Behind the scenes @ beatkitchen.de

Off day - NYC

Oh how nice it was to have another day off... could get used to this very quickly :oP
Andy and I went to the panini place on the lower east side again for breakfast and then I decided to just go off on a big hike around Manhattan... the cool thing about this whole city is that you don't even have to know where you are going to see interesting things... there is cool stuff everywhere... interesting people... amazing architecture... good and not so good fashion... cool shops.... loads of restaurants.... nice churches... the list just goes on.... I didn't walk totally aimlessly though... I have been wanting to check out the 'Chapel of Sacred Mirrors' aka COSM for some time now... I new it was most likely going to be closed as it is Independence Day here in the USA today but I thought I would try my luck anyway... so I I walked up Broadway till I hit 27th Street (stopping at some great bookstores on the way) and then made a left down to somewhere between 10th and 11th Avenue.... as I had expected it was closed but I still got to go into a lounge area and see some nice big posters of Alex Greys works... for many years now he has been my favorite living artist... there is something so deep and spiritual about his paintings... if you are into that kinda thing I highly recommend checking him out... so once I was done sneaking around I decided to walk back down along the Hudson River... it was nice and relaxed because there were a lot of people out for the holiday just taking it easy... inspired by being in COSM I just had to listen to the new Tool album on my way back down to Soho... after a couple of hours of striding along the river I hit Canal Street and decided to make a left and head back towards the hotel... by this time I was getting hungry so once I hit Mulberry Street I made a left and decided to eat some good old Italian food... just as I found a nice restaurant to dine in all these kids on Vespas drove along shouting and screaming with joy... I had no idea what was going on... but as soon as I saw them waving the Italian flag I realized it must have to do with the football... I guess Italy had just won against Germany in the World Cup and people were just going mad - I was in Little Italy remember... was fun to watch even though I am not at all interested in football (or soccer as they like to call it here)... one of the added bonuses of the restaurant I chose was that there were loads of wireless internet connections available and the first one I went on wasn't even encrypted... and the connection was excellent... you just gotta love modern technology sometimes... so I spent the next couple of hours on my blog trying to get up to date and then I 'bumped' into my sister in Canada via the Yahoo messanger so we had a good chat and caught up which was great.... I didn't end up getting back to the hotel until after 9pm by which time I was wrecked... so I decided to just stay in and rip a whole bunch of the CD boxsets we got given at Rhino for the rest of the evening... but all in all it was a GREAT day off... needed that :oP

posted by eshan @ 08:57