friendly everyone was, everywhere we went. A friend of mine, who happened to be in NY at the same time we were, commented on her blog that she didn't want to pull out her camera and look like a tourist. I found that in the moments where I was obviously a tourist, people just got friendlier. People seemed to eat up the fact that we were there from Texas and Oklahoma.

Hotel Chelsea I knew a little about its history, but I wish I had read this blog before I went. However, if I had known all about the ghosts, I probably wouldn't have stayed in the room alone at all, though I don't technically believe in ghosts. I have to wonder, though, if the drag-queeny voice I heard for two hours early Weds. morning was actually the ghost of Nancy Spungen. He kept saying over and over, "God dammit FUCK. God dammit FUCK," like he was stuck on something. I kept wondering if he was stuck in the elevator or something, but I was in too much of a sleep-funk to think it through. I couldn't tell if it was coming from the floor below ours, where Sid Vicious is rumored to haunt, or from the room beside ours.

The hotel was extremely noisy in general, which I had remembered from an old episode of Globetrekker. There's a club in the basement, which didn't help, especially on Saturday night. There were lots of meathead guys on the street yelling and fighting in the wee hours. Friday night, in a room somewhere near ours, we could hear singing and tuba playing. That was the type of noise I fully expected and enjoyed. The radiator banging at 6am sharp every morning? Not so much! The jackhammers on the street at 8am Saturday morning? Not so much!

The Chelsea is covered with artwork. I really wish I had walked the entire stairwell and halls to see it all. I barely left enough time to take pictures. The photos in the Hotel Chelsea Flickr group are better than what I could have taken, anyway, so look through those.

Our little apartment was amazing. Lots of space in which to spread out and entertain guests. (Not that we had that many, but still.) You can check out pics on my Flickr by clicking on the photo above.

Food It was mostly great! It's not hard to eat vegetarian there. I did splurge on some sustainably-raised chicken at Cookshop, just because I could. Patsy's, which supposedly serves the best pizza in the city, was just down the block from our hotel. Now I'm sad that I didn't try the famed pizza, but I was really in the mood for salad and pasta. My God, it was the best salad I've ever had. Angelica Kitchen in the East Village was phenomenal. The staff there was so friendly. When I went up the hostess stand to remark on their choice of music (the entire Joy Division "Substance" album), we got into a nice chat about where were were from/what we were doing/the show "Dallas," which she happened to love (and few of us who actually had lived in Dallas had actually seen). I asked about where we should go next, based on the fact that we loved their music, and one of the servers went back to the kitchen and compiled a whole list for us.

Nightlife We had the best time on our first night there, even though by the time it was over, I had been up for 24 hours. We went to Mondo. I had pretty low expectations for being able to fit in to any club in the city, but this place felt like home as soon as we walked in. We heard songs we already love, including New Order's "Age of Consent," which I had never gotten to dance to at a club, "Fa Fa Fa" by Datarock, which the DJ played at my request, "Crash" by The Primitives, and loads of new stuff that we didn't really know but loved anyway. The crowd was age-mixed, and people were friendly and in no way too cool for the room, which we found a bit the next night we went out. I hope Kristen makes good on her promise to try to recreate something like this in the Dallas scene. It's desperately needed!

Saturday night, we stayed in due to exhaustion, the time change, and the fact that our dinner at Cookshop didn't end til 11pm. Sunday, we went to Sway Lounge, where it was Morrissey/Smiths night, on suggestion of the fine folks at Angelica Kitchen. The music was great, but there really wasn't a real dance floor, and the crowd was a bit too hip and fashionable for our taste. All of that would have been easily tolerated had it not gotten so damned crowded. When we could no longer move, we bailed. Made us appreciate our new friend Mondo even more. On Monday, after looking up some bar reviews, we chose to go to Hi-Fi to check out their famed jukebox. It was dead, but we had a good time watching Pop-Up Video minus the sound while we waited an hour or more for our songs to play. Next, we headed to Niagara, which was very cool, but a little dead, too. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, though, especially looking out at Tompkins Square Park, which played a prominent role in East Village Inky, a zine I still love.
While I was away, the kids and Matt seemed to fare just fine. The kids didn't really ask about me til the last day or so (when I was wanting to come home, too!) and Evan never asked to nurse. I don't want to be away from home too much, but I think it was great for all of us to realize that it could be done. Overall, I'd say that my trip was about one day too long, but I did have a great time. It was a little hard to come back to so many demands upon my personal space and time, but now that I've had a week to settle in, I'm used to it again. Being away also had an unexpected bonus. I got to see a bit what Matt goes through when he has to travel. I realize more how important phone conversations are to the person who is away from home. It's the only connection with the kids. There were days when I didn't make enough time for quality phone calls, and I regretted it. Also, I got to feel what it's like for him to come home and try to get back into the swing of homelife. It takes a while!