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Jan. 11th, 2006 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceebeegeeMy awesome cousin Larson visited this past week. We hung out quite a bit--Monday night he and my brother Bart had dinner, and then the two of them joined me, Duncan, Tesse, Chris, Jason, Ryan and Susan at the Bull Moose. It was wonderful being together with my brother and cousin, and Larson has the same strong sense of family that Bart and I do (as do my cousins Courtney, Ros and Colin). In fact Courtney just sent me photos of her chidlren (Courtney is quite an accomplished photographer) and I emailed her back about the visit. She wrote back "How cooool!! I miss you!!!!" Miss you right back, Courtney!
(Larson really dished the dirt too--I found out some very interesting things about the younger branches of the family. With 20+ cousins, there's always something you haven't heard yet!)
After Bull Moose, Ryan, Larson and I went to [name of bar deleted] on Restaurant Row where I ordered an appletini and Larson and Ryan ordered chocolate martinis. At one point Ryan spied a cockroach which horrified me--I get freaked out by vermin of any kind. The bar manager was awesome; he saw me dancing around and Ryan and Larson trying to spy the creature and suggested we move to another table and offered us a free round. I'm not naming the bar because I've been there before and I've never seen anything like that, they've always been very clean.
Yesterday Larson and I walked around the Village, SoHo and Chinatown, and walked down to Ground Zero as well. We sat in Washington Square Park and I told him about its history as a potter's fields, and the hanging tree--all the thpooooky stuff. We walked down Canal Street and I talked about how Chinatown was encroaching upon Little Italy, because Little Italy is irrelevant now, since Italian-Americans are all assimilated and there's no longer a need for a neighborhood of Italian immigrants. Little Italy is for tourists now, its ethnic touches are all a little self-conscious now, like the red, white and green painted on the parking meters, and the touristy pasta restaurants. It was interesting how crowded Canal Street was in contrast to Mulberry Street which was very quiet. The immigrant story is always the same, the narrative never changes--only the ethnicity.
Lasron and I ate at a yummy Chinese restaurant--we had pork dumplings and sweet and sour shrimp. Mmm....
(Larson really dished the dirt too--I found out some very interesting things about the younger branches of the family. With 20+ cousins, there's always something you haven't heard yet!)
After Bull Moose, Ryan, Larson and I went to [name of bar deleted] on Restaurant Row where I ordered an appletini and Larson and Ryan ordered chocolate martinis. At one point Ryan spied a cockroach which horrified me--I get freaked out by vermin of any kind. The bar manager was awesome; he saw me dancing around and Ryan and Larson trying to spy the creature and suggested we move to another table and offered us a free round. I'm not naming the bar because I've been there before and I've never seen anything like that, they've always been very clean.
Yesterday Larson and I walked around the Village, SoHo and Chinatown, and walked down to Ground Zero as well. We sat in Washington Square Park and I told him about its history as a potter's fields, and the hanging tree--all the thpooooky stuff. We walked down Canal Street and I talked about how Chinatown was encroaching upon Little Italy, because Little Italy is irrelevant now, since Italian-Americans are all assimilated and there's no longer a need for a neighborhood of Italian immigrants. Little Italy is for tourists now, its ethnic touches are all a little self-conscious now, like the red, white and green painted on the parking meters, and the touristy pasta restaurants. It was interesting how crowded Canal Street was in contrast to Mulberry Street which was very quiet. The immigrant story is always the same, the narrative never changes--only the ethnicity.
Lasron and I ate at a yummy Chinese restaurant--we had pork dumplings and sweet and sour shrimp. Mmm....
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Date: 2006-01-11 07:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-11 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-12 05:59 am (UTC)It ain't what it was, but it's still worth visiting. I would suggest going during the San Gennaro festival (http://www.sangennaro.org/), in late September. It's a lot of fun but it feels a bit...like an echo.