here's the final day of our trip:

Thursday:

seeing as this is our last day in new york, we kept it kinda free so that we could go to anyplace we might have missed earlier in the week.  one of the stops that mary wanted to go to was Century 21.  no, not the real estate place, but a huge discount shopping place (took up two gigantic 4 story buildings!)  pretty cool place.  i think what happens is that old seasonal stuff, things that are last years trends, non-sellers and all that end up here.  they have clothes, luggage, home stuff, electronics, kinda like a really big macy's/nordstroms with better prices.  not much to buy though cause we didn't want to end up carrying stuff around town with us.  we did end up buying a bunch of bath towels ($3.97 each for those gigantic fluffy towels) and a rolling duffel bag (to carry it in).  walking around outside (we were across from the WTC...) we found that we were really close to wall street (the next block over)  it was strange cause the NYSE was fenced off with heavily armed guards (police in full riot gear and assault rifles) you had ot wear a badge in order to get into the building.  i took a picture with the cops and also took video!  =)  they kinda looked at me strange...

across from the NYSE was a museum that was showcasing the Declaration of Independence.  that was pretty cool.  it was only going to be there from May 5-7 (it was the 6th that day).

Break:  it was really amazing to see how God was working throughout this entire trip.  i mean, what's the chance that we'd be there at the museum during one of the three days that the Declaration of Independence was there?  also, little things like having the bus arrive right after we got to the bus stop (after trying to figure out which direction to go and which bus to take!)  same thing with the subway.  we'd rush through the turnstiles and then try to figure out if this was the right train and right direction.  the weather was great (even on the rainy days!) it wasn't too hot or too muggy/humid.

anyways, after the museum, we here getting a little hungry and decided to head uptown (greenwich village ont he west side of manhattan) to John's pizzaria.  John's is supposed to be the first pizza place in the US.  we ordered a 14" thin crust with sausage, peperoni and peppers.  it was pretty good.  the crust wasn't as crisp as the other two places (two boots and joe's) and the sauce wasn't fresh (canned.  we saw them taking out the trash...  =) ) but the combination was pretty good tasting.  i figured that the reason that the ceter got a little soggy while the edges retained the crunch was that they used too much sauce.  other places jut put a thin layer of sauce on the curst while john's put a heavier layer.  with the thin crust, the sauce was just too much.  i think out of all the places we went to, joe's had the best pizza.  the combination of the fresh, bright taste of the ingredients and the snappy crust was a winner.  (if you want to try something that comes close in california, try Pee Wee's Pizza in san leandro on E. 14th.  they've been open for a long time and their pizzas are great too.  they have a homemade suace that's just tomatos, salt, pepper, and a little oregano and the crust, though not as crunchy, has a pleasing crunchy/chewy texture.  if you go on wednesdays, the pizzas are 5.50 or 6.00 for a one topping 12".)

next door, we found a gelato pace called Cone.  they had gelato and italian ices/sorbets there.  what a terrific place!  if i wasn't lactose intolerant i would have stayed there longer and tried more flavors.  =)  i ended up trying the hazelnut (i always use this flavor to judge the quality of the gelato.  no reason except that it's my favorite gelato flavor!  =) )  the gelato was very smooth and creamy and the hazelnut was very pronounced but not overpowering.  it also had bits of hazelnut mixed in.  i think this was better than the other gelato place.

from Cone, we head off in search of the Peanut Butter Sandwich Shop. this place makes all kinds of peanut butter sandwiches (yeah, go figure.  what did you think? they'd make tuna sandwiches? =) ) we found that it was about a block down from NYU law school.  really nice campus (pretyy fancy)  it's kinda interesting that a shop that only sells peanut buter sandwiches (albiet different combinations) can thrive.  that place was a little crowded.  we ordered a few sandwiches to eat on the plane trip back to california (it was a 6 hour ride and they didn't serve meals)  mary ordered a cookie surprise and i ordered a fluffernutter.  the cookie surprise was chunky peanut butter with a sweetened cream cheese and chocolate chips.  not too bad, but a little more like eating candy than a sandwich.  the fluffernutter was chunky peanut butter with marshmallow fluff (or marshmallow cream.  not sure if it's the same.  the fluff seems more fluffy that the cream.  i bought some fluff and i'll see how it compares to the cream...)  that was a good combination. the combination of the chunky and the oozing fluff was really good.  the only thing was that they spread the peanut butter a little thin.  you'd think that for a $5 sandwich they'd give you a little more peanut butter...  but overall, it was good.

after leaving the peanut butter shop, we headed to mario batali's restaurant, Otto, to see if the autographed copy of his cookbook was available (i wanted to pick it up for my brother for his birthday on monday, but they didn't have any available and they asked us to com in on thursday...) we found that it was just across from the park that's near NYU, about 6 blocks.  so, we walked of there and found out that they weren't able to get any because mario had been out of town on a business trip and just returned today.  we asked if the lady could call him (he was at his other restaurant) and see if he'd be availble to sing a book for us if we went the the other restaurant.  she called the other restaurant and got his assistant on the line and she proceeded to tear her a new one!  basically she told us that it'd be best if they'd send it to us.  i guess he was busy and his assisstant got mad at the hostess for trying to bother him.  you'd figure that if some fans want an autographed cookbook that they've been waiting for a whole week for, she'd be a little more understanding.  go figure.  anyways, we ordered it instead and then took off for home.  basically that ended that food tour.  we went back to pack and get last minute gifts for family...  *whew* what a trip.  food tours are fun!  my friends are moving to philladelphia in june (rob is completing his residency there) and when they get a little more settled and find a few good places, we'll go up and visit them there and continue the food tour!

hey all!  i'm back!  we came into oakland at 11:45 pm PST and got back to mary's place by 12:30 (that's 3:30 new york time! *yawn*)  anyways, my friend, allen, volunteered to pick us up cause he needed a ride to oakland friday morning at 5:00 am!  we crashed at mary's and after a 3 1/2 hour nap, we woke up and i drove back to the airport to drop him off.  =)

continuing on with wednesday afternoon/night's shennanigans:

after katz's we went back to the apartment to drop off the food that we picked up.  then we went out to central park to walk around and hit some more food places.  central park is really awesome.  it's strange to see a full blown park (trees, lakes, bridges and all that) in the middle of a big city like new york.  i noticed that all of their parks have a lot of trees that help to hide to city when you're in the park...  well, wednesday ended up to be a little drizzly. by the time we got to central park, it was on and off showers (thank God for goretex!)  we walked through a litlle bit of the park, but decided to cut it short because of the rain.  instead, we headed uptown to go to Beard Papa's.  Beard Papa's is a pasty shop from Japan that makes creampuffs.  creampuffs the size of baseballs! their special thing is a two layer puff (pate choux  inside and a pie crust outer) and a homemade vanilla cream filling made with real vanilla beans.  that place was crowded!  when we got to the front to order, they fill the puff for you.  this way the puff doesn't get soggy from sitting around.  excellent place!  from there, we went to see ground zero, world trade center.  they've already started to get things ready for construction, so things was a little crowded with materials and construction portables, but they did have a tribute mural around the fencing.  plenty of pictures...

after ground zero, we went back to the apartment to meet up with my friends for dinner.  Dinner was at Petite Abeille, a belgien restaurant on the lower west side.  their specialty is mussels.  basically, you get a two pound bucket of mussels in your choice of sauce and a large order of fries (frites) for $16.  on wednesdays, you can order the all you can eat mussels with a beer for $18!  well, i didn't go with the all you can eat, only because i didn't know if i could eat more than 2# of mussels!  we orderd two specials (4# of mussels!), one with a wines sauce and the other with a cream and bacon sauce (mmmmm, bacon)dinner was going well until we realized that it was 7:45 and we needed to get to broadway (uptown, about 30 blocks!) in 15 minutes to catch MAMA MIA! (excellent show!  their incorporation of ABBA songs into the dialog was excellent!)   so, we rushed out of the restaurant and hailed a cab (new york cabbie...), hopped in and he took off! (i got it all on video! =) )  the guy's name was Gus sumpinoranother-opolis.  didn't catch his last name, all i know is that he was greek (hence the -opolis =) )  great guy.  he got us there in 14 minutes flat.  we rushed out of the cab, ran accross two streets and got to our seats just as the opening music was starting! 

after the show we took a tour of times square and then went home for dessert.  dessert ended up being cream puffs from beard papa's, cheesecake from Eileen's Cheesecake and tiramisou from the Essex Deli