Walk on the Wild Side

Saturday is family day! I went out to Alphabet City (where they ran out of numbers and call Avenues A/B/C) to visit my aunt and my cousin (+her son and husband). I found the place easily, it's in a lot more laid back neighborhood as I've seen thus far in Manhattan: in the East Village. It has smaller buildings with a couple of stories each, the trademark wrought iron fire escapes, small public gardens scattered between the houses - it's pretty nice. Unfortunately my aunt's apartment building is being renovated so the surrounding area is a bit of a construction zone, but the apartment itself is already finished so it looks lovely. When my cousin and co. arrived with the little one has fallen asleep on their way, so we decided to go out to the NYC BBQ Block Party just the 3 of us, leaving the Granny home with the baby. So we walked quite a bit from ABCity to Madison Square where already loads of people were queuing up for dozens of different types of barbecue. We tried some varieties of pork and beef, all roasted on open flame or charcoal, and they reached from OK to pretty good, so it was worth it as well. We finished it up with a pint (and with some friends of the husband, visiting Silicon Valley developers), and by the time we walked by the Square again it was completely filled up. We just decided to leave it as is and walked back on a different route to my aunts. The little one was already up and has already enjoyed Granny reading one of the Hungarian story books I brought alongs as a present. He was a bit scared in the beginning of the new "bacsi" (he speaks Hungarian!), but he loosened up after a while and even gave me his pet Flying Monkey to play with. After a while we decided to go over to the High Line (a derelict high rise railway converted into a public part) for a stroll, which was loads of fun! The area is great, the park being elevated a couple of meters above the roads and continuing between the buildings of the West Village - it's really unique and nice. It's littered with modern art sculptures donated to lighten up the place a bit, and musicians and small cafes have already found their place here. Our outing was only broken by the coming rain, so we said our good byes -  but also agreeing on a next time to meet.
In the evening I couldn't just stay at home, so I went to check out the "tramway"leading to Roosevelt Island, which essentially is a cablecar similar to the larger ones one can see along ski pistes. It goes up quite high just to go down again on the side of the island (a 5 minute ride), and provides a nice view of the city as well - for the same price as a subway ticket. The island itself is nothing special, a residental are with luxury apartments, but it hosts one of the most serene places you could find in such a big city: a completely empty baseball greens. I took one of the benches there to have my dinner sandwich and enjoyed the whirr of the city rushing by with noone in sight. I guess a couple of stars must have been visible as well - a nice timeout from the Manhattan lifestyle.
Then, it was only taking the tramway back, not finding a good looking pub in the neighborhood, and falling asleep quickly after a feet-eating day.

M.