Return to the Motherland

Coming home to New York City was bittersweet for both of us. Since I had never even been out of the country before February 2008 I was a little anxious to get back home after so long to visit family and see Phish in all honesty. It was nice to be back in NYC. Rachel's brother Matt lives in Manhattan so we stayed with him at the time. He took us to alot of the hot spots in the city. We went to one of the cities best pizza joints the first night we were there. Griminaldi's. Real New York City pie is famous for being big slices and for it's fresh mozzarella used on the pizza. It was really good. The next day we met up with our friend Duke from S.K. and first ate pizza again at Lombardi's, then went to Brooklyn and checked out his almamatar, Pratt University. It's a famous art college where the likes of Robert Redford and other's all graduated. Debbie Does Dallas was filmed here (illegally). As expected the area was decked out with art installations.
Our purpose in Brooklyn that day was to see a free David Byrne concert in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. I'd seen David Byrne of Talking Heads fame once before and remember being a fantastic concert. We were really impressed with Brooklyn. It was a surreal day, people hanging out having a good time in the park. I think both Rachel and I wouldn't mind settling down in Brooklyn one of these days. The concert was cool. His performance wasn't quite as good as the previous time I saw him but it was still incredible. The band revisited Talking Heads classics, Crosseyed and Painless, Life During Wartime, among others. It was just an awesome experience.
All three of us stayed at a hotel in Manhattan that night in Times Square. We got slices of pizza at a 24 hour pizza shop. We decided to check out the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at an exhibit by Francis Bacon. Bacon's paintings were haunting. We looked at the exhibit with two of Duke's friends. The paintings were visceral that's for sure. I had never been to the museum and was captivated by the historical paintings ranging from Van Gogh, Monet, Chagall. The museum was fantastic but it didn't stack up to the Chicago Museum of Art, nothing does. :)
Our trip was coming to an end. We ate at a great burger joint in Manhattan and then spent the rest of the night with Matt and his girlfriend. Our time in New York City was over and Rachel and I had to say goodbye for a month. All in all it was an amazing trip.
Zack

written by  zachel on June 7, 2009 from New York, United States
from the travel blog: Zack and Rachel's Asian Chronicles
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