Chelsea Market

Once we figured out how to use the Keurig coffee maker and enjoyed the individually brewed cups of coffee, took our turns at the huge showers with multi-showerheads, and got ourselves dressed, we reluctantly left our “condo” and drove to NYC to wander through Chelsea Market. Saturday was a crazy day—tourists, tour groups and New Yorkers—shopping and eating their way through this old market.

The Chelsea Market was built within the former Nabisco factory complex where the Oreo Cookie was invented and produced. The 22-building complex fills two entire blocks bounded by 9th and 11th Avenues and 15th to 16th Street.

In 1997, the building was re-purposed into a kind of “gourmet urban food court” with bakeries,

fish shops, a dairy store, produce market along with clothing stores, wholesale kitchen equipment and the Food Network’s headquarter upstairs.

Jean and Gordon found the most amazing little stall selling flavored salts, vinegars and sugars- complete with tastings. They walked out with blueberry balsamic vinegar that was good enough to drink.

We managed to find our way back to Jersey City and Jean and I took off for the Path station to take the World Trade Center line to Century 21.

Century 21

(Photo courtesy of Flickr)

It was our last chance to shop at this 4 story mecca of discounted designer clothes, shoes, accessories, cosmetics and household goods. The narrow aisles are packed with people from every part of the world pulling wheeled carriers loaded with their treasures. Checkout alone can take 30 minutes.

It was our last night and our “graduation dinner” just had to be at Madame Claude’s. We had the same waitress and had a wonderful meal.

Madame Claude's

“How YOU doin?” …..“Fuggetaboutit”

A trip to NYC has to include its’ largest borough… we were off to Brooklyn. This was our second “Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour”. We had such a great time with Tony, the owner and guide, two years ago. When the bus (much bigger than the one from our last tour) pulled up, a young girl came out and our hearts sank. How could anyone match the authenticity of Tony? Well, it turns out that his cousin, Paula, is every bit of a cut-up as Tony—and a history buff as well. One of the reviews of the tour captures it perfectly: "Imagine you call your buddy Joe from Brooklyn whom you haven't seen in a while. "Hey Joe, I will be in the area, do you wanna hang out?" Joe says: "Would love to see you, let me pick up up in the city and we'll head over to Brooklyn and I'll show you around my neighborhood. We'll grab some grub at a couple of places only the locals know about". This is basically what you're getting when you go on this tour Brooklyn Pizza Tour”.

Grimaldi's Pizza
The “slices” –the first at Grimaldi’s –Neapolitan style pizza made with a coal fired brick oven –thin crust with just tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil.

Grimaldi’s is at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge so we walked down the street to get some great views of this amazing engineering phenomena.

Note: The construction of the Brooklyn Bridge started in 1869 and took 14 years to complete. The driving force behind the whole project, John Roebling, would never get to see the bridge he had designed: he died after crushing his foot in an accident. His wife completed the project.
The bridge was inaugurated in May 1883. But even after the inauguration, many New Yorkers were not convinced the bridge was safe. So to prove the doubters wrong, P.T. Barnum led a caravan of circus animals - including a herd of 21 elephants - across the bridge in 1884.

The second “slice”—a Sicilian style pizza at L&B Spumoni Gardens in Bensonhurst. Thick crust pizza cut into large squares—made with the cheese baked in the middle—keeping the crust crispy---topped off with a cup of spumoni ice cream.

L&B Spumoni Gardens
In between, we saw the neighborhoods of Brooklyn interspersed with clips from movies shot in the city. As we watched the opening scene of “Saturday Night Fever” with John Travolta walking down the street under the elevated rail line, we drove down the same street and saw the places he stopped. We drove the streets where they filmed the chase scene from “The French Connection” (which was filmed without shutting down the street—all but one of the cars were regular drivers!)

A made a stop at Coney Island and a walk down the boardwalk (with a clip from “Annie Hall”),

Coney Island Boardwalk

a drive along Shore Road in Bay Ridge with “million dollar homes”, and a drive through Brighton Beach- the Russian section of Brooklyn- called “Little Odessa” …and of course, the obligatory film clip from “Donnie Brasco” explaining the many meanings of “Fuggetaboutit”.

Back to Jersey City and the “gypsy wagon” made its’ way from the motorhome to our new digs.

The Urban Gypsies

We really did look like urban gypsies—with bags and wine filling the car. I’m sure Jim’s doorman was impressed as we dragged our bags through the lobby and up to the 24th floor.

The daylight views were just as spectacular as our night views from the other night. We settled in to our respective rooms, got some wine (and took lots of photos as the day turned to night and the city came to life with lights). We were in heaven….Jim’s cat, Octavia, not so much. Our idea of a dog and cat love story was dashed.
Octavia...

Octavia was not thrilled with this small white barking creature invading her space and quickly decided that Jean and Gordon were her new best friends.

Wall Street, Ground Zero and "The Mosque"

Friday morning and we joined the Wall Street warriors on the water taxi to the east side of Lower Manhattan. It was a crisp fall day and quite lovely in the sunshine—but in the canyons of Wall Street, jackets were essential.

The water taxi docks by the South Street Seaport, once the sight of the busiest seaport in America.

From there, it was a short walk to Wall Street (where Gordon noticed a dog dump right near the Wall Street sign…how appropriate!) We walked the length of Wall Street. Interesting—there were more tourists than suited financiers. The Asians were taking photos of each other in the “George Washington pose” at Federal Hall. And the streets around the NY Stock Exchange were packed with camera toting tourists.

The New York Stock Exchange
Note- how did Wall Street get its name? After the Dutch purchased “New Amsterdam” from the Native Americans, a wall was erected that formed the northern boundary of the new colony. The first “walls” along the street were basic plank fences, but as time passed and tensions with the mother country grew, a stronger, taller wall was built in order to defend the colony against both the British and the American Indians tribes that still dominated the area. The British removed the wall around the turn of the 18th century.

We stopped at Trinity Church, home of the oldest congregation in America, established in 1697 under charter by King William III.

Trinity Church

Jean and Gordon got a kick out of the plaque on the floor: “On this spot stood Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her gracious visit 9 July 1976 His Royal Highness The Prince Phillip stood nearby”.

Ground Zero was showing signs of progress. Quite a change from the past few years when it seemed that there was no progress at all.

Ground Zero...

Building was beginning on a World Trade Center Memorial (expected to open in 2011, at the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks) The memorial, dubbed 'Reflecting Absence', will have cascading waterfalls with illuminated reflecting pools at the exact site of the former towers. The names of the 2979 people who died during the attacks that day will be inscribed around the edge of the waterfalls.

We stopped at St Paul’s Chapel.

St Paul's Chapel

The rear of the chapel faces Church Street, opposite the east side of the World Trade Center site. After 9/11, St. Paul's Chapel served as a place of rest and refuge for recovery workers at the WTC site.

With all of the heated discussions, rallys and political sound bites about the proposed Ground Zero Mosque and Muslim Community Center, we had to see the actual site. It is an active mosque today..

The proposed site of the Islamic Center

We found the site guarded by a single New York City cop who was happy to give us his two cents about the center, it’s questionable funding and just about everything else (including his belief that all wars are caused by women and religion). He lived through 9/11 and was involved in the cleanup.

John and I grabbed the water taxi (with Chloe in tow) back to Jersey City while Jean and Gordon continued their exploration of Manhattan. When they got home, we hustled them off to dinner with our old neighbor from Charlestown, Jim. He left Charlestown several years ago and moved to Jersey City. With an invitation for drinks at his condo before dinner, we walked in and our jaws dropped.

The View to die for!

The views of Manhattan were spectacular. The city was sparkling with lights and from every window you could see another piece of NYC. We were ‘gobsmacked’.

Madame Claude's Thursday night
We drove a few blocks away for dinner at one of Jim’s favorite spots—a little French inspired restaurant called Madame Claude’s. On Thursday nights, the owners and his friends play music –French gypsy music. The restaurant was small and absolutely charming. The menu- gorgeous! La Marocaine – a crepe with spicy lamb sausage, mushroom and crème fraiche, Couscous Madame Claude- stewed chicken and lamb sausage in Moroccan spices served with vegetables and couscous. There was duck confit, braised lamb shanks…and crepes with baked pear and chocolate sauce. All this and BYOB!

And to make a wonderful evening even better, as we told Jim of our challenging trip—4 people in our crippled motorhome. he casually offered his condo to us for the weekend—he was off to Vermont on Friday. We literally jumped at the offer—what an amazing way to end our trip with the Brits!

Chinatown, Little Italy and the Lower East Side

Our first driving experience into the city. We got our map and drove through the Holland Tunnel with Chinatown in the headlights. No problem…we managed to find Canal Street and followed the map to the first parking spot we found- right in the heart of Chinatown. With Chloe in tow, we walked through the crazy streets of Chinatown—tasted our first “bubble tea” (with tiny pieces of tapioca providing the “bubbles”) and checked out the strange foods in the Chinese markets.

(Jean and Gordon must have felt a bit of déjà vu—a bit like being back in China).

We wandered a few blocks into Little Italy- what is now a very tiny section of the city. Chinatown is gradually encroaching and what’s left of the old Italian neighborhood is now just a few city blocks. It was a gorgeous sunny day- perfect for alfresco dining, so we found a spot at an outdoor table, had pasta and watched the people stroll by.

The final neighborhood for our stroll was the Lower East Side. We saw the Tenement Museum (watched a short video on the history of the neighborhood) and noted that the neighborhood is undergoing rapid gentrification.

Even Gus’s Pickles was gone- which sent us on a search for “The Pickle Guys”.

Back at home, time for some wine and a look at the amazing views from Liberty Harbor..

Times Square, Midtown and Hell’s Kitchen

Watching the forecast, we decided that with a few glimpses of sunlight through the clouds- we’d take a double decker bus tour. Another PATH experience- this time all the way to 34th—and a walk to Times Square. We got the front row seat on the bus—the only seats with a little protection from the wind and cold (fortunately, since we had left that morning without our jackets). Our guide was great—a real New Yorker – yelling at people on the sidewalks and full of NY stories.

After our tour, we walked down “Restaurant Row”—the row of restaurants catering to the pre-theater crowd. Their fixed-price lunches were a bit more than we were looking for, so we continued onto 9th Street to Hell’s Kitchen where we found a little sports bar.

We left the Brits after lunch giving them a chance to explore the city on their own. They got home hours later, having walked from Times Square to Grand Central Terminal and all the way back to Greenwich Village.

New York City!!

Time to leave lovely New Jersey and our gorgeous campsite and head to Jersey City. The campground there leaves a lot to be desired—just a large parking lot. But this parking lot is right across the Hudson River from Manhattan – with the PATH only a few blocks away and the water taxi leaving directly from our parking lot. We got set up and headed directly for NYC.

The Path Station on Grove Street

The PATH experience wasn’t quite as terrifying as we remembered. The last time we were there, the PATH trains felt like they were going to disintegrate under the Hudson.

Once we arrived at the Christopher Street Station, we got our bearings and walked through Greenwich Village—down Bleeker Street to a little bar on MacDougal where we spent the afternoon people watching.

On the way home, a stop at Murray's Cheese..

"Fuhgedaboutit" - Cajuns take on NYC

On Sunday, we all left for NYC. While the RV Park here is nothing like Salem (it truly is a parking lot--although you can catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty in the distance. No matter- the Cajuns pulled the picnic tables together, pulled out the grills and it was a party in the parking lot.

Our first day was a major hit-- I found a tour of Brooklyn, called "A Slice of Brooklyn", run by a guy named "Tony". Imagine all of your stereotypes about NY/Brooklyn guys- and he was it! By the end of the day, everyone was saying, "fuhgedaboutit"...and "howyadoin". After a visit to the Brooklyn Bridge, we stopped for a slice of thin-crust Neapolitan pizza...then on to Coney Island - and a stop at another famous pizzeria -with Sicilian (Parmesan-over sauce-over mozzarella slices) and spumoni. While driving through the Brooklyn neighborhoods, Tony would cue his DVD player to show clips from films shot in Brooklyn. So, as you drive under the D line in Bensonhurst, you're watching "The French Connection" chase scene. On 86th Street in Bay Ridge, he shows John Travolta strutting his stuff in the opening scene of "Saturday Night Fever". (Wouldn't you know, the next day, this tour was being highlighted on The Today Show- this guy is gonna be swamped...)

Check out his web site, Slice of Brooklyn Pizza: http://www.asliceofbrooklyn.com/

Brenda, Carolyn and I did a "Shopping Tour"---4 1/2 hours in the Garment District - going into the backroom showrooms where the store buyers go to buy their clothes, accessories, etc. They're not open to the public- but with this tour you get in and can shop the samples. Brenda got a $450 coat for $65!. (Now, only Brenda would bargain in the showrooms- she got them down from $75 to $65..."Why pay wholesale?!"). We walked out feet off- that day and every other day.

John and I played tour guides at the Chelsea Market. This old factory (built in 1898) was owned by Nabisco and was the place where the Oreo cookie was invented. When Nabisco moved out, it was bought by a visionary who saw it as a place for both retail and wholesale operation. He brought in breadmakers, meat packers, produce vendors, flower vendors – offering them the ability to operate their wholesale operations on the exterior of the building- pulling their trucks in for shipments, and operating a retail operation on the inside. He kept the interior intact – so it has the feeling of an old factory. He encouraged the shops to have glassed in frontage to allow the shoppers to see their operations – baking bread, cutting meat… He had his son-in-law, an artist, create comfortable places for people to sit –resulting in huge Fred Flintstone like benches – that are now filled with people eating and drinking. On the upper floors are the TV studios for NY’s local channel, The Food Network and The Oxygen Network. (Web site for Chelsea Market: http://www.chelseamarket.com/pages/history.html)

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Then we took them on our own version of a Greenwich Village/SOHO walking/eating tour. Since the Cajuns have shared their tremendous cuisine (NOTHING like eating in the home of a great Cajun cook - and Sharon and Brenda are two of the absolute best!), we love introducing the Cajuns to strange ethnic eateries. We dragged them to tiny storefront restaurants/eateries and ordered tastings of Indian aloo kathi rolls, Israeli pressed sandwiches, Jamaican beef patties, fresh mozzarella and Italian sausage, Greek yogurt, and homemade Halva with pistachios.

Now, after all that, they did drag us to Little Italy for dinner. It's funny, "Brenda's New York" is so different from ours. She's the Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Broadway NYC girl. We're all Greenwich Village/SOHO/Lower East Side/Chelsea and tiny dives and ethnic foods. Although, I think Brenda's John was appreciating our cuisine a bit more after our Little Italy experience. After ordering a bottle of Chianti for $38, we ordered our $25+ dollar entrees...with everything ala carte. Our $100 per couple dinner great fun, but we'll still take our street food and ethnic dumps. We did see Gene Simmons (from Kiss) wandering the streets of Little Italy (although, no one in our group had a clue who he was..)

We had to introduce Stephanie to the Cajuns. She found a few treasures for us....she met us one night at a bar called the "Ear".....one of the oldest bars in NYC (the original sign was "Bar" but part of the "B" lighting was out--hence, the "E-ar" name). And- a Chinatown treasure- with soup dumplings and real feel of China....

The Cajuns left Sunday morning....and it still feels like they just left yesterday. We did absolutely nothing all day Sunday after their departure (we had a little bloody mary/mimosa brunch before they left). I spent the day reading my New York Times.

On Monday, we headed to Brooklyn on our continuing genealogical research project. We went on a field trip to Brooklyn to find the grave of John' great-great grandmother's brother (he died returning home from England where he was on a Mormon mission. He made it back to NYC and died of TB- so his brother planted him in a cemetery in Brooklyn (" 5 1/2 feet in the ground, in good clean soil"). (By the way, this was in about 1858...) Well, we headed out by subway/train to almost the end of the line in Brooklyn. As we passed each of the stops, the neighborhoods seemed to be getting a bit tougher....and we started to notice police officers walking through the stations. I asked John if he had done any checking on the neighborhood that this cemetery was located in. Well, we got off the train (with one officer on the platform and another at the ticket booth). Fortunately, the cemetery was about a block down from the station. We found the office and found a nice man who offered to take us to the general location of the grave (the oldest section of the cemetery). Lucky for us- since the cemetery covers 200 acres of land. We found the general area, but the stones were almost all gone. Our driver was an ex-cop and when we asked about any ethnic restaurants in the neighborhood, he laughed and asked, "Do you have a gun?". We got the message... On the walk back to the station, a group of teens came racing down the stairs screaming something about shooting someone. Our hearts were racing....but we made it safe to the station and back on the train. (Which, by the way, was a screeching, pounding, graffiti covered disaster). Oh, what a joy it is to be an American these days-- so much to be proud about??!! Crumbling infrastructure...in debt up to our ears to the Chinese....a failing war. Can it get any better?

Noshing in New York

At last, THE CITY! A parking lot with a view of the Statue of Liberty out of our front window. We took the PATH into the City on Wednesday and went to the NYC Public Library. We walked our brains out…then met Steph for drinks at her local bar and dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant. We were back on the subway by 9:30 – and she was off for the rest of her evening. Oh how old we felt!

We decided to take advantage of our proximity to the city and really explore this year. So, we signed up for three “food” tours. Our first one was on Sunday and we dragged Steph along. The tour covered about 4 blocks in Greenwich Village (Steph’s neighborhood). We ate the entire time . We started with fresh filled cannoli from Rocco’s, to NY style pizza (thin crispy crust) from Joe’s Pizza. More pizza , cheese from Murray’s Cheese, opera cake from Bruno’s Pastries, cookies from Milk and Cookies. We learned about the color of the street signs designating historic districts (brownish red in color). The guide was a bit of a lightweight, but the food tasting was fun. After the tour, we were so full that a walk was in order. Steph took us though Washington Park where we watched the dogs playing in the dog walk areas. Then, we walked to the Lower East Side to find the Pickle Guys. With 2 bags full of pickles, pickled mushrooms and veggies, we took a cab back to SoHo and had a drink (or two) at one of the oldest bars in SoHo, the White Horse Tavern.

On Monday, we met Steph and her friends in Chelsea at the West Side Tavern for drinks. For dinner, we went to a wonderful Chinese restaurant - great food with fresh off the boat staff.

We spent several days at the NYC Library doing research on the Harlows and Spencers, searching city directories. Kate met us for a visit to the Baptist Church- where Edna and Frank were married. We got a tour of the church (now Black Baptist).
Our second food tour of Central Greenwich Village and SoHo on Wednesday had a much better guide and even better food. Tasting of aloo kathi roll, Israeli pressed sandwiches, Jamaican beef patties, fresh mozzarella and Italian sausage, Greek yogurt, and homemade Halva with pistachios.

On Thursday, we met Steph for drinks and dinner at Chumley’s, a wonderful neighborhood bar/restaurant – formerly an old NY speakeasy.

On Friday, the third of our tours- this time in Chelsea and the Meatpacking District. We spent most of the tour in the Chelsea Market. This old factory (built in 1898) was owned by Nabisco and was the place where the Oreo cookie was invented. When Nabisco moved out, it was bought by a visionary who saw it as a place for both retail and wholesale operation. He brought in breadmakers, meat packers, produce vendors, flower vendors – offering them the ability to operate their wholesale operations on the exterior of the building- pulling their trucks in for shipments, and operating a retail operation on the inside. He kept the interior intact – so it has the feeling of an old factory. He encouraged the shops to have glassed in frontage to allow the shoppers to see their operations – baking bread, cutting meat… He had his son-in-law, an artist, create comfortable places for people to sit –resulting in huge Fred Flintstone like benches – that are now filled with people eating and drinking. On the upper floors are the TV studios for NY’s local channel, The Food Network and The Oxygen Network. On our tour, we had decadent chocolate almond croissants from the French Oven, chocolate and coffee milk from Ronnybrook Dairy, bread from Amy’s bread, lobster bisque from The Lobster Place, gelato from L’Arte del Gelato, and an antipasto selection from Buon Italia. After eating our way through the Market, we walked through the Meatpacking District seeing the renaissance of this once prostitute/drug ridden area. Today it’s the new hip place for 20/30 somethings to live and play. New restaurants are popping up everywhere and designers are showing their latest clothes in former meat packing spaces. The city is trying to keep what’s left of the original meatpacking operations in the area – tough with rising rents. 50 years ago, there were 150 meat packers, today there are only about 22.

On Saturday, we spent the night with Kate and Mike. We ate at a local Summit Indian restaurant with K&M and their neighbors, Ellen and Bob. The food was OK, and with Mike doing the ordering, we had food to feed 20 on our table. After too much wine, we stumbled up to Janie’s bedroom for the night. On Sunday, Mike made a huge breakfast- eggs, bagels, and smoked salmon.

Feeling like we’d mastered the PATH, we decided to try a tour to the Bronx on Monday. Meeting in Grand Central and taking the train to the Bronx was a new transportation adventure. The rail service was far superior to the crowded, dingy roller-ball ride on the PATH. The Bronx tour focused on Arthur Avenue, “Little Italy”. We were beginning to get suspicious that all of the fun, food tours always come down to some piece of a “Little Italy” neighborhood. More bread, cheese, olives, pizza. We picked up some pasta sauce from Mike’s Deli inside the Arthur Avenue market. Dinner that night was a shrimp fra diavlo – heavenly.

With the Bronx under our belt, we found one last tour- this time in Queens – Flushing. Another transportation challenge- taking the LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) to Flushing. We got out of the train and felt that we’d been transported to Shanghai or Beijing. All of the signs were in Chinese- as we fought our way down the sidewalks (with sounds of hawking and spitting), we had a sense of deja-vu. With a bit of time before the tour started, John decided to get his hair cut at the local Chinese/Malaysian beauty shop. What a sight to see a blonde in the middle of all that black hair.
The guide was running late and as the group was waiting, we noticed a familiar couple—it was Sue and Ben, Mike’s sister and brother-in-law from Brooklyn. As surprised as we were to see them, they did a double take to see us. The group was too big- but we all headed down the street with Myra, our “guide”. Myra wasn’t the most knowledgeable or the most organized guide, but as John reminded me, it did get us off our butts and exploring another part of the city.

Flushing was chartered in 1665 and was a haven for people seeking religious freedom. The Quakers still have a meeting house here and in 1811 the Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church was established. It’s hosted two World Fairs and today has a Sikh Center, a Jewish Temple, the largest Hindu temple in the NE, a Muslim Center and a number of Buddhist Temples. 55% of it’s 80,000 residents are Asian (Chinese, Korean and Indian), Latinos make up 22%. We were obviously in the Chinese section. We stopped at a huge Indian grocer and tried fig and rose ice cream, a huge indoor Chinese food court where we watched them making noodles and had a great bowl of noodle soup, and finished our tour in Korea town. The huge Korean market was like an Asian Sam’s Club. The place was paced with Koreans buying in bulk. Vendor had set up tables offering free samples of things like squid, baby octopus, seaweed, soy candies. We tried quite a few – confirming our experience that we really are 3 dish Korean eaters- bim en bap, jae yuk bokum and Korean pancakes (oh, and of course, kim chi). The other offerings just tasted like spiced rubber. They did have a Korean bed vendor – the beds had normal headboards, but the actual bed was a sheet of marble or granite with dual heaters. Evidently, the Koreans sleep on these with just a thin blanket on top. The salesman claimed that it was great for the back pain.

Steph dared to invite us to her office to meet her co-workers. It was quite impressive-she has a large office and a good size staff. She’s really got a great group of co-workers – interesting, well traveled. We had a great evening with Steph, Nicole and her boss, Ray at Kennedy’s, their local Irish bar and hangout. When Ray offered to drive us home, we could feel Steph cringe.

We spent election night at Kate and Mike’s – pizza, wine and a bit of shouting at the TV. Kate got Mike an early XMAS present of a Persian kitten. The new kitten is absolutely adorable - fluffy white, light blue eyes and only 9 weeks old. I was in love and had thoughts of getting a kitten- so much easier than a dog.... But, after about 3 hours in their house with little "Nigel" or "Spike" in my lap (we're voting for Spike as his name, but we're in the minority), my eyes started to water, my nose started to run. John got this look of sheer joy on his face--no cats in his future. Even the next day, I spent the day without eye makeup and itchy, watery eyes.

We were elated to wake up Wednesday morning to find that the Democrats had actually taken over the majority in the House – and may actually take the Senate (two seats still in contention- with recounts happening). Can it possibly be true that not all Americans have drunk the Bush kool-aid?

With only a few more days left in the city, we met Steph for dinner at her favorite Thai restaurant – excellent food and cheap – and on Saturday night for drinks at The Wine Bar. The bar served only NY State wines and they were surprisingly good. The menu paired the wines with appetizers (cheese plates, chocolate soufflés).

It was time to leave and we reluctantly left the City. We smartly left early on Sunday, avoiding the afternoon city traffic and the upcoming bad weather, arriving in D.C. in early afternoon.