New York, New York

Apparently my trip to Europe (and the traveling I did while there) has started something of a trend in my life! For the last month I've been living in Toronto, and last week in a spur-of-the-moment decision my cousin and I decided to accompany my aunt and uncle on a trip to New York City. I have never been to New York, and the last and only time I visited the states was when I was seventeen and briefly stayed in Las Vegas. You can imagine then that I was out of my mind excited to be visiting Manhattan during the Christmas holiday season.

We flew out on Saturday afternoon from a smaller airport on Toronto's waterfront (this was a huge improvement over flying from Pearson), though I laughed when I was selected for "randomized additonnal screening". It essentially consisted of them waving some wand around my hands and telling me I could go. We arrived in Newark (New Jersey) after a short flight, and then it was into a cab and off to Manhattan. My uncle attended grad school at Harvard, so we stayed at the Harvard Club near Fifth Avenue and 44th Street. The Harvard Club is absolutely stunning! All the walls are Harvard scarlet, as well as the soft carpets. It's filled with dark-wood columns and mouldings, as well as old Harvard memorabilia. In addition, everything was decorated for Christmas with boughs of cedar and pine, christmas lights, gold bows, and holly. In one of the dining halls was a huge Christmas tree which must have been at least 25 feet tall and fully decorated. For our first night there we decided to go for dinner at a Greek place, but unfortunately the first choice was too busy. Instead we stumbled across another restaurant called Molyvos that wound up being excellent. They served a particular flaming cheese dish that we all loved. Afterward we drove through the city, including Time Square, Bryant Park (where they hold New York Fashion Week), and we visited Grand Central Station.

The next morning I woke up to I Can't Help Myself (better known as Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) on the radio, sun streaming through the windows, and the overwhelming feeling that it was going to be a great day. I wasn't disappointed. We breakfasted at the Harvard Club, then went on to Fifth Avenue where we visited the Rockefeller Center (including the skating rink and tree) and did some shopping in Saks. After that we headed over to MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) to see the large De Kooning exhibit there. I must say, De Kooning is not my favourite. I found his works grotesque, and thought they displayed an alarming degree of misogyny. Some of the work practically radiated evil, which was totally weird. After grabbing lunch my aunt and uncle went to go see the Diego Rivera exhibit while my cousin and I went in search of Van Gogh's Starry Night, one of my favourite paintings. Find it we did, as well as a second Van Gogh that I am now equally in love with. It's called The Olive Trees, and it has me completely enraptured. We also saw some Picasso (not my favourite), and some Henri Rousseau, whose paintings I find slightly hypnotic (and love). After MoMA we were all pretty tired, so we went back to The Harvard Club for a rest before dinner. The Sex and the City Movie (the first one) was on TV, which seemed appropriate given it was my first visit to New York.

By dinner time we were all still tired though, so we decided to go to Kellari Taverna, which is right next to the Club. Kellari serves Greek food, which (once again) was totally incredible. One of New York's major highlights is that there is so much amazing food all around. After dinner it was off to bed in preparation for another busy day.

The next morning we went to the Upper East Side to a cafe called Sant Ambroeus that officially serves the best hot chocolate anywhere. It is a Milanese-style place, and beautifully decorated. After hot chocolate and a croissant, my cousin, aunt and I wandered along Madison Avenue, exploring BCBG, J Crew, and Elie Tahari before heading for lunch at a French restaurant called Le Charlot on Madison Avenue and 69th Street. After lunch we walked through Central Park, then went up to Bergdorf Goodman's to enjoy the windows and have a look at the glamorous merchandise.

One thing I'll add was I noticed something of a Manhattan uniform. Almost every woman carried a Louis Vuitton purse of some sort and wore a plaid Burberry scarf, often with a fur coat. Men all wore suits, and also wore Burberry plaid scarves. At times the sheer concentration of wealth was overwhelming.

After Bergdorf Goodman's we walked over to The Four Seasons and had tea at The Bar, a famous Manhattan watering hole and meeting place for the glamorous and successful. Once tea was concluded it was back to the Harvard Club to shower and change, and then off to Soho to a restaurant called Beauty & Essex. Beauty and Essex was amazing! One enters the restaurant through the back door of a pawn shop, and the restaurant itself is a huge two-level high-ceilinged affair. The wall I was facing was covered in collections of framed lockets. The food was European, and I had a fantastic cale, walnut, apple and goats' cheese salad that reminded me of Europe. Afterward my cousin and I shared a bottomless butterscotch pudding type-thing which was unbelievably good. The music was loud, pumping Rihanna, David Guetta, Usher and other popular club beats, and the crowd was young and fashionable.

Our final engagement for the evening was Ivanka Trump's jewelry store launch in Soho. Dinner had run long so we got there only five minutes before the event's scheduled end, but we went in and had a look. Mostly the crowd seemed to be her older friends and investors, but I stood about a foot away from her for at least five minutes before we decided we were bored and wanted to leave. We did one more tour of the city (my aunt needed photos) before going back to the Harvard Club.

The next morning it was up and off to the airport, though we made a quick stop near the Flat Iron Building at another Milanese coffee place called Eataly for hot chocolate and coffee. Things at the airport were quiet (thank god) but I had a rather unpleasant surprise once we got to security.

You see, Newark's airport has one of those hotly-contested security scanners that has many people upset right now. In case you're not familiar with the issue, the USA has been introducing high-intensity scanners that essentially allow security to see what you look like under your clothes. Not having encountered these on the way into New York I didn't anticipate having to face them on the way out. Furthermore, they had the usual metal detector right there, but for some reason were marching everyone through the privacy-violating contraption. I didn't like it one bit, but I didn't exactly have a choice. On the bright side, Once I was on the other side I had a look at the actual visual the guards see, and it's not what I expected. Contrary to the images floating around the internet, it's a very simple person icon, with a yellow flash anywhere you're wearing metal. Nevertheless, I don't like those machines. If you'd like to read up on the issue you can look at this article, or just type "airport security scanner" into google.

Anyway, overall the trip to New York was exciting and so much fun. I can't believe how much amazing food and how many incredible sights and decorations I got to see! Christmas really is the best time to visit I think, but I hope I'll go back again.

Most Hilariously Ironic Blog of All Time

I am just going to jump right into this by saying I am so so very excited for today's post.  Last night a dear friend recommended I post a review of the blog Shelley the Republican.  He warned me that it was disgustingly offensive and depressing, so I decided to wait until today to have a look so that I wouldn't go to sleep angry at the world.  Well, I took a good look at the site, and rather than feel upset I have to admit I spent the entire time laughing my ass off.  I am seriously wondering if this is some elaborate hoax by someone like Stephen Colbert, because the site is almost like a caricature of ignorant, religious, rightist Americans.  But I'm not going to keep all the hilarity to myself.  Instead, below you will find a breakdown of the site's features, and if you have the stomach for it you can find the blog here.  I enthusiastically recommend each and every one of you sign up as part of the "Adopt a Liberal" feature, and give as much trouble as humanly possible.

For starters, the first thing you will see on the homepage is an "open letter to Japan".  In this letter, the author explains that the natural disasters that have recently ravaged Japan are all due to the "godlessness" and heathenism of the nation.  The writer goes on to explain that if only the Japanese would mass-convert to Christianity then God Almighty would put out all the fires and solve all their problems.  This person goes as far as to guarantee "100%!" that if they convert God will save them, but if not there will be all kinds of biblical smackdown.  Hey!  I can do that too!  If every one of you pass along my website to everyone you know, you'll instantly lose fifteen pounds and get a girlfriend/boyfriend and I'll even throw in a better-paying job; if you don't, either you or someone you love will die horribly in the next 72 hours.  I 100% guarantee it.  Captain Irony finishes with "Compassionately Yours..."  Can you believe that shit?  Sounds like someone's been hitting the bible a little hard and could use a healthy dose of dictionary, because compassion has nothing to do with that tasteless, crass, brazen excuse for a letter.  But don't worry, it gets even better.

On the right side of the site you'll find a navigation bar, on which you will see "God's Hitlist".  Just the intro to this section is jam-packed with ignorant bullshit.  For example, "God gave us free choices no matter how vile, disgusting, horrible and venal they might be," and "Life in the 21st century speeds along faster than Hillary Clinton will wind up in Hell."  Bahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Classic!  You have to admit, this person is a comedic genius, even if they don't know it.  You can just imagine some equally ignorant asshole in front of their computer saying to themselves "Yes, yes, AMEN!"  Anyway, back to the list.  The way it works with people is that if they have died their names are crossed out, beside which is added "God won".  Okay, let's just think about that for a minute: Christians believe in an omnipotent, omniscient deity who rules the universe (or whatever they're calling it - Holy Kingdom?) with an iron fist.  Even the idea of God having a hitlist is ridiculous; he should be able to smite whoever the hell he wants, right?  So really would it be a surprise to staunch Christians that "God won"?  Wouldn't he always win?  Who would ever beat God?  Morons.  Anyway, on this list (which on its own is hysterical) are such illustrious characters as "Charles Darwin" and "Charly and Martin Sheen".  I feel like I should add that the whole site is rife with grammatical and spelling errors of the most basic nature.  If English is your first language you should really know better, so it just goes to testify toward how completely ignorant these people are.

Also on the "God's Hitlist" are "animal rights people", "environmentalists", "Muzlims" (yes, they incorrectly spelled Muslim), "vegetarians/vegans", "Germans", "college professors", "poets", "hybrid cars" (I laughed until I cried), "any and all American Idols", "friends, family and fans of any and all American Idols", and the "Curan" (Wow, how do you misspell a word that can be spelled two different ways?? Qu'ran, Koran, in case you're wondering).

In the section on the War On Terror you can find some delightfully arbitrary numbers, as well as some more offensive slander ("towelhead deaths").  On the page for "Problems", which is something of a Republican-Christian "Dr Laura", you can enjoy yourself by watching as each and every concerned query is answered with a sturdy "you're going to Hell".  My personal favourite was the one titled "Porn Freak", where the respondent demonstrates a more detailed knowledge of pornography than someone that religious should.  Hypocrite.

As you delve deeper into this Stronghold of Ignorance, you can find the poll section.  If I tried to recount all the hilarity in this section I'd be here all day, but one that stood out was "What is Barack HUSSEIN Obama's hidden agenda?"  The winning response was "introducing Negro-Fascism and killing white Americans" with a dominating 43%.  Good to know paranoia, xenophobia and racism are still alive and well in the States.

Since abortion rights are something I hold near and dear, I decided to see what the site had to say on that.  Well, all it proved was that the site's writers clearly have no idea how to categorize material, because the first thing that came up was on the disabled, not on abortion.  However, this in itself wound up being a side-splittingly funny read.  It was titled "End the R-Word", and for the briefest of moments I thought it might actually be something that wasn't dedicated to hate, discrimination, and violence against those who are different.  Nope!  End the R-Word is a campaign to eliminate the use of the word "retarded", which has now been relegated to the collection of words that are now politically incorrect and downright offensive to use.  Initially I thought that the post was in support of this, as my understanding is that Christianity is all about love, tolerance, and helping one's neighbour.  Well actually, Shelley the Republican claimed that the evil Liberals were waging a "culture-war jihad" (proving she has no idea what jihad means) and attempting to "demonize conservatives and Christians from noting the mental inferiority of morons and retards, when in reality this is a perfectly acceptable word to say in public, and fun as well."  I wish I was making this up.

With clever word-plays like "lie-berals" and "dumbo-crats" scattered throughout the stimulating and convincing rhetoric, Shelley the Republican achieves nothing so well as convincing the world of her and her associates complete ignorance and bigotry.  While I have already secured for myself a one-way ticket to Hell by being a vegetarian, abortionist, animal rights proponent, environmentalist and a liberal, I dearly hope that one day I too may be added to God's Hitlist.  Because if that's the way God thinks, I can imagine no one who I'd rather make my enemy.  I hope you've enjoyed this as much as I did.   Until next time, Arbiter Elegantiae