Off to the Market

22 June 2021 NYC

It was market day for us. Chelsea Market that is. It was hopping and mostly open.  Lately you never know how "open" a place is.  We had a glorious lunch of Thai food.  Leslie had Pad Thai and I had a Jungle Curry.  The Jungle Curry was listed with 4 hot chili peppers to denote it's level of spiciness.  Our waiter "Mike" still asked me how hot I wanted it and I said Thai Hot.  To their credit, my nose ran for a couple minutes, mid meal, but it was much more flavor than heat.  Mike was just delightful and we talked about Thailand and his home town up in the north of Thailand. Perhaps his other tables were less enthusiastic about our monopolization of his time, but we could have talked all day.  We knew that there was going to be a large glut of rain coming in today so we were prepared with rain gear.  Lucky for us, we jumped into a cab 5 minutes before it started raining hard.  A big bullet dodged!

Chelsea Market

Niche food items 

Currywurst is curry and a sausage!

Pad Thai for Leslie.

Jungle Curry for me.

Yes, that is a Jungle Curry sheen on my brow

Ayada is a well oiled machine.  Our dishes arrived within five minutes and they were on the table.  The food was delicious and portions were reasonable.  The entire meal was less than $40 soo I give it a rating of 👍👍👍

Interesting interpretation on a curry.  Along with the traditional ingredients they used green beans, eggplant and  jalapeno.

"Mike" told us his real name and we tried to pronounce it.

Ohmmmmmm.

Time to don the rain gear and batten down the hatches!

MidTown East

 21 June 2021 NYC

Central Park on a Monday afternoon is a fantastic place to be.   There is the greenery, the walkways, the waterways, and the wildlife. Then there are all the humans;  humans with their dogs, humans playing harmonica for an audience, humans on their bikes, humans running around to get exercise and finally humans like us wandering around aimlessly enjoying a fabulous afternoon.

The new New York skyline

Truncated ziggurat anyone?

A sliver of a building 

 Everywhere we go I am always amazed at the amount of effort put into these slabs of metal

A nosh mid wander

So much going on!

Traveling again at last!!

21 June 2021 NYC

What a long strange 18 months its been. We were so lucky to get to travel to the Galapagos back in February of 2020.  Who would have guessed that our trip to visit 10 European capitals would have been canceled?  Not us that is for sure.  We  rescheduled that trip for June 2021. With an nod to Covid we picked AirBnB's and ApartHotels so we could avoid dealing with crowds.  As of 1 May, we were faced with the uncertainty of being allowed into the EU coupled with the possible loss of our deposit money so we had to cancel that trip.  Actually rescheduled is a more appropriate word.  We hope to finally get to Paris in September. 

To satisfy our wanderlust we put together a domestic trip.  We start in NYC  where we get to visit family. Next we travel up to Boothbay Harbor, Maine with a few stops on the way.  Then more stops on our way over to Angola Indiana to see Kim and Ken.  We finish up in Chicago to visit with Susan V.  

So here we are in NYC.  A few pictures follow ...

  

Groovy!

Lunch, hmmm sake or wiskey?

A three tier restaurant 

The waitress showed us the "wireless menu" and based on our reaction, she quickly gave us the hard copy menu

Sushi, sooo good! 

A sample of the interior of our place.

Galapagos Farewell

We returned to the Pikaia Lodge just in time for the sunset to light up the lodge in beautiful orange tones.  We said our goodbyes to various folks.  Heidy the server was going off to the mainland for some holiday fun.   Luis our guide was going off to meet up with his kids at skate and surf camp.  The manager, took off to meet Christan the Assistant Manager on the mainland.  Sandy, Julia and Kate told us about a seemingly easy bike ride to the beach that they took earlier that day.  When the driving rain hit the dirt roads small bits of debris got into one of the girls contacts.  After rinsing they decided to put on their snorkel masks.  They felt silly riding a bicycle wearing a mask and snorkel!

Pulling up to the lodge

It had just rained and the air was clear

The third cabin to the left was ours

Dessert Time

Laurence was very handy with the drinks

A TOAST to the great Galapagos!

Puerto Ayora Adios

We walked through the main shopping street of Puerto Ayora.  We only bought some chocolate and a blue footed booby figure as the carry on luggage does not allow for the acquisition of large numbers of souvenirs.  The shops sold standard tourist fare, lots of t-shirts, some nice art and of course a fine selection of artisanal chocolates.  Both the quality of the product and the packaging were impressive.  We continued to walk through town and reached the "Fish Market".  Here they were cutting up the fresh catch and the birds were helping out.  Frigate birds hunt on the wing and never land in the ocean.  Their oil glands are small so they are lighter and can soar for hours but their feathers are not waterproof enough to be aquatic birds.  So as we watched the fish mongers cut up the fish we saw a cycle of Frigate bird after  Frigate bird after Frigate bird swoop by and grab fish parts to eat. 

A great square of chocolate

Made from Cacao grown on the island of Santa Cruz

The town stretches out 

Colorful shops 

The Fish Market

Here comes a Frigate Bird

Then he is gone

I captured the entire fish bits grab sequence.  Here the bird is on his approach.

Getting into position

He has made the grab

Fish bit in beak and ready to eat

Just that quick, the fish remains have been cleaned up!

Then another bird gets bits

Off he goes

and another

yummy

and it continued on like this until the pelicans got involved

Pelicans, ready to help!

a bit too close

Shoo!

All hell breaks loose!