I-tal-ia!

My cousin, Anna, recently sent me an email that said something like "you must be on vacation."
I can take a hint. I know I haven't been posting regularly -- we went a few weeks with no Internet at our new place, and even now, our router isn't working so I still can't connect on my computer. I only get to check my email when I boot John off his computer, and I haven't been keeping up with the blog.

But enough of this whining. We've just had a really festive weekend.

First we had John's old roomie Jeff, and his sig O Barbara over for an after work happy hour Friday, followed by dinner at John's favorite Chinese, Ollie's.
Saturday during the day, John hung out with Jeff and I indulged my nesting instinct -- I put up a towel shelf in bathroom and tried to bring some order to the kitchen. (In their infinite wisdom, whoever did the kitchen cabinets didn't install any that are deep enough to accommodate frying pans, so we've been keeping them in the oven. Not a great permanent solution.) In the evening, Michigan b-school alumni chartered a doubledecker bus for a three-hour tour ... a three-hour tour ... of the city. We chatted with some U-M folks, learned some about NYC, then had dinner at a fun cajun place in Hell's Kitchen.
Today we went down to the Village to watch the final game of the World Cup. Our last name being Tebeau, we were cheering for France but we were definitely in the minority -- most of the bar was emotionally rooting for Italy. Or as they said it in a boisterous cheer "EEE-tal-ia!"

Here are our friends Rick and Gladys right in the heart of Little Italy as the fans went wild after the win.





Earlier this week, we celebrated our first Fourth of July in the city by watching what's said to be the biggest fireworks display in the world. Macy's foots the bill for three barges side by side in the East River, and it's sort of like synchronized swimming -- all three of them shoot off the same thing at the same time.
We'd been warned that the crowds would be horrific, but thankfully it rained and thundered until about an hour before we left to claim our spot and it seemed that scared off the faint of heart. Thanks to our fabulous NYC guide, Cecil, and his sig O Rebecca, we got a great spot and really enjoyed the Fourth.

Of course, truth be told, we'd seen fireworks just a few days before. From our apartment. I was sitting in the living room trying to figure out what that noise was when John yelled from the bedroom to look out the window. Fireworks were going off over Central Park a block away and we had a perfect view.









Last weekend we went out to Coney Island, home of the old-school roller coaster, the Cyclone, and some of the best known pizza in New York, Totonno's. We had plans to enjoy a day lounging on the beach in the sunshine ... but the mood was sort of wrecked when some guys next to us on the beach lost control of their volleyball when I wasn't watching, and it smashed me in the nose. My nose went numb, then started burning. Some of you know that I was in a wicked car accident in high school that destroyed my nose and I was nervous that breaking a nose that's held together with paper clips and bubble gum was going to mean serious trouble. Thankfully, all I had as a souvenir the next day was a tender bruise and some pics of John wading into the ocean.







It hasn't been all play. We've spent a lot of time unpacking, or perhaps more accurately, trying to figure out where to pack/stash/hide our goodies. We put our bed on risers, for example, so we can fit our suitcases and some other junk underneath. We've made numerous trips to Bed Bath and Beyond a block away to buy various organizing things -- plastic storage drawers for under the bathroom sink, closet shelf racks so we can stack higher and deeper in the closet, all that sort of thing.






And now for a little virtual tour of our apartment, in mid-unpack ...