Day 2 in NYC

This morning started by trying to find a place that served Chai Latte’s. I finally had to settle for Starbucks. I’m pretty sure this particular Starbucks is the reason they shut down for 4 hours last month to retrain all their employees. Unfortunately this staff did not pay attention during the training or else this training was to teach them better ways to not prepare the drinks to the customer’s request and then treat the customer like they were their worst enemy – if that was the training, then these employees all got A++ on their report cards. I think I’ll skip that torture tomorrow and just have a simple cup of orange pekoe! Come to think of it, I should probably go thank those special Starbucks employees for saving me so much money!

After the Starbucks debacle we took a walk to Times Square. Wow…I was really surprised to see so many people there on a Tuesday morning. The lights were just like they show on TV on New Year’s eve and even during the day. The cheapskate in me was wondering how much those electricity bills must be. Even the police department had neon lights! While there I stopped by the Hard Rock and got the boys some t-shirts. I can’t believe they can get away with charging $24 for a t-shirt!! Oh, well, as long as there are stupid tourists like myself to shell it out, I guess they’ll continue to charge those unbelievable prices. The price I pay to be such a great wife and mother! Oh, gosh, am I walking down that road I wrote about last week? Eeek…maybe I actually set myself up for the fall of the underappreciated – please, say it isn’t so…..

Tonight we went to “the village” – do I sound like a local or what?!? We walked around quite a while before we found a restaurant (Lupa Osteria Romana – www.luparestaurant.com) that was recommended by a really nice girl that we ran across on the street. While walking around we walked past a fire department and I just had to again prove what a tourist I am and have my pic taken with them. Being the snot I am, I e-mailed this pic to a friend who is a total firefighter fanatic. I'm sure she'll thank me profusely -- hehehehe!



Back to the restaurant...it was a great place but the only part I didn't like was that I couldn’t tell what was on the menu because it was nearly all in Italian. The place is owned by a guy who has a couple shows on the Food Network -- Mario Batali of Molto Mario and the Iron Chef. I don’t watch much on that channel so I’d never seen either of his shows but my dining mates thought it was a big deal. I had the Saltimbocca (flattened veal topped with prosciutto and sautéed in olive oil) and Carciofi alla Romana (a marinated artichoke appetizer). They were both pretty good but would I be uncivilized to say I would have preferred the Fettuccini Alfredo from Olive Garden? I guess you just can’t take the inbred taste for fake, chain created Italian food out of the girl!

To top the night off I stopped by Godiva and picked up some chocolate for the family. I got one piece for myself. I love coconut with milk chocolate and they had it there! It was wonderful!! There was this woman once at my WW meeting who said go ahead and have chocolate but make sure it’s really good chocolate. In my opinion, Godiva is about the best I’ve ever had so I think I had the kind of chocolate that was called for tonight! Good thing I only picked up one piece or else I could have really been in trouble!!

Tomorrow I’m off to see the Empire State Building and have dinner with a girl from my church who goes to school here in NYC. Maybe we’ll go to the Olive Garden!! Oh, perchance to dream!!