Day 4: Rest Day, NYC
Nau mai
Yesterday we had a rest day in New York City.
Overnight the jet lag had come for us one by one, and I was confused when I rolled out of bed at close to midday and found that the house was still dark and quiet. Dark because our accommodation had no windows to light the common space and quiet because everyone was still heavily asleep. In the early afternoon everyone began to stir and it wasn’t until after 2pm when we all finally began to leave the building in search of food, caffeine, and sunlight.
Tristan and I ate breakfast at a spot called Terravita, a restaurant which fairly summed up its character with the supercilious kerning of its menu header and the fibrous texture of the card it was printed on. I ordered the King Trumpet mushrooms with a Ponzu marinade, pistachio sauce, puffed wild rice, and Togarashi.
Our goal for the day was to see how far we could walk down the island of Manhattan. The great thoroughfare of Broadway was chosen as our route, and we set out from a latitude of 178th street, where out to the west the impressive structure of the George Washington Bridge is visible soaring across the Hudson River. Our only equipment was a map, protective eyewear, and a small hygro-thermometer (Liz was generous enough to lend us this instrument) to monitor the dangers of the hostile climate.
As we were setting out on our journey south Jon and Liz had begun their own quest. I asked them about it while we were relaxing in the green room.
Ben: Jon, you had the day off yesterday, what were your goals?
Jon: I kept it simple, my goals were go to The Met Cloisters and have dinner, and I think my supplementary goal was to practise our cover that we are doing on Sirius XMU and so, ah, you know it was easy enough to tick those things off and feel good about my day and also fit in a couple of extras.
Ben: Nice, thanks Jon. Liz, did you have a good day yesterday?
Liz: I did, I slept really long cause Jon was still asleep so I was like, I’m allowed to keep sleeping (Liz laughs) (Ben laughs).
Ben: And what would you say are your three favourite things from your day?
Liz: Um, I liked going for a walk to the park to the Met Cloisters, I liked looking at some old Medieval art, um, I know some of the stuff cause of Church, I went to church growing up so I’m like, I know this guy, which is quite fun, it felt like reading comic strips or something (Ben emits a raspy laugh), nah, it was really nice, and then yeah, yesterday we got tapas. What was my tapas highlight? Delicious shrimps and they gave us some free bread!
Here are Liz’s shots from her day off.
Here are a few shots from my journey with Tristan.
Tristan and I were on the road for five hours. We stopped only for coffee and to closely examine the produce at every fruit stand. The heat remained steady in the mid-twenties, and the humidity was high, thankfully checked by a cooling breeze on our faces. It was our pinky toes that bore the brunt of this journey though, keeping our feet stable and balanced whilst slowly being rubbed raw. Daylight was fading (not captured accurately because of the HDR on my phone) when we finally reached 1st Street. Our respite came after a short train ride to Brooklyn. We holed up at Bar Lunatico for the evening, a venue which serves delicious food, cold, crisp beer and consistently programmes great jazz acts every night of the week.
