Central Park, the Met and NYC nighttime

What Ksenia and Tyler looked like on vacation. 

This photo cost $5. I hope you enjoy!

Amazing Cuban restaurant where we ate brunch, Victor's Cafe. 

Victor's.

Cool things are everywhere in NYC.

Pedicab tour through Central Park. I recommend it.

A few of my favorite Central Park photos.  I LOVE IT THERE.

So very much not something you'd see in Iowa

"Friends" fountain

The famous/infamous Dakota

The self-proclaimed keeper of "Imagine". 

Napping by Imagine

Art is everywhere in Central Park

Outside The Met

Some of my favorite pictures inside The Met

The view from the top of The Met. Central Park trees. Pure Bliss. Perfect day, beautiful weather, beautiful view, and could hear Band of Horses playing in Central Park. One of my favorite moments ever.

Met view at night

Seafood tower dinner at Blue Fin

Spoon fight over this dessert

Times Square nighttime

Rockefeller Center area

Rockefeller Center

Broadway

End of the shift

I Heart New York

New York City. Wow.  I had always thought that I wouldn't love it. I thought it would be an interesting place to visit, culturally and historically...but that I would go and do the NY thing, and that would be it.
I didn't understand what all the fuss was about, to be honest.

I was wrong. What a beautiful and interesting place. It seriously has an electricity about it, so vibrant and full of life.
And what a great thing to be able to experience it for the first time with Ksenia.  We could all be stereotypically touristy together, walk around with our cameras- snap, snap, snapping away.

Here are pictures from day one. Friday night.

Newark to NYC

We arrived mid-day Friday and took the train from Newark to NYC, and then walked 20 minutes through the rain, dodging people with our luggage and hearing vendors on every corner yelling "umbrella, umbrella"!

Soaked and sore from lugging our junk through the streets, we got to our room. And the view immediately made it all worth it.

I love this picture!

The first night there we took in a Broadway show. We chose Phantom of the Opera, since we were on a "typical tourist" vacation, this seemed to fit the bill.

I took my tripod, and this was the one photo that I used it for. 

World Food Weekend

World Food Weekend is an annual event in Des Moines, and it is amazing the variety of foods that you can find there, and the amount of people!  They actually have $1 samples at the various food vendors, but in order to get them, you must stand in line-- so as we were impatient and hungry-we opted for full plates of food instead.

Here are some photos of the food we tried that day.  The food from the Phillipines was my favorite!

This was the Filipino food-that roll is deceiving-it looks boring, but it is stuffed with meat and so incredibly delicious





This is an El Salvadoran concoction that was very good. I'm not quite sure what was in it-but we ate it ALL.



This--is Ethiopian "wat". Veggies and meat stew with sourdough flatbread.  WHY we bought 2 plates of this, I'm not sure.

Let's just say there were 4 hungry people, and we left some on the plates....

In conclusion, after our brief afternoon at World Food Fest, I would gladly travel to the Phillipines, and El Salvador, but if I have to go to Ethiopia, I'm packing granola bars.

Of course we had to experience some international quaffs. They had a great selection! 

Friday Nights and Russian Pancakes

What Tyler and I most enjoy doing on Friday nights is coming home from a long week of work, having a much-deserved beer or glass of wine, listening to some music on the record player, and dancing with the dogs.   There are very few things more beautiful and peaceful to me than these moments.

This particular Friday night, Ksenia made the most delicious Russian pancakes that we had with tomatoes and feta cheese, and also with bananas and honey.

It was a fantastic evening. Ksenia tolerates our weirdness so well....