Blog Heaven

After four full days exploring the Big Apple with my wife and a couple of brothers in law and sisters in law, I am writing this in the air at 11PM after a very long flight delayed day in the Newark NJ airport. The flight delay was seven hours to be exact. If you add the couple of hours we got there ahead of our original flight time today, you will notice were sitting in an airport for nine hours.

But the horrendous today will not and could not take anything away from the unforgettable time we had in New York City the past five days. Although I cannot tell you ALL our experiences (some things that happen in NYC stay in NYC), I will in the next few blogs tell you about some interesting sites and people we met in the melting pot of the world.

For starters, being the undertaker I am, all six of us stayed in an apartment on top of a friendly New York City funeral home. No fancy hotels for this crowd. Although staying at a funeral home did not bother me at all, I probably should not speak for the others. But at least they pretended it did not bother them either. But just think of the money we saved.

In the next few blogs you will read about the best bagels NYC has to offer and a little diner on Second Avenue that makes the best French toast you have ever put in your mouth. The waiters were not particularly friendly but the food more than made up for it. You will read about rookies trying to figure out the NYC subway system. You may read about the freezing open air sightseeing tour we took of the city from top to bottom and the craziest tour guide you could ever imagine. There will be a photo of the place where John Lennon was shot down in cold blood almost 28 years ago and the building where Jackie Kennedy Onassis lived and died. You will see pictures of wonderful, unbelievable, inconceivable desserts from places like Carnegie Deli, Serendipity and Cafe La bella Ferrara in Little Italy. You will be taken inside one of the famous NYC pizza places. You will learn a little history of one of the most famous Italian restaurants in the city where all the stars eat and have their private entrance. You will meet the most incredible waiter from Croatia, and even hear from and see a photo I took of the owner, who happened to be a close friend of Frank Sinatra.

You will learn about illegal back room bargaining for pocket books in China Town and I will show you pictures of the (many) designer purses my wife purchased for next to nothing. I learned she is one of best negotiators I’ve ever seen.

And then you will learn about how to get in (and on) the David Letterman Show and you will see some pictures of some famous folks we met (or sorta met) who were guests on the show. And you will also learn that we somehow squeezed a couple of Broadway plays in our less that tight schedule.

We definitely had a great time in New York City. And you will be fortunate enough (or unfortunate enough) to read about it here. NYC is the Big Apple, the Melting Pot and is definitley the "city that never sleeps."

It is also Blog Heaven.