New York trip report ..

We flew into new york on dec 18th on United. The flight was quite comfortable and turbulent free. However, Maya got sick on the plane, for the third time in a row and threw up. I suspect plane travel does not sit well with her. The kids decided I was their favorite parent and wanted to sit next to me the entire time. We had a 3-1 seat configuration and mari got to chill for some time. We spent most of the time playing melissa and doug's pattern travel game. Its a bit too easy for maya, so will need to get her something more challenging for the next flight.

We spoke to a pediatrician in New York, who recommended we give her Dramamine before take off which will dull her balance sensors (they are behind the ear). They seemed to have worked well so far (writing this on the Zurich->Mumbai flight). However, she did throw up on a car trip yesterday when we did not give her Dramamine.

This has been our first trip with two kids who are grown up (relatively speaking). Its a lot of work with kids at this age which makes travel quite hard and different. When the kids were younger, we could carry them on backpacks and pretty much do things we liked, wander the city, stop at cafes etc. At this age, we think more about what activities will entertain and educate the kids. So we basically hunt for discovery / exploratorium museum equivalents in various cities. Both New York and Zurich will be cold this time of the year and will limit any outside activities

We got into NY late friday. The kids were glad to be in a spacious one bedroom apartment and we spent the evening doing various projects. Mari, Lara and Frank went to dinner at Frank's Italian restaurant in the East Village and came back with a pretty good report. The next morning, i had an excellent CiviCRM meetup with some of our users and consultants. The kids wanted to stay at home and do school, which is what Mari did using some of the home schooling material we have. We went for lunch to Momafuke, the noodle bar in east village. We got the sashimi appetizer, the hot mushroom bun and the squid salad. The squid salad was exceptional and definitely worth getting. The other two appetizers were quite ordinary and a bit disappointing. The portion size seemed a bit small. For the main courses, Mari got the chicken ramem, kurund got the shrimp and rice, and I got the pork and poached egg ramen. All three courses were quite good and devoured by us (with some help from the kids). The pork pieces were quite fatty (which makes the soup tasty). Its kinda ironic that restaurants are going back to using the "good parts" of an animal to prepare food. This is quite common in my Mom's home cookin. We then took Metro North to visit Kavya, Esha, Suhrud and Chayya. We had a delicious indian meal at their place (baingan bharta, cholle and upside down veggies). The kids took care of themselves for most of the visit. Kinda nice that the kids can entertain themselves at this age.

The next morning we headed to the Museum of Natural History (MNH). We met Mari's cousin, Rona there. On our way there we managed to lose Kurund in the subway. For the next three hours, the kids were quite sad and kept mentioning that Kurund is lost and they will not meet him again. It did not help that MNH is a very hands off museum (see, read but dont touch) and the kids got bored there pretty quickly. MNH does have a discovery center which is open ONLY from 1:00 pm - 5:00 pm. Not sure why such a large museum has such limited hours for something which all small kids like. MNH was very crowded and the noise level was so so high, seemed like all schools in NY decided to visit it that day (or so it felt). Overall MNH is not a great museum for kids under 5, IMO. The one thing that did excite the kids for 30 mins or so was the evolution of man (from chimpanzee to neanderthal to man). Maya went around checking which one was male and which was female. PJ was quite happy to see monkeys.

We then went over to Time Warner Center for lunch at Bouchon Bakery. We were a large group and bought food from the takeaway. The menu is quite limited and we tasted most items on the menu. The sandwiches (tuna salad, roast beef, turkey, vegetarian) were made on some great bread and the quality of ingredients was high. The focacia sandwich was the tastiest which yummy bacon on top :). The desserts (macaroons, chocolate chip cookie and chocolate cake) met our high standards. The chocolate cake was as good as any of the chocolate stuff from tartine, if not a wee bit better.

We then visited Elin Waring and Manhattan Country School (MCS). Elin has deployed CiviCRM at MCS. MCS is a small progressive school on Upper West Side. Diversity in NY is so so different than diversity in San Francisco. While all the SF schools make a strong attempt at being diverse, it still means that 60% of the kids are white. The kids at MCS were like a mini-UN (borrowed from lara's description of a subway car in NY). Visiting MCS made me think that staying in NY for the spring / summer / fall might not be a bad idea (assuming we figure out what we will do with the kids education). NY in winter might be a wee bit too cold for my liking. Our final destination of the day was Manhasset, Long Island. We took LIRR and the kids entertained (or tortured) the other passengers by playing phone the entire ride over (30 mins). We had another great indian meal (alu gobi, dhal and shrimp curry) and the kids used frank as a jumping bag.

The next morning we had coffee and breakfast at Araca (with lara and rona) on 7th Avenue. This place (another Lara find) was started by someone who worked at Blue Bottle Coffee in the Bay Area. The coffee was obviously quite excellent and the food was very good (poached eggs on fry bread, chile poblano sandwich with avocado salsa, egg and potato quiche). This place was so so small that only 4-5 people could stand inside at any given time. There is a bench outside so we rotated people and food from inside to outside on a regular basis (was quite cold that morning). We then headed to Children's Museum of Manhattan (we wanted to goto Children's museum of art, which opened a bit too late for us, 12:00 pm). I took a 90 minute walk along the riverfront while the kids enjoyed the museum. We also purchased some Kapla blocks as a present. Seems quite an interesting set and we'l probably purchase a set for our kids when we get back home. We were running a bit late and to mine (and rona's) disappointment we had to skip Katz and settled for H&H bagels and cream cheese for lunch.

Now off on another plane ride to Zurich. Maya is getting a bit tired of planes and has mentioned a few times she does not want to get on a plane to goto europe. The postcard game is quite entertaining (and a great diversion) and we spent an hour or so writing postcards to all our friends in NZ and other parts of the world.