KateSpot

(my friend Kathy wrote this part about Friday)

OK, well Shel didn't have an umbrella and it was pouring, so she decided to go across the street to Staples to buy one. (Yes, Kate and I were suprised to find out that Staples, the office supply store, sells umbrellas). Kate ran a few doors down to check out a restaurant and see if it looked good. After Shel got her umbrella, we decided to go for an early dinner.

The restaurant is called Osteria Laguna and it is an Italian restaurant, average priced. We ordered our dinners (I think I can finally pronounce mine! LOL! gnocci! Yum!) and a bottle of wine. The wine was David Bruce Petite Syrah <a href="http://www.davidbrucewinery.com/wine.asp?id=petitesyrah"target=_blank>link</a>. This is a fabulous wine! We loved it. All of us will highly recommend it to you. Everything was fabulous. At the end of the meal, they brought around a dessert tray. We were all so stuffed that we couldn't think about dessert. We got the check and left for the show. At this point, it was only drizzling. So we started walking and figured we would catch a bus or cab along the way to get to the show. We ended up walking all the way there, which was a good thing with how full we were. We arrived at the theatre with only a few minutes to spare. Kate got the tickets from Will Call and we waited in the lobby. We waited and waited. The show was supposed to start at 8:00 and didn't start until 8:30. We went in and sat down. The tickets Kate got were 3rd row center! Best seats in the house!! The show was <a href="http://toxicaudio.com/index2.htm"target=_blank>Toxic Audio</a> and it was fabulous! We had a great time. The music and comedy was wonderful. The 90 minutes FLEW by! Get on their mailing list at the website. They are scheduled to start touring in a few months and may be in a city near you. After the show, we stayed in the lobby for a little while, bought a couple of their CD's and had them autographed by the cast. When we left the theatre, it was POURING again. We hailed a cab and went to Serendipity 3 for dessert <a href="http://www.serendipity3.com/"target=_blank>link</a>. There was a long wait, but it was well worth it. We all shared a frozen hot chocolate and a peanut butter pie (humble pie). The peanut butter pie was very sweet, good but sweet. The frozen hot chocolate was fabulous. Kate, please post the recipe!!! After dessert, we took a cab back to the hotel. We sat and chatted for a while. I think we all passed out at about 1:00AM.

Saturday the 24th - by Kate
The alarm went off at 7am. Ugh. Kathy shut it off after about 20 seconds and we all fell back asleep. Actually, I don't think that Shel even woke up! LOL. By 9am, housekeeping rang the doorbell and woke us all up for good. The weatherman had predicted rain for the entire weekend so we were very pleased to notice that it was NOT raining. We planned to make the most of our day just in case it did rain. It wasn't until 1030am that we ate breakfast at Pax Wholesome Foods (http://www.paxfood.com/). Kathy and I had bagels and Shel had some kind of breakfast burrito. We decided to go to the ESB since the weather was still clear. We walked to the ESB and got in line to go to the observatory. We waited.. and waited.. and waited some more. We ended up chatting with an older gentleman who was there with his wife. She wasn't too pleased that he spent a lot of the wait time talking to us - lol. Turns out he has property near Kathy in San Jose! Small world. We also got our picture taken in front of a backdrop of the ESB. We finally got to the 86th floor and it was a beautiful view. It was about 60 degrees and quite windy and just wonderful. The views were amazing and, once again, I thought about all of you guys who couldn't be with us and I missed you all very much. I think we stayed out for almost an hour before going inside to the gift shop and browsing. We used the restroom, picked up the pictures and left.
We wandered around the street for a while, trying to figure out what to do next. Kathy called a friend of hers who lived in NYC and he told us where the closest subway station was located and the name and address of a good pizza place. We decided to take the subway down towards the World Trade Center and see the site. We walked down into the subway station (PU!) and tried to figure out how to buy a 1 day fun pass for each of us. Kathy spoke to the ticket booth attendant and he explained how to do it. So, armed with our metro passes, we all swiped our cards, walked through the gates to the platforms and immediately realized we were on the wrong platform. Duh. We walked back into the station, walked upstairs and went down into the station, THINKING we were on the opposite side. WRONG!! LOL! We walked BACK out, crossed the street and finally walked into the correct station side. I swiped my pass and it wouldn't let me pass through the turnstiles. The attendant had to let the three of us in through the gate. We had swiped the cards only a few minutes before and I guess it is some form of security measure so people don't share cards or something.
ANYWAY - we finally get on the subway and take it as far down as Canal and Layfayette as there was construction going on in some stations. We climb up the subways stairs and we are immediately in a crowd of a gazillion people. ALL sorts of funky smells. Eww. Welcome to Chinatown! We walked to a corner and then tried to figure out where the hell we needed to go to get to the WTC site. We get oriented and start walking. We walked and walked and walked. At some times, we were the only people walking around the streets. We stopped for pizza at a Blimpies and boy, it was pretty damn good pizza! I commented on the fact that both Shel and Kathy do not fold their pizza in half to eat. Maybe it's an East Coast thing. LOL.
After lunch, we didn't have to walk too much longer before finding the purse vendors. Kathy was determined to purchase some designer knock-offs before she went home. She browsed while Shel and I got a laugh out of the vendors trying to persuade her to buy the bags.
We got to the WTC site around 4pm-ish. There were a lot of people there but it wasn't super noisy. A lot of people were very subdued. I mentioned to Kathy and Shel that, while we were walking to the site, that these were the streets that showed people, covered in ash, running for their lives. Firetrucks, police cars and ambulances were all rushing down these streets, My brother ran down these streets. It was like walking amongst ghosts.
The site is enormous. It's truly hard to describe the size of it. Look at the photographs I uploaded and they really doesn't do it justice. We walked around the site, taking photogaphs and just looking. Check out <a href="http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=new+york+firehouse+10"target=_blank>this link</a> for images from 9-11. We saw the Engine 10 and Ladder 10 firehouse which is across from Ground Zero. This station <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/26831p-25489c.html"target=_blank>lost 10 men</a> in the attack. We walked through the One World Financial building before leaving and walking along the water in Battery Park. I think we walked about a mile along the water. We saw 2 cuise ships heading out of the NYC port. We waved but no one on the ship waved back. BASTARDS! LOL! I was hoping to catch the ferry that runs out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Turns out, we missed it by 30 minutes. Crap. We bought pretzels, sat on a bench and relaxed. My feet were hurting! We people watched and chatted for about 20 minutes. We got up and wandered around Battery Park. There were TONS of vendors selling everything - bags, watches, more bags, posters, art and more bags. Kathy picked up a "Prada" backpack at one vendor. I was really drooling over the "Kate Spade" bags but didn't buy one. Turns out Kathy and Shel conspired together and bought one for me! I was squealing like a little kid in a candy shop! In fact, I used it today! Kathy also got a pink "Kate Spade" bag too. We were all just giggling over Kathy's bargaining skills. She is quite good at it.
We found a subway station and jumped onto that to bring us all the way back uptown to 42nd street.