New York, New York…

…it’s a wonderful town.

Sorry for the silence, but I’ve been in the Big Apple attending a couple of  conferences. In between, I managed to get in a few sights and tastes:

• Central Park, where spring has sprung. The Conservatory Garden up around 106th street are alone worth the journey. My friend Margie (really!) showed me her favorite parts of the park. Loved the Alice in Wonderland statue, the Delacorte Music Clock–timed that right!, and Margie’s bench.

• Lunch at the Comfort Diner. Retro, loud, bustling, fast, cheap. Diner fare (great chicken noodle soup and a pretty decent chocolate chip cookie) plus a few surprises (pistachio-crusted chicken in a salad).

• Yet another lunch with a friend at Pret a Manger, a Britain-based chain of healthful fast food outlets with an emphasis on fresh and organic.

• Got a taste of feelin’ groovy while walking part way across the 59th Street Bridge (while of course singing the Simon & Garfunkle tune of the same name).

• Zipped over to Roosevelt Island on the tram to take in the great views of the city at night.

• Skyline views of New York from Amtrak’s Acela train en route home.

• From Boston to Maine, I played the two-degrees-of-Maine game with my seatmate. Learned that he’d help construct Sugarloaf’s Redington development,  that he owned the home and gallery across the street from the house we’d rented in Southwest Harbor two summers ago, and all sorts of other parallel lives coincidences that always happen when you get chatting with another Mainiac.