Immersion Therapy...NYC Style!

Mike and I like good coffee.  We also like to immerse ourselves in cities we visit.  We like to find places to sit and experience the world going by - folks doing what they do, travelling from one place to another, living their lives - it's like having a little window from which to watch those little snippets of routines...get a kind of insight into their lives...

Anecdote time...  We visited Las Vegas in 2005 for my birthday, and had the pleasure of staying at Bellagio.  Now the mall in Bellagio has a great coffee shop and patisserie and you guessed it - we found it.  Well there we were enjoying our coffees - large extra strong latte for me, double espresso for Mike - and sharing a very good cinnamon bun.  A man and woman sat at a table next to us and the woman proceeded to get out their itinerary for their 2 night / 3 day trip - they'd just arrived.  The woman proceeded to walk the man through the itinerary and believe me it would have made a 5 star general proud (if a little exhausted...).  They basically had 6 minutes to have their coffee after which they had to be in the lobby meeting friends...they then had 7 minutes to get to the front of the hotel to see the next fountain show - they couldn't watch all of it as they had to be at Treasure Island for the next pirate show, then get their skates on for the volcano show at The Mirage... they could grab a sandwich at some point as they wouldn't have time for a full meal - they had to be goodness knows where for what by when.... We were pretty exhausted eavesdropping let me tell you!  She managed to have a scheduled phone conversation with their children that had been left with grandparents and then they were off! (They left most of their drinks....) Now we were only there for 3 nights ourselves, but apart from wanting to see the Star Trek Exhibition at the Hilton (it's no longer there which is quite sad...), see Ron Lucas's show at the Rio and have a nice meal in Prime for my birthday night, we were pretty much flying by the seat of our pants, agendaless and it was a great trip!  How can folks go on a trip which pretty much wipe them out, leaving them more exhausted than before they left?  Where's the 'holiday'?  Where's the 'relaxation'?  I'm sure some of you reading this will be shouting 'We do and we love it! It's a perfect holiday!' and I'm glad for you but it is SO not for us! :)

When we go to Barcelona, we spend a fair amount of time doing just the same kind of thing - sitting in nice cafes or coffee bars, or great market eateries and menu del dia places, enjoying great espresso and cafe con leche, good food, and completely surrendering ourselves to the ebb and flow of life, equally and perfectly happy to either chat to each other or just watch and listen to the interactions around us - the banter between bar staff and kitchen staff, the 'Hi, how're you doing Mary?' or 'Usual Fred?' or any of the thousands of brief interactions we get the chance to observe in our day to day journeys.  We actually got to see the Olympic Flame be run through the centre of Barcelona in 2008 simply by deciding totally at random whilst walking around Eixample one morning, to have nice little break in a coffee shop,  and have some 'do nothing for a bit' time,  which lead to reading the local paper and seeing an article about it happening - that day!!! 


This June we return to New York.  Mike and I first visited for Thanksgiving in November 2008 - my first visit.  I've been twice more in 2009 mainly as sanity for Mike during his long stays (he worked for a Madison Avenue based company) and just to actually sleep in the same bed as my husband - he'd been away from home ALOT that year.  The stay was quite hard though - he'd be in the office before 8am and if we were lucky he'd be back to the hotel around 8pm - each day hoping to leave the office 'at a reasonable time..' (6ish) but always getting dragged into something meaning it would be much later than that.  We did find a couple of bars where we could do our 'immersion therapy' though - Annie Moore's near Grand Central - it's an amazing place for that.  I had a really nice chat (under the watchful eye of Nicky I might add - one of the bar staff who had taken his role of guardian angel very seriously for the couple of nights I went there by myself to meet up with Mike - thanks Nicky :) ) about the baseball game on TV with a friendly old chap who was a self confessed barfly.

Another bar that was great for immersion therapy was up 92nd and 2nd - Blondies - it's changed hands now which is a shame.  (I arrived on St Paddy's Day in March - a totally mental time in NY - and we did our get-a-seat-at-the-bar-chill-and-watch-the-world-go-by thing.  We weren't quite prepared for the madness of one of the bar staff getting up on the bar in his hastily wrapped-around-his-waist stapled-on Ireland flag skirt, walking up and down with a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand, pouring it into eager customer's mouths...but it was alot of fun to watchto'ing and fro'ing of lighthearted insults and anecdotes from the evening).

Back to June though...unfortunately the weather was not kind.  I was there for nearly a fortnight, and I had TERRIBLE weather - it absolutely teemed it down for about 7 days in a row - rain like you see on the movies and TV shows set in New York - it was like a monsoon!  So... no sitting in Central Park under a tree with my book, or on a park bench in Bryant Park in the shade with my lunch, or walking miles and miles exploring... Even the locals kept saying it was soooo not the norm for that time of year.... So, I basically frequented a lot of Starbucks that I already knew the locations of - usually to dry out my jeans - they'd be soaked from mid thigh down...  I loved it in some ways though in that I got to see the same folks interacting with the Barista's each day on their way to work, or at lunchtime, or when they popped in for their mid morning drug of choice, and I got to see the Baristas interacting with each other during their working day - the jokes they'd make, the general banter, and it was great.

So - to bring all of this stuff I've just waffled on about for ages together - we've got a bit of a plan for this visit, the idea for which came out of a New York Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/dining/10coffee.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Whilst 'The Man' (i.e. Starbucks) may still get the odd coffee sale from us, we're gonna try the independents - places where New Yorkers not only go to get great coffee, but that seem to have a great sense of community and friendship.  Potentially perfect locations for Immersion Therapy!  This one for example:

http://joetheartofcoffee.com

And another one that catches the eye....

http://jitteryjoes.com/ourcoffee/  Isn't that just a fantastic name for a coffee shop!

So - watch this space in June folks - I'll be blogging about the places we visit along with pictures, observations and insights :)