A Truly Great Day

Saturday was one of the best days of my life. Just a thoroughly incredible day from start to finish. Friday is when it really got set up, as my friend John was coming to visit from Boston, and I was sitting with my family in their hotel room. Both John and I are very proud Arsenal fans, and we had to watch the match against Aston Villa on that Saturday. My dad had heard me mention that the NYC Arsenal Supporters club met at a pub called The Blind Pig for all the matches. He wanted to join us for the Arsenal match, and figured what better place to watch than a pub with many hardcore fans? I was completely in favor of this, and he called to confirm that they would let me and John in, despite us being under 21. They confirmed, and my excitement level for the match continued to build.

Fast forward to the next morning. My alarm went off at 8:40 am, which is normally too early for a weekend for me, but there was an Arsenal match! I showered quickly and put on my Arsenal t-shirt, drinking a quick cup of coffee as well. John was sporting his Per Mertesacker jersey, and lent me his awesome Arsenal jacket. We set off for the pub, which is on the Lower East Side. Despite getting lost on the way, we managed to get there about 10 minutes into the match. My family was there already, and we walked over to join them.

The place was packed with proud Gooners sporting the colors of our club! It was a great atmosphere, sharing in all the excitement of the match with my dad, my friend John, and many other Arsenal fans. When Aston Villa scored in the second half, the whole place fell quiet, as we knew that our goalie Wojciech Szczesny should have saved the shot. Many times Arsenal came close to scoring, until finally we broke through in the 85th minute. It was a beautiful piece of build-up play that led to the goal, with a lofted pass over the defender from Jack Wilshere to Nacho Monreal, who was making a great run down the left side. Nacho found Santi Cazorla on the trailing run into the box, and Santi finished it off with a powerful shot. The place erupted, everyone high-fiving and cheering, quickly joining into a song of "Oh Santi Cazorla" to the tune of the White Stripes' hit "Seven Nation Army". Arsenal held on for the win, continuing our streak of strong play in Premier League matches.

After the game, we went across the street to meet back up with my mom and sister, who had gone to meet one of my sister's friends from school who was also visiting New York. John and I recapped the game, raving about the great play of Santi Cazorla and Per Mertesacker. As it was about lunch time, John voiced his desire to go to Katz' Deli, which is a famous deli also down on the Lower East Side. While we had a bit of an adventure figuring out how to get there on the subway, including the most delayed train I've seen during my time here, eventually we got there and it was packed full of hungry people, including me.

Photo by John.

The line at the sandwich counter gave me a chance to figure out what I wanted, and I eventually decided to go with a corned beef reuben, because it's a signature sandwich there and I figured I should go for that. The sandwich maker gave me a couple slices of corned beef to try while I waited, and it was just delicious and full of flavor. The sandwich was piled high with this wonderful meat, along with sauerkraut and a unique sauce that really enhanced the flavor. Personally, I thought it was better than the reuben at the Carnegie Deli, though my dad was not so sure about that. Either way, it was an amazing sandwich.

My family needed to get back to the hotel, where they were keeping the bags for the day. John and I took the subway back up that way with them. Sadly, they had to go back to Seattle, so I said goodbye, realizing that I probably won't see them for 5 months. I'm very thankful that I was able to spend a lot of time with them during their 6 days in New York, but it went by too fast. Mom, Dad, and Libby, I miss you very much!

Luckily for me, my friend John was staying until Sunday evening, so we went back to Brooklyn to relax for a while before the concert that night. We were feeling a little lazy about dinner, so we decided to go to Park Plaza Restaurant, a quick 2 minute walk from my building. The menu there is huge, but I had been eyeing the pancake and waffle sundaes every time I had been there. Peanut butter chocolate chip pancakes with chocolate syrup and ice cream on top were particularly intriguing, so I decided to go for it. I had to order it once, right? It was very filling, so I had to go lie down for a bit.

Yeah, that was my dinner.

John and I set off for Pacha NYC, a nightclub in Hell's Kitchen, at about 10:50 pm. We were extremely excited for Madeon, but didn't feel the need to be there for the opener. As it turns out, we got there when the opening group, Jack Beats, came on. They did have some pretty cool synth sounds mixed in, as well as a nice remix of Hardwell's "Spaceman", but we were counting down the minutes until Madeon came on. The 18-year-old French electro house producer is already well-known for his remixes and original music. He put together an amazing setlist with live versions of his own songs, along with many other classics from other producers. He worked in some Porter Robinson, Deadmau5, Wolfgang Gartner, Zedd, Knife Party, Hardwell, all of which were loud and exciting. Two of the more unique songs were remixes of The Killers' "Mr. Brightside" and Blur's "Song No. 2", which are rock hits from several years ago. The electro house remixes of those that Madeon played were very cool, and a little unexpected. He finished off with his famous mash-up "Pop Culture", which contains bits of 39 different songs, leading into his song "Finale", fittingly. I couldn't help but smile and appreciate the wonderful work of Madeon, who didn't let down during the first show of his I saw. After the end of "Finale", he mixed a short mash-up of all of his songs, which felt like a nice way to sum up the concert. It's still hard to believe that he's only 18 years old and already so talented.

By the time we got back to Brooklyn, it was 4 am, and we were still recapping Madeon's awesome setlist at the concert. All in all, one of the greatest days of my life, from start to finish. What a day.

A Visit From My Family

Last week, I was very lucky to be able to spend a lot of time with my family, who were visiting for the week during my sister's school break. They flew in on Sunday, 2/17, and I met them for dinner in Midtown. We went to this great sushi place called Kodama. Some of their specialty rolls were excellent, and I always enjoy some basic shrimp or tuna sushi. My dad told me that the restaurant was an excellent find, and I replied that I found it on Urbanspoon. Apparently I should play it off as having local knowledge.

The next day, we went to the Museum of Natural History. There was a very cool exhibit on the scale of the universe, using the planetarium as a scale to compare other objects to. It's still hard to conceptualize the size relationships in the universe, but walking around this exhibit helped give me a sense of scale. There were many exhibits of animals (the taxidermy variety) set up in the sort of habitats they inhabit in the wild. I'm always curious to learn more about different animals and their unique characteristics, and the museum gave me a sudden urge to watch Planet Earth. Seeing some of the dinosaur skeletons inspired discussion of the possibility of bringing animals back to life, but I don't know why we would want to bring back Neanderthals, let alone dinosaurs.

Not a real Easter Island statue, unfortunately.

After the Museum of Natural History, we got a late lunch at a restaurant on the Upper West Side called Sarabeth's. My family all enjoyed their lunches, and I enjoyed mine at the time, but the smoked salmon omelette appeared to be the cause of a brutal case of food poisoning that I suffered from the next day and a half. We followed lunch with a walk down through Central Park, where my sister was set on seeing a statue of some dog, named Balto. My dad and I started chanting "Baldo! Baldo!" and eventually my sister joined in. I don't know exactly why we started, but it provided a lot of laughs on the chilly walk through the park.

After walking down towards Times Square, we got on the subway towards Brooklyn, as my parents wanted to see my room. After a quick stop there (not a lot to see), we had a nice dinner at the Park Plaza Restaurant, a pleasant diner just a few minutes from my building. My buffalo chicken sandwich was very solid, and we had a nice dinner there, away from the slight chaos of Midtown Manhattan.

Wednesday night we met to go to "The Book of Mormon", a critically-acclaimed show written by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. It fit their usual edgy and absolutely hilarious humor, and did not disappoint. I'm very thankful to my parents for taking me to this, as musicals are a little bit out of the norm for me, but I found this one wildly entertaining.

Thursday I met them for lunch and dinner. The Carnegie Deli served up as-expected huge portions for dinner, and I was unable to finish my half of the reuben that I shared with my dad. It was a glorious mound of bread covered in delicious slabs of corned beef, sauerkraut, and covered in melted Swiss cheese. My appetite was not back to full capacity yet after the bout of food poisoning earlier in the week, unfortunately. After dinner, we found a cupcake shop called Crumbs (which has several locations on Manhattan) and got cupcakes there. I really enjoyed being able to sit down and enjoy them with my family in their hotel room, just relaxing and spending time with them.

Friday was another wonderful night. Outside of the hotel room, there were repeatedly massive traffic jams of people trying to park in the parking garage there. Multiple lanes would be clogged up, and the intersection would get blocked. The policeman there was very busy, needless to say. Something like that just doesn't happen in Seattle, so it was fascinating to watch it play out. We enjoyed a nice dinner at the Hourglass Tavern, on 46th Street between 8th and 9th, which is the famous Restaurant Row, I believe. They seemed to do a lot of business before the theater shows started. My pork roast was juicy and flavorful. We all wanted to stop at Junior's for some of their famous cheesecake after dinner (my family had it a few times while they were here). While I was disappointed the tiramisu cheesecake was not available by slice, the raspberry swirl cheesecake did the trick just fine. The mixture of delicious flavors made a great dessert. I stayed in the hotel room until just after 11 pm, when I left to meet my friend John, who took a late bus from Boston that night. The next day turned out to be one of the greatest of my life. I'll save it for its own entry, which should be up tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

Porter Robinson concert

Last Friday (2/8), the Northeast got hit with a major snowstorm. While New York was not affected as much as other parts of the region, we got some snow here. The wind was brutal during the mid-afternoon, which I found out the hard way on my walk to and from CVS to get some food and cold medicine. My that night, it had calmed down, so I went outside to enjoy the snow a little bit.

Snow in Midtown

Reppin' Seattle proudly

By the next day (Saturday), the streets had been mostly cleared up. After an excellent start to the day with a tough, gritty win from Arsenal, I started to get really excited about the Porter Robinson concert that night. While there was snow on the ground and I was recovering from a cold, it takes a lot more than some snow and a slight cold to stop me from seeing Porter Robinson!

This concert was at the Roseland Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan, not far from where I work. The train ride there took longer than I expected, because the 2/3 trains were running local instead of express (meaning they stop at every stop on the way, which isn't normal for all 2/3 trains). All that meant was that I heard less of the opening DJ. I didn't even miss either of the two official openers, so nothing lost there.

The first opener was a one-man electropop act called Penguin Prison. While his music is not my favorite, his act combined singing and mixing music together, which was impressive. All told, he put together a nice opening act.

The second opener was Seven Lions, a producer of what I would best describe as trance-step (trance + dubstep). His musical style is quite unique, and while I hadn't heard a lot of his music, I was excited to see him. The bass was incredible on all of his songs, and while he did get a little caught up in producing crazy loud bass sounds, I really enjoyed his part of the show. His song "Days to Come" was the highlight for me, mixing in loud bass with smooth, slow, trance-like synths to create a really cool sound.

Then came Porter Robinson. What a guy. He's only 20 years old (pretty much exactly my age), but he's already produced some absolute masterpieces. My personal favorite song of his is "Language", a beautiful, elegant electro-house song that brings a chill to my spine every time I hear it because of how amazing it is. Listen to it, it's seriously incredible.

Back to the concert. He started off by mixing together his songs "Vandalism" and "The Seconds" with Deadmau5's "Arguru" which he has done before, and with good reason, because they work really well together. From then on it was a constant stream of EDM greatness, as he skillfully mixed together songs of his own creation and songs of other producers. One of the highlights for me was when he remixed Pendulum's "Slam" and transitioned it into Knife Party's "Internet Friends", which is cool because the two main members of Pendulum went on to form Knife Party, so it was a nice transition from past to present. Some of the other highlights were listening to "Easy" by Porter Robinson and Mat Zo, hearing him mix in Deadmau5's "Strobe" (another masterpiece), and hearing both Porter's original version of "Unison" and the Knife Party remix. 

Legend.

Basically, I'm a huge fan of Porter Robinson. His music is amazing, and his ability to put together an exciting mix live is amazing as well. After the concert, I stopped to buy a bottle of water because I was really thirsty from dancing and jumping up and down for several hours. The two concerts I've been to in NYC so far have been amazing, and I'm looking forward to the next one (Madeon).

Feed Me concert at Webster Hall

When I first accepted my internship in New York, I realized that I was going to be living in one of the best cities in the U.S. for going to see EDM (electronic dance music) shows. 6 months in New York is a great chance to experience life in the city, but I was going to do it my way. Two of the things I love most are sports and electronic music. I decided to try and go to lots of shows, because that's what I'm most interested in doing. One after another, the concerts kept getting scheduled. First I found out about a Porter Robinson show on February 9th, then a Feed Me show on the 2nd. I jumped on buying tickets for both immediately. A few weeks later, I saw a listing for a Knife Party concert on March 15th, and a Madeon concert on February 23rd. I was quick to buy tickets for both of those as well. Bottom line, I lined up some incredible concerts.

I was nervous going to the Feed Me show on my own, because it's not as fun without someone else, but that didn't matter because listening to Feed Me is how I first fell in love with this sort of music. I arrived at Webster Hall at about 9:50, and got let in about 20 minutes later. Unfortunately, Feed Me's opener, Mord Fustang, wouldn't be on until 12:15 or so (turned out to be 12:30), which meant it would be a long time before I got to hear the music I came for. There was a DJ in a smaller room playing a mediocre set list. He played part of a Dada Life song, which was a brief moment of hope for me, but then proceeded on to what can only be described as a middle school dance playlist from 2005/2006 (no, I will not drop it like it's hot). The coat check was down in the basement, so I dropped my coat off there, and headed back upstairs. I had a couple hours to kill, so I stood in the bar area watching sports on the TVs.

Eventually, I went upstairs (at around midnight) and the opening DJ was playing some decent music, which quickly turned into "let's see how crazy of bass we can play without caring about musical quality". He eventually got off the stage for Mord Fustang, an Estonian producer with a very unique sound that it is hard to specify a genre for. I had only recently started listening to his music, but he creates some sweet synth sounds that were really brought to life by the great sound system at Webster Hall. He mixed together a lot of his own music and some other music very skillfully, playing for a little over an hour. I'm very glad that he opened for Feed Me, because I would have been happy to listen to him mix music for more than just an hour.

Apologies for the blurry picture.

At around 1:45, Feed Me came on, and I couldn't help but smile and start jumping up and down. This was the moment I had been waiting for. He did not disappoint, opening very strongly with "To the Stars", an excellent song with loud bass and a flowing main melody. The grand ballroom was packed with people and got incredibly hot, but I didn't care because it was Feed Me! He mixed in all of my favorite songs of his, and his light show (named "Teeth") was really cool as well. The bass on his bass-heavier songs was amazing, pulsating up through the floor and making me feel it in my entire body. I stood near the speakers for "Cott's Face" and "Green Bottle", and it was indescribable how loud and epic the bass was. "Cott's Face" just hits hard but maintains his signature high level of musical quality.

Teeth.

The video and pictures couldn't possibly begin to do it justice. The concert didn't end until 3:45 am, but all I wanted then was more of it. Thank you, Feed Me, for an incredible concert. Hopefully I will see him live again.

Central Park and Midtown

Yesterday I walked around Central Park and Midtown with my friend Elliott, who was visiting from New Jersey. It was my first time in Central Park, and I found it really cool to see how the park blends in with the city around it. Despite the chilly weather and cold wind, it was nice to walk around for a while to see a little bit of the park.

Me in Central Park

Oddly enough, there was a snowfield (more like ice) just out in the middle of the park. There has been some snow here recently, but it definitely didn't stick so I was surprised to find all the snow/ice. Unfortunately, it was not suitable for a snowball fight, but that didn't stop me from goofing around with the ice.

After walking from 72nd street down through Central Park, we decided to walk around Midtown a little bit. The first stop was Niketown, where I was hoping to get an Arsenal jersey. Unfortunately, they didn't have any ones with players' names on the back, which was what I was looking for. There was a very large amount  of NFL merchandise, and one of the employees was wearing a Marshawn Lynch jersey, which made me happy (go Seahawks). The store itself is a sight to see, taking up 5 stories and filling them with lots of pro sports merchandise and athletic apparel. I guess it's fitting that the New York location is that big.

From the 4th floor, doesn't do it justice.

As we were walking towards Rockefeller Center, we saw the Lego store, and had to go in. They had some very cool Lego models of buildings in New York, but the coolest thing we saw there was the containers of Legos that you could buy by the bucket. Kind of like in a candy store. I thought it was a genius idea.

 (The formatting is very frustrating. Sorry.)

We walked past Rockefeller Center and the famous ice rink on our way to go get coffee. The coffee shop of choice was Gregory's Coffee, which is a nice place on 44th street that has a very relaxed ambience. Overall, it's a nice place to sit and enjoy a good cup of coffee. I got a latte because I was feeling especially like a Seattleite (and I just love a good latte). After a nice break, we walked down to Penn Station and Elliott went back to New Jersey. I was very sad that he couldn't stay longer. It was a good day of exploration, seeing some of the quintessential sights of New York, but the night of Saturday, February 2nd was going to be way better than the day. I went back to Brooklyn to rest up and prepare.