Category Archives: New York

Brooklyn to Elizabethtown

June 10, 2024 hannahviolin

I’ll continue telling you about our recent trip to New York and other parts of the East.

Carrie had some appointments and rehearsals the second day we were visiting her, and it was storming that morning as well. Louie and I slept in a bit (we were both still recovering from the school year at that point, and it was frankly, glorious. I was and still am amazed every morning I don’t have to wake up before 6 am!)

We had mentioned to Carrie that we had not had “New York Bagels” so after she had her morning appointment and the rain let up, we headed to her favorite closest place called Bagel Pub. I had a pumpernickel everything bagel with smoked salmon cream cheese, and it was tasty! We learned how much Brooklyn is like a small town as well by Carrie running into someone she knew (this was a common occurrence). I am always struck by this sort of thing–I grew up in a small town and assumed that big cities were more anonymous and you would walk around and wouldn’t know anyone, and truthfully, you will run into people you know all over the place. Cities are more pockets of various communities, like a small town on every few blocks.

After our bagels, Louie and I headed to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens for the afternoon. We weren’t sure if it would rain, but overall we did get lucky and it only rained a little bit for a short time.

The gardens were smaller overall than we realized, but they were well laid out and really enjoyable. It wasn’t too busy either, which was nice amidst the hustle and bustle outside.

We saw this turtle, just hanging out.

After we finished at the Botanical Gardens, we walked to get coffee nearby, and then walked all the way back to Carrie’s (probably about an hour at that point!). We took a little break, and then caught the train to meet our friend Lauren for dinner in Greenpoint. We went to a Polish restaurant called Karczma and ate entirely too much delicious food (pierogies and stuffed cabbage, but somehow no photos), and then headed to a concert Carrie and her quartet, The Rhythm Method, were putting on.

It was in a super cool venue, sort of in an industrial area, and you wouldn’t even expect a concert there. It felt very “New York”, haha.

It was a great concert, super interesting and thought provoking, and I really enjoyed watching Carrie and her group perform, along with the other guest performers on the concert. Louie and Lauren didn’t stay the whole time and instead went out somewhere in the area, but I stayed till the end, and then Carrie and I took a Lyft (what, no walking?) and hung out at her place until we were exhausted, and Louie came home later.

The next day we did laundry at the apartment and ate leftover Polish food for breakfast, then headed back into Manhattan to meet up with another aunt and uncle of Louie’s. We had lunch first at a place called Simply Noodles (can you guess what we ate?) and then met up with Ralph and Susie at their apartment.

We went to the Met Museum with them, walking through Central Park to get there. New Yorkers get “pay what you want” admission so it isn’t too big of a deal just to go for a short time. Susie wanted to check out the rooftop art, so that was the plan.

We wandered around the museum for a short while, but then headed back to their apartment and enjoyed wine and cheese up on the rooftop until we needed to catch a train back to Brooklyn for our next event.

Carrie had asked awhile back if Louie and I wanted to do a “float”, which was a silent disco: we would all wear headphones and hear the same music, and follow a prescribed route with the group while dancing. It was not at all the sort of thing we do in our normal lives, but Louie and I wanted to experience what Carrie does and also push our own boundaries, so we agreed. We met up with the float people at a brewery, where we ate dinner first (impossible smash burgers, quite tasty).

It was a fun evening, especially as we had no idea what to expect. We were surrounded by many Juilliard musicians (ha!) but also random people, and would go down streets dancing, stop in random parking lots to dance, and it was a lot of fun. We were probably some of the oldest people there, but somebody has to be, right?

We were exhausted after a few hours (they do take breaks) and decided to skip the last segment since we were all traveling the next day. We did stop at a German bar near Carrie’s house to unwind before bed though. And it is worth noting that when I turned in our headphones to the float person, apparently I said that it was fun but it was “really late”. It was like 10:45 pm and Louie said that definitely cemented our status as “old” within the group. Haha!

The next morning Louie and I had a train to catch so we were up early. Our train would leave Penn Station at 9:09 am and we were in Brooklyn, which meant about 30-40 minutes of train rides away, so we left by 7:45 am in order to have time to grab a coffee and breakfast at the station. We had no trouble getting there, and got some nice pastries and coffee and relaxed in the lounge for a bit.

We were disappointed to learn that our train didn’t have a cafe car though, so the coffee we had was all the coffee we would have! We were en route to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, usually just called E-town, to visit some relatives of mine and stay with my aunt Connie that night.

The train ride. Once we got to Philadelphia, we were told we actually had to switch trains to continue our trip. This was actually a good thing as we had been seated moving backwards, and then we chose seats moving forward, win! We also got to pick our new seats before they allowed the general boarding from Philadelphia to board, so it was no big deal.

The train ride was just over 3 hours, and uneventful. However, that seems like a good time to end this blog post, haha. Next time: E-town, Lititz, and then the train back to Philadelphia.

New York, Travel

St Louis to Manhattan to Brooklyn

June 6, 2024 hannahviolin

Louie and I wanted to have two trips this summer, one at the beginning and one at the end of the summer. The first trip we focused on visiting family, so we planned a trip to New York and Philadelphia (with a little side trip as well.) We planned to fly into NYC, visit his uncle Paul, go to Brooklyn to visit my sister Carrie, take the train to Elizabethtown, PA to visit my aunt Connie, and then finally to Philadelphia to visit his dad, and fly home from there. All of the travel arrangements worked out just as planned, and we had a great time.

Our first stop was New York City, so that’s what I’ll tell you about today. We flew direct to La Guardia and the flight was uneventful.

We landed in La Guardia and were amazed by the airport: both of us recalled LGA being a dump, and instead it was a beautiful modern looking building. Evidently the terminal was new and LGA had had a large renovation over the past few years. We obviously don’t fly to New York much. Anyway, we took a cab to get into the city, and the cab driver was classic “New York”. At several points the driver yelled at other drivers out the window things like, “I’m going to teach you how to drive!” It was like in the old Jerry Seinfeld bit about NY cabbies and how it doesn’t feel real, it’s like it’s all happening on TV.

In any case, we made it to Louie’s uncle’s apartment without major incident, and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon catching up with him.

My sister Carrie came over for dinner that night, and Louie’s aunt Phyllis and uncle Paul made pasta, salad, and we had strawberries with ice cream.

The next day Louie and I hit the ground running for sightseeing. We had coffee and croissants for breakfast, and then starting walking up 5th avenue. If you are familiar with Manhattan, we started near Union Square (well, we did that regardless if you are familiar with Manhattan or not, but it will mean more to you.) We walked all the way to Central Park, had lunch at a place called DIG, walked around Central Park, and then back down 7th, past Carnegie Hall, through Times Square, had gelato, and finally back to Paul’s place. It was a 10 mile walking day, and it was invigorating and exhausting.

We met up with Paul and Phyllis after they finished work and went to Fowl Witch for dinner. It was delicious!

The next morning we had breakfast at Newsbar Cafe, and then in the late morning took the train down to Brooklyn to Carrie’s place. Riding public transportation is super easy now for NYC, just tap your credit card to buy a ticket upon entry. Make sure to use the same card each time, because if you take enough rides to spend the same as a weekly pass you’ll be charged for that instead, and also any transfers will be tracked automatically. We did have a little trouble with our trains and ended up getting off what would have actually been the correct train but got convinced by a stranger it was wrong. No big deal though, it just took a little longer. Lesson: always trust google first for directions rather than people, haha.

My feet hurt from the walking the day before, so ostensibly it was going to be a lighter day, but no, we still walked over 10 miles! We had lunch at a Thai place called Sukh.

We walked down to Brooklyn Bridge Park after that, and along the water. We could see a bunch of bridges, and the Statue of Liberty in the distance, and of course Manhattan.

We had an ice cream stop at one point, and then finally back at Carrie’s for a bit in the late afternoon. We rested before deciding where to go for dinner: we ended up going to Zaytoon’s, a middle eastern place that Carrie really wanted to show us. We ate a delicious dinner there.

Maybe that’s a good place to stop for today. I’ll finish up our days in Brooklyn and the rest of the trip another day: I’m sure you can’t wait!

New York, Philadelphia, Travel

New York, New York

March 29, 2018 hannahviolin 1 Comment

It’s been a rainy few weeks since we returned from New York, but I’d like to share the highlights of the trip with you.

Louie and I decided to take a spring break trip to New York City. Taking a spring break required a bit of finagling on my part, but I was ready for it: as I mention here quite a bit, I rarely have days off on the weekend or any time, so taking a 7 day trip really just means that I’m finally getting to take some weekends. Sometimes people exclaim over this sort of thing, and frankly, I’m tired of it. And honestly, I’m lucky in that I am able to take some vacations. I work hard, I save, and I deserve it Smile And other than getting sick upon my return, taking breaks really does make me a better teacher and musician.

Okay! So as the trip planning came about, we ended up with three segments of our trip. The first segment would be two days staying with Louie’s aunt and uncle in New York City, then two days with Louie’s dad in Philadelphia, then back to NYC to stay with my sister Carrie for two days. Quite a bit of back and forth, but it made sense when we planned it out.

I bought a new little suitcase for my travels. How cute is this guy?

We flew out on a Sunday morning and got to NY in the afternoon. When you fly into New York, you can really appreciate how populated the area in. Most airports, you’ll have wide open spaces, and then enter the city, and then land. In this case, it’s houses and roads and buildings for miles and miles leading up to it.

We got a cab to Louie’s uncle’s apartment, and enjoyed the ride in. It takes a little while to get used to the pace of everything in New York City. It’s fast, the cars drive quickly, close together, change lanes a lot, and you just have to get used to it, I think. People walk faster too, and people walk much more (which is definitely good.) Louie’s uncle’s apartment was near Washington Square Park and NYU in a really few neighborhood. I’d never met these relatives of his before, so that was great, and they were of course, really nice. Another aunt and uncle came over and we all went to a place in Brooklyn for dinner called Roberta’s. It’s normally not a place that takes reservations but his aunt was able to finagle a reservation, so we got to snootily walk past everybody and avoid the line. The food was fantastic, even though I got given a hard time for trying to avoid meat…sigh. I’m sure it was all in good fun, though.

I didn’t take as many pictures during the first part of the trip, so I apologize. There are several reasons for that, ranging from “too cold” to “didn’t seem cool taking pictures”. But I took a few!

Our first full day in the city we slept in a bit—I wanted to get up and explore, but I was just so tired. As you know if you’ve been reading my blog, I’ve been pushing myself perhaps a bit too much, and once I hit vacation it was like I hit a wall. But we got up and had lovely cappucinos and pastries around the corner from Louie’s uncle’s place, and then we decided to walk down to the World Trade Center area.

I hadn’t been since before 9/11 so it was nice to see the memorial. Well, not nice exactly, but meaningful, and heartfelt, and sad.

We ate at Eatery (I forgot until we were sitting down the whole sexual harassment thing about Mario Batali, grr it’s hard to keep track!) and then headed back up. We didn’t do terribly exciting things, but it was nice to walk and feel the energy of the city around you. You can just walk and walk!

We met up again with the uncles and aunts for dinner and went to a chinese restaurant on the edge of Chinatown. I don’t recall the name, but it was very delicious. I should also add that we were using the subway fairly proficiently at this point, had a pass to keep adding money too, and generally found google maps useful.

Anyway, the next morning we again slept in, even though again we truly intended to get up earlier. It’s hard to balance vacation as a break and as an activity, isn’t it? I think since we were staying at a relative’s house we didn’t feel the desperate urge to see it all: New York is great, but fairly accessible.

Anyway, we decided to visit the Tenement Museum.

The tour was really interesting, though I had almost more questions after the fact. I highly recommend checking the museum out. It was another rainy day and we were cold, but still enjoyed walking around. We found a little place that served giant tacos (with tofu and chickpeas and all sorts of tasty things) and had a late lunch there, and then meandered back to the apartment. We had to pack up and meet for dinner.

The next step in our vacation was to meet Louie’s dad for dinner at a Greek restaurant near Carnegie Hall and then go see the Philadelphia Orchestra play at Carnegie. As it turned out, the week we chose to visit NYC, the Philly orchestra was playing in Carnegie, so we got to see Louie’s dad play! We also met up with Louie’s brother Eric, who works at Carnegie, and had a great dinner, then went to the show. Our seats were VERY high up and a bit obstructed view, but the sound was fantastic. I’d heard the Philadelphia Orchestra many years ago (while in college) and was very impressed.

I thought the string sound was so lush and vibrant in particular. Afterwards we got to be orchestra groupies and met the bus to take us to the train station, where the orchestra had a private train taking them back to Philly. We got to Penn Station, walked straight onto the train, and then left!

Next stop: Philadelphia! We had a nice train ride with Louie’s dad and chatted with some other people as well, some who Louie had known as a young boy. We split some snacks and a bottle of wine—the perks of a private train (I felt like the queen of england!).

We got in very late, and we were staying at the Doubletree Hotel in Center City. We wouldn’t get much sleep, because the next morning we had plans to meet my brother Jesse, who lives just outside of Philadelphia.

We met up with Jesse, and got some coffee and pastries first. Then we decided to walk around, and go to the Betsy Ross House.

The Betsy Ross House is a long standing family tradition. Back when I was in high school my Uncle Ed started a postcard campaign about the House to garner excitement about an upcoming trip. He sent at least a half dozen cards, each one expressing the amazing-ness that was the BR House and counting down the days until we visited. We went to Philadelphia for the day as a family, and at the end of the day we visited it. It was of course, the highlight of the trip.

Once we got there we had to take a few pictures as well, to share with family!

Jesse and I outside the house.

Betsy’s gravesite.

Louie and I.

We decided to take the tour, so we headed in. We were lucky in that the house was nearly empty of guests—we were told that normally there would be lots of schoolchildren visiting!

One mildly creepy thing was that there was an actual person dressed as and acting like Betsy. A tour guide referred to them as “the Betsy’s” and once we got to the room with the actual Betsy, it got weird. She talked to us as if she really was Betsy, but I wanted to say, look, lady, it’s just the four of us, and we are all adults here, but I’m not totally convinced she didn’t know she wasn’t Betsy Ross!

In any case, as much as the idea of the Betsy Ross House is a bit of a family joke, we enjoyed it and learned a bit. Even if Betsy didn’t make the original flag (it’s unclear) she was a saavy businesswoman at a time few women owned businesses.

Then we all met up with Louie’s dad and wife for lunch. We had delicious seafood, and then walked my brother to the train station—he had to get back to work.

We spent the rest of the afternoon drinking coffee and just hanging out. Louie and I were finding that we had spent a good deal of the week just being exhausted! We met up with his dad again for a wonderful dinner at a place called Vedge.

The next morning we left the hotel and went to the train station for our train back to NYC. Next stop, the upper limits of Manhattan!

It turned out that my sister Carrie was playing on a gig the first night we were there. And then it turned out that a violinist was sick, and so I would be playing on the gig! I had to borrow a violin, but otherwise thought it sounded like great fun to play a gig with my sister.

So, we got back to Penn Station around 11 am, and then found a subway to take us north. Another 45 minutes, we got off the subway, and followed the maps to Carrie’s apartment. She lives in Inwood with a roommate, who we also met, and the place is really quite nice! Of course it’s small, but it was pretty modern and honestly more spacious than I’d imagined. We went with her and her boyfriend Daniel to a ramen place called Tampopo, after the movie.

After lunch we headed up to to walk around Fort Tryon Park and visit the Cloisters Museum. It was really neat (and I really understood all those jokes about monks and art, as quite a lot of the stuff was a bit “have you ever seen a cat before?”)

Louie with a unicorn horn.

Then it was time to change and take the train to Brooklyn for the gig. We decided to get there early and eat dinner beforehand, so we managed to beat the rush (and luckily avoid the train delays that affected people later in the day). We picked a vegetarian place near where we were playing that ended up being so-so, and also met up with a friend of Louie’s.

Then Carrie and I headed over to Union Hall, where we were playing some music for a comedy variety show. We played some pre show music and then one thing during. The comedians ranged from really funny to kind of okay, but it was a good time and a friendly audience. I particularly loved the comedy of Aparna Nancherla, who was understated and self deprecating, but very polished. We all had a fun time, and even got involved with some audience participation.

Aparna—she was on a Master of None episode.

The theme of the variety show was that it was supposed to be the host’s 40th birthday (which they acted like this was something horribly old and crazy…) The event was hosted by a comedian named Jenny Gorelick.

I felt like the whole event was exactly how NY seems like it should be—random events where you run into celebrities!

The next day we did more sightseeing. We headed to the northernmost tip of Manhattan.

And we saw the place where supposedly the island was purchased from the Native Americans.

We decided to see a museum, and went to the Smithsonian Museum of Design by Cooper Hewitt, or something like that. It was a long walk to get there, and the wind was not fun. The museum was okay—some aspects were really cool, like this magic pen thing you could hold and use it to work with various exhibits and save stuff to your audience number online, but it didn’t work as well and I’d hoped, and the museum was on the small side. We enjoyed it though, and then went to dinner at another vegetarian restaurant on the East Side called Franchia. It was delicious but we felt really rushed through dinner by our server. I suppose we could have just taken our time, but it just felt like we were rushed to order and then we felt like the whole thing happened too fast and we didn’t really get to peruse the menu as much as we’d hoped!

Anyway, the next morning we went home, and that was uneventful…so that was our NY trip. It was great to see so many family members, to get some nice sightseeing in, and to relax and enjoy some good meals. And as a smaller city girl, it’s always fun when you feel like you are understanding the public transit options! I never use public transit here in St Louis, so I felt very big city riding the subway with my violin. There was a time in my life when I wanted to go to the Juilliard School but I ended up in Cleveland instead. I suppose things might have been different!