MichELLIS Island

A couple of weeks ago, Michelle came to NYC for a quick weekend as part of her Northeast Tour 2010.  It had been a bit too long since she had visited so I was more than ready for her to be back in the city!  The main thing on our list of to-do's was to visit Ellis Island.  This is something Michelle had been wanting to do and since I'd never done it, I needed to check it off my list as well.  We had 9AM reservations on Saturday morning, but since Michelle's flight was approximately 18 hours late, we kind of missed our reservation.  Luckily, the Ellis Island folks are sweet people and when we showed up after 1:00 with our explanation for tardiness, they just let us on the next boat over (saved us about 2 hours of wait time in lines!!).  The day could not have been more gorgeous, making our ferry ride extremely pleasant...we even got suntans!  Because we got there so late in the day, we were not able to stop off on Liberty Island (that's where Lady Liberty resides).  We did get some nice views of the pretty lady.

Liberty Island

So after bypassing the Lady Liberty stop, we headed straight for Ellis.  We decided to do the audio tour of the museum and it was great!  We got a thorough explanation of what it would have been like to have immigrated to the US with a stopover on Ellis Island.  It is a beautiful building with beautiful grounds and amazing views of the NYC skyline.

Ellis Island

I'd like some of these cool trunks for my apartment!

The main hall where immigrants waited in lines

Gorgeous views from Ellis Island - don't

think I could ever tire of this view

Heading back to the city

Back on Manhattan Island, we ran into a man selling pictures with snakes.  I jokingly asked Michelle if she wanted to stop for a picture.  But she really did!  Yikes!  Freaked me out just to take the pictures.  She is a brave soul!

While Ellis Island was our #1 goal of the weekend, we also had show tickets and dinner plans...of course!  We were supposed to see a play on Friday night, but since Michelle wasn't going to make it, I was able to arrange for us to go on Sunday afternoon instead.  We went to see "Collected Stories" starring Linda Lavin (she's up for a Tony) and Sarah Paulson.  They were both great.  I actually love Sarah Paulson...mostly from back in the day when she was on the Fox TV show "Jack & Jill".  This play was so good!  I have a love/hate relationship with plays in that they either actually bore me to tears so that I hate them or I love them so much I'd pay to see it a second time.  This fell into the love category.  It was a great story and was set in NYC (you can never go wrong there).  Plus, the acting by the only 2 characters was pretty phenomenal.

On Saturday night, we saw South Pacific.  I had never seen this old Rodgers & Hammerstein musical.  What is it about those guys and their musicals??  They are all so freaking good!  South Pacific was no exception.  It is playing in a theatre at Lincoln Center (love any opportunity to attend any show or event there).  The theatre this was in is quite small so there really is no bad seat in the house.  We were seated on the 4th row and it was great!  The singing was good (love it when I know some of the music), dancing was good, story was interesting, and acting was again great.  Loved the lead actress in this - Laura Osnes - I've got to remember this girl and watch for her in future performances!

Of course, we ate well while Michelle was here!  Michelle recently read Andre Agassi's autobiography and noted a couple of restaurants he mentioned he and Brooke Shields use to love.  So, we went to those!  First up was dinner at PJ Clarke's.  I'd been here before and it is really good.  And there is one right across from Lincoln Center so it was super convenient to go right before our show on Saturday night.  We split a burger and their mac & cheese.  The Mac & Cheese was some of the best I've ever had - loved it.

On Sunday night, we went to the second Andre recommendation which was an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side called Campagnola.  This place was great.  It felt truly authentic with all Italian servers.  It also felt very neighborhoodish.  As in, everyone there seemed to be regulars from the UES.  We sat near a man who said he's been eating there a few times a week for 15 years and 90% of the waiters have been the same all those years.  Amazing!  It was a very nice restaurant and I thought it would be very expensive.  It was pricey, but I was happy that it wasn't nearly as pricey as I had thought.  They served us an antipasto plate with salami, 2 cheeses, olives, and bread to start...for free!  Now that's a way to reel me in as a customer!  It was yummy.  I had their gnocchi with pesto for my meal and it was also very good.  I love me some gnocchi!

For Sunday brunch, we got to try a new place I recently heard about.  There is a new boutique hotel in the West Village called Hotel Jane.  It's super cute and has an equally cute restaurant called Cafe Gitane.  There is a Cafe Gitane in SoHo that I had been to for dinner before and I enjoyed.  This one was more quaint and fun.  I just loved it.  The decor was very Frenchy and there were a lot of people there so it was loud, but in a good, fun way.  I got some eggs and an almond croissant.  The croissant was soooo amazing.  The eggs were not anything extraordinary.  Despite the eggs, I loved this place and can't wait to go back.  Afterwards, we did a little snooping around the hotel and found their amazing bar/lounge....can't wait to go back there for an evening cocktail!

On Sunday afternoon, we had just a bit of extra time to wander around the Upper West Side for a while.  We stopped at Levain to get some of their amazing cookies and then we browsed through the Columbus Avenue flea market.  I really need to start going there every weekend - they have some great stuff!

So, that was our quick weekend together.  We were able to pack in a lot and were still able to do everything we planned despite Michelle's crazy travel delays.  Fun weekend!