I never did find a cyber cafe near to where I was staying in New York, though in all honesty, I didn't look terribly hard. I had a nice trip. It felt a little unstructured, which isn't a bad thing, but a lot of the things I'd expected to do with Mom didn't happen because, of course, she ended up not going. It was a very nice visit, though, and I saw people I hadn't seen for a while and went to places I hadn't been before.

On the advice of a friend at the ROM, I went down to Chelsea, and really, other than housing a significant number of aging gay men with small dogs and a fair number of interior design shops, there wasn't a whole lot going on. I suspect my friend got Chelsea confused with Soho. I didn't actually make it to Soho, even, as I found other things to do. I did more fully explore the Upper West Side and the streets near to where I was staying, this time, venturing off of Broadway in order to explore Amsterdam and Columbus. I also didn't make it out to any clubs or plays, even though me and my host had discussed the idea of going to a show. Not having any contacts my own age kind of cuts into one's desire to experiment with the clubs and whatnot.

One thing that was very neat was that I returned to my old neighbourhood, Sheepshead Bay, for the first time in twenty years. I went specifically to visit my late nana and zaida's best friends, Willy and Shirley, but also to see the streets I remember so fondly. When I climbed out of the subway, I was struck with olfactory nostalgia - the neighbourhood smells exactly how I remember it: like the ocean, a bit dirty, and full of cooking scents. I took photographs of my old house and street and was pleased to see how big the trees had become. I wandered through the park where I used to play and more than anything, it was there where I felt the most nostalgic. Willy and Shirley are old now; somehow the same even though the years have marked them. Willy is half blind but as kind as I remember and, now that I'm an adult, I realise he's perceptive, intelligent, and wise. Shirley is tiny - five foot nothing at the most - and has all the powers of persuasion a Jewish great-grandmother should have. Brooklyn pizza is still the best in the world and therefore I was to eat it ("Have another slice, Mayala, we ordered it for you...") until Shirley had deemed I'd eaten enough.

Eating was something I did a lot of. Despite my, um, zoftic curves, the prevailing attitude was that I should eat heartily at every meal. This is not how I usually eat. I tend toward one meaningful meal a day, but everyone made sure I couldn't possibly starve. And most frustratingly, no one let me pay. I managed, in a week of eating, to pay for only two, maybe three, meals. And every single one was either delivery or at a restaurant. I started to order salads simply to cut down on the heaviness and to get some decent fiber into my diet. The best food was had at three particular restaurants, excluding the awesome pizza Shirley ordered: E.J.'s Luncheonette, French Roast (my favourite by far) and, River Thai & Vietnamese.

Unfortunately, I spent the entire vacation suffering from larengitis, or something like it, so I was coughing chronically, alternating between losing my voice and sounding like I'd been smoking for forty years, and blowing god-awful stuff out of my nose. I spent the Tuesday pretty much in bed all day until dinner time when I finally got up and decided I was going to take a walk if it killed me. Alfred joined me and we walked to Riverside Park and far down the humber, pausing ocassionally to sit on a bench in the sun or wander down a pier. We found a charming waterside cafe and enjoyed a refreshing dinner as the sun sank below New Jersey before heading back up the boardwalk and home again.

On the one grossly humid day we had, I walked (yes, walked - ugh) to the American Museum of Natural History knowing full well that it would be extremely air-conditioned. This was my favourite museum when I was little and it's still pretty neat. I took in the special exhibition about the lost city of Petra, which was very interesting and made good use of both video and written information. I also got to see the model of the giant squid hanging from the ceiling in the biodiversity section - a creature that has dominated my memory of the museum for most of my life. It's not as big as it seemed when I was five, but it's still pretty impressive. I also went to the Whitney Museum with Alfred, and that was pretty interesting, though not as much fun as when we went to the Met back in October. The museum highlight was definitely the Brooklyn Museum of Art. I visited that one with my mother's friend, Suzanne, who lives very near to it, and was very impressed. It is large and spacious and houses some very fine collections of world art. Mostly, I focused on the African and Oceanic art as we lack any notworthy displays of such here in Toronto. I found it very interesting that the Brooklyn Museum has just undergone a substantial renovation that involves both glass and steel, but unlike what's going to happen at the ROM, this museum's managed to blend it perfectly with its classically inspired facade. Gorgeous.

Anyway, I could go on at some length still, but my fingers hurt. I am out of practice, or something, and I've already been typing now for about half-an-hour. Suffice it to say that I had a very nice time in New York and hope that I'll get back there in the not too distant future.