Manhattan memories

Steve is a big boxing and UFC fan. Every time there's a fight on he always claims it's the biggest fight of the year. I get a chuckle out of this and it has become a running joke -- wasn't the last fight the biggest fight of the year?

For Chrismukkah back in 2001, I decided to be all daring, spur of the moment, non-plannerish and buy two tickets to see Arturo Gatti fight at the Theatre At Madison Square Garden in New York. Little did I know (or maybe I did know but, hey, it's New York) this would be a contributing factor to Steve's obsession of watching people get punched out, ripped open, blood dripping welts -- I will never understand the joy and fascination one gets from this sport. Two guys beating the shit out of each other only to shake hands at the end and train all over again for the next fight. The poor parents who have to watch this. Oh, wait. We were sitting right behind the mother of Vernon Forrest at the match, cheering her son on -- it didn't seem to phase her. Now that's what I call support!

Anyway, we had a blast in New York -- all three nights, four days of it.

It was only a few months after 9/11 so the charred, soot smell still lingered in the air. The memorials on the street were still up in front of St. Paul's Church and parts of New York were still closed to the public.

We used the double decker red tour bus a lot to get around. I think we were too nervous to venture underground to the subway or too chicken to try to flag down a taxi without getting run over. I seriously wonder how many people get run over daily in New York. It must be the jaywalking capital of the world. I also had it stuck in my mind that flagging down a taxi in Times Square was pretty much impossible, even in the movies it seems like a daunting task unless you're smokin' hot in heels and have a whistle as loud as a freight train.

Our first day in New York was the best. We walked over to the International Soup Kitchen -- you know, the one from Seinfeld (it has since closed). It reminded us so much of the episode -- we were Elaine hum-ing and ha-ing over what to get while the guy behind the counter gave us an evil look like we were going to hell if we didn't quickly decide on our order and move along in an orderly fashion -- keep the line moving, chop chop.

We brought our brown bag of soup to Central Park and found a bench. It was one of the best soups I have ever had. It was thick and rich and hardy and warm and filled with lots of mushrooms and barley. Mmm! It's a lunch Steve and I remember fondly. Anytime someone mentions New York Steve and I look at each other and we both know what the other is thinking -- soup in Central Park.

My birthday fell on the day we left to come back home. The day before we left, Steve surprised me by taking me to Le Cirque -- a reservation he made before our trip. Since the temperatures in New York were hitting record highs for January, we were able to walk there without freezing our butts off.

The food was wonderful and we couldn't stop raving about the water. I have no clue why the water was so good but it was, kind of like the water you get at a Chinese food restaurant, it always seems to be the right temperature. We had two wonderful desserts. One was white chocolate clouds floating in vanilla cream with raspberry coulis. The other was a sample platter of everything chocolate. They were both heavenly. It was all worth the $200+US for the two hours that we were there (and when I say that it cost more, well, the Canadians who are reading this will probably understand the cursing and swearing I muffled under my breath as the thought of the damn exchange rate crossed my mind) -- two hours that included two main courses, two desserts, a glass of pop and a glass of white wine. I don't want to imagine what the cost of our meal would have come to if we had ordered appetizers or more alcoholic bevies.

Oh right, the fight -- The fight wasn't all that bad. I think we took the red bus there and then we were able to walk back (I still can't believe how warm it was while we were there).

I had a hard time picking out seats for the fight but they ended up being pretty decent as we were sitting right behind the family of Vernon Forrest (one of the boxers fighting that night). He ended up winning his match (I was told this was a big deal, or a huge upset as it is called in the world of sports or so I'm told)-- his mom and wife screaming at the million dollar plus win. We just watched someone win the lottery!

Arturo Gatti won as well.

It was a win-win situation for all of us that night, that weekend.

Over the last few weeks we have seen the end of these two boxers -- Arturo Gatti and Vernon Forrest. Steve is not a fan of reading or watching the news. The Sports section is all that he takes out of the newspaper when it comes in the morning. I mentioned to him the other day that the paper said something about Gatti's Will. Steve commented about how the reporters are so interested in Gatti's life now but rarely did they ever cover Gatti's boxing life as it was happening -- rarely a story on his win, hardly every publishing the results from his fights. Steve is right. This is why he doesn't like the news. It really is a pretty big downer to read over and over again about all the negative happening in the world.

Anyway, I started this post because I was looking at a few of my favourite pictures from this trip that I have hanging on the wall in our living room. I get compliments on them often and I'm quite happy with how they turned out. Who says you need to spend tons of money on artwork -- just make your own!

Here are the pictures. I took them while we were riding around on the red tour bus. The one on the left is the entrance to John Lennon's apartment (I think), the middle one is the place where we got our soup, the one on the right is a church in lower Manhattan (I can't remember which one though).