Well, I survived my first week back at work after vacation. My first week back after any time off is usually horrendous, but this one actually wasn't bad. (I'm not really looking forward to next Monday, though.) We hired a new person, R, right before I left for vacation, and he has still has some stuff to learn, but so far, I think things on ( Read more... )

The first place that we headed today was to the Musem at Eldridge Street, which I'd tried to visit once before. It's downtown and kinda out of the way, and I was pretty impressed with myself just for navigating the subways and streets well enough to even get there. The museum is inside a beautifully restored old synagogue dedicated to the Jewish ( Read more... )

Yesterday was our day downtown, and today was our day at museums. First thing after breakfast, we headed to the Natural History Museum, where we'd never been before. But the subway ride there wasn't completely smooth. The C-line train was experiencing some problems that had even the locals confused. The first train that arrived waited until after ( Read more... )

We planned to spend today downtown, so that was where we went after the hotel breakfast this morning. The subway let us out near the 9/11 Memorial, but the line to get inside the museum was crazy-long. So I gave Sara my city pass, and she waited in line for both of us while I went into the One World skyscraper building nearby and got us tickets for ( Read more... )

Our first full day in New York City! The hotel we're staying in has a great free hot breakfast daily, which was one of my few must-list items for a hotel. (I really missed it at our hotel in Chicago, although there we had a mini-fridge and microwave in our hotel.) We had scrambled eggs, pancakes, and sausage this morning, and I snuck an apple and ( Read more... )

Sara and I took off on our vacation for this year bright and early this morning. It was so early that "dark and early" is probably more accurate. Our first flight was scheduled for departure at 7:45 (although it was a little delayed, ~20 minutes), and we always get to our flights very early. I got separated from Sara going through security at the ( Read more... )

A few vacation-related updates: This weekend, Sara and I started making specific itinerary for each day of our vacation. We won't be there for very long, there's a lot that we want to see, and certain things are only open on certain days, which makes it all challenging. Sara has been better at organizing everything than I have. We meant to go for a ( Read more... )

This week, Sara and I began planning in earnest for our vacation next month. We booked our hotel room and flights (at so late an hour that my eyelids were drooping), which really made it feel real. I do like going on vacation every year, but I'm not sure that I would ever go through with it if Sara weren't there to nudge me into it. It's expensive ( Read more... )

(Disclaimer: I realize that the term "Jew York City" is offensive to many people -- including my Jewish manager. But I think it's funny, and more to the point, I just like the feeling I get from knowing that this city is full of Jews. At my hometown temple, you would go there on Friday evenings, look around at the 10 or so old people who showed up ( Read more... )

I'm so exhausted that I can barely write. We did SO much today. We really only went to two places, Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but obviously, they were both so big and had so much to see that we were on our feet almost all day. The Met didn't open until 10, and we got there early because breakfast is only from 7-9. While we ( Read more... )