Average Jane, Tourist

I arranged my trip to New York so I'd have some tourist time built in before and after the conference activities. When I got in on Thursday, the first order of business after checking into the hotel was to grab lunch, which I did with Cagey and Deb. Keith had recommended Heartland Brewery, so that's where we went. I had a very tasty hamburger, homemade fries and an incredibly hoppy IPA to drink.

 

After that, Cagey and I decided to walk up to Central Park, which was only a few blocks away. It was really warm out, so we weren't inclined to explore the park right then, but one thing got our attention on the way there:

This is Cagey with Dr. Jeckll outside the Jeckyll and Hyde Club. As soon as we saw the statues and the building's decorated facade, we were in instant agreement that – tourist trap or no – we had to stop there for a drink on the way back.

And so we did. We learned fairly quickly that we could avoid the "entertainment charge" by sitting at the bar, so we let the bartender choose one of the specialty drinks for us. We were served something fruity, very rum-heavy and delicious. Neither one of us can remember what the drink was called, and for that we blame the drink itself.

After I tweeted a photo of where we were, my friend @socreepy replied that she got, "horribly, awfully, mind-bendingly drunk there once." So we wisely stopped at one drink each.

On Sunday after the conference, my planned activity was a visit to the Central Park Zoo with my friend Susan Getgood on our "First (hopefully Annual) Self-Sponsored BlogHer Zoo Trip." It's a small zoo, so it took less than an hour to see the whole thing. Here are a few of my favorite photos:

Polar bear evaluating the possible tastiness of her visitors.

Sacked-out snow leopard

Susan, looking much more cool and unruffled than I managed to at that point in the zoo trip.

After buying souvenirs at the gift shop, we grabbed lunch at the pricier-than-you'd-expect Brooklyn Diner. I had the most transcendently delicious mac and cheese I have ever experienced. It was so wonderful that I didn't even care that it cost double what I'd generally pay for lunch at home.

Once we parted ways, I checked out of my room, stashed my luggage with the bellmen and relaxed in the lobby area for a while before heading to the Museum of Modern Art for the last phase of my New York exploration. 

For the first hour, I wandered fairly aimlessly and took a solid sitting break when my feet started to hurt. I was also unnerved by one of the Yoko Ono installations the whole time (read more about that from MamaPop, Schmutzie and Suebob – I concur with all of them) and was really starting to wonder if it had been a good idea to come. However, I rallied once I made it to the Matisse exhibit and subsequently to the modern art paintings on the floor below. I also ran into Suebob, Goon Squad Sarah and Clumber Kim there, so that made it more fun.

An airport shuttle was scheduled to come for Queen of Quirky and me around 4:25, so I went back a little early and rested back in the hotel lobby for a bit. The shuttle thing didn't work out exactly as planned, but we made it to the airport in plenty of time and were back home by 10 p.m.

So that's the last of my BlogHer adventures. I have some post ideas in waiting, so next we'll move on to something you may actually be interested in!