Saturday in the City

On Saturday, Joe and I braved the Ernesto leftovers to spend the day in Manhattan. We started our day near Harlem in the morning, and made our way down to Canal Street--a long journey, of which we actually walked about 40 blocks--by the end of the day. It's amazing how that happens. You start window shopping, and all of a sudden you're a couple-dozen blocks north or south of where you started. It's a trick the city likes to play on people.

Joe's friend Kirsten showed us around the campus of Columbia University, where she's earning a PhD in psychology. We then went for a walk to see . . .

the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. Then, before saying goodbye to Kirsten, we went to lunch at a cozy Mexican restaurant in the Upper West Side.

During our 40-block hike, we came across Cheap Jack's vintage clothing store on 5th Avenue, where we met Sebastian, a sales-hobbit who whisked us through the entire store for about an hour, chatting with us and handing us overpriced items to inspect or try on. Here, Joe sports the '70s so-you-wanna-be-a-pimp knee-length leather trench.

Finally, after a lot of walking and a lot of getting drenched from the hurricane, we settled in at a sweet little eatery in Chinatown for dinner. Then we went and window-shopped for watches, and then back to Long Island for a night of house parties and fun.