Hooray for Erikka!

Erikka came to visit me this weekend! She took a bus up from Charlottesville, which was supposed to get in to the meatpacking district at noon yesterday. She has always wanted to go to this French restaurant called Pastis (I guess they went there once on Sex and the City), and it is right by where the bus would drop her off, so I made a reservation for 12:30. Unfortunately her bus was a little late, so I sat at the bar there drinking coffee for awhile. But she finally got in and we had a fabulous brunch. I had a blissful baked sandwich (can't remember what it was called) but it was toast with ham, melted cheese, and a sunny-side up egg on top. Yum! After brunch we headed for Brooklyn Brewery for a free tour. The tour itself wasn't much, we just stood in a room while a guy told us about the history of the brewery and then about the brewing process. They don't have free tastings, but they had a deal with 6 beers for $20 so that's what we did. My favorite beer (and Erikka's) was called the Grand Cru, it was pretty similar to Schlafly's No. 15. I also had a really good IPA and a mediocre beer called Blast! We chose dinner based on proximity when Erikka really needed a bathroom - a pizza place in the Lower East Side. Then we headed up to a place called Terminal 5 for the She and Him show (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward). The show was pretty good, I was just very tired and my feet hurt from standing so long.
Today we headed into the city and went to MoMA - Erikka had never been and I was glad to go again to see the Home Delivery exhibit on prefab housing. I really liked the exhibit, and got to see a few other things I hadn't seen the last time I was there. The best part of the Home Delivery exhibit were the 5 examples of prefab designs that were set up outside - you could actually walk through them all. After MoMA we went down to SoHo and walked around for awhile going into various shops. I passed a guy on the street wearing a Ted Drewes shirt, so I talked to him for awhile (he was obviously from STL). Eventually we ended up at Magnolia Bakery in the village for their famous cupcakes (which were pretty damn good, but I assumed they must be if we waited in line for 30 minutes for a $2.50 cupcake!) Then it was almost time for Erikka's bus to come, and we just walked around the meatpacking district. Now I just need to recover for the evening, and rest up for June's visit next weekend!
Too bad tomorrow is Monday again....


Erikka and I at Brooklyn Brewery enjoying some fabulous beers.



Three different pre-fab house examples at the Home Delivery exhibit at MoMa - from top. The bottom one was called micro house and was tiiiiny. The middle one that looks like a wooden trailer was one where you can stack a number of them together. The top one was some weird computer-generated design where you entered the aspects you wanted in a house and the computer designed it for you. This picture was taken from the top floor of the Cellophane house - the coolest design there.




This is an example of a shotgun house designed for New Orleans. It is made entirely of laser-cut plywood, that fit together kind of like a puzzle. The coolest thing in this house was a laser-cut design on the wood floors, based on an algorithm using New Orleans zip codes.




Cellophane house....This house is 5 floors and 1800 square feet. It was all wired with solar power and weird batteries, very interesting.




Erikka enjoying the last bite of her cupcake from Magnolia Bakery.