LEAVING NEW YORK
The first one was at Artisanal on Saturday night. Artisanal is my super favorite French restaurant in New York City, specialising in cheeses galore! They have fromaggieres who come to your table and help you pick which cheeses to try! Yummmm! So I went to Artisanal with a party of 7 of my friends. In attendance were Mark, my former boss and since-then drinking buddy and friend; David B, Mark's friend from Berkeley and my sailing buddy from the Manhattan Sailing Club; Kat, my sailing buddy and frequent bar-crawling companion; Rod, who we all know and love and needs no explanation (either because he is so simple or because he is so complicated, depending on who you ask); Brian K., a friend from my old apartment on Gold Street; Jesse, another good friend and former neighbor on Gold Street, and Juliet, Jesse's shorter but much better half. Here are some pictures from that night:
On Sunday night, my last night in New York, I absolutely had to go to Mexican Radio, my favorite Mexican restaurant on the planet. They have the best margaritas, the super-yummiest Radio Roll-ups (only God and some smart cooks know what's in them that makes them that good), and, because I frequented MR every other day for the last month and a half I lived in New York, I knew every single bartender there (just about - Chris was never very friendly with me, but Melissa, John and John were all the best!) Melissa gave me the heads up that MR would be closing early that Sunday, so I got there early to have a drink and my dinner in peace. Then all the revelers showed up! This time in attendance were: Nicole, my former coworker at Seventeen and my Italian-cohort who spent last fall living in Milan; Tammy, my techie girl from TheSpark and my otherwise loyal conservative Jane Austen loving friend; Stephen, my last and sole remaining friend from NYU grad school; Rod, again and of course!; Kat, also again and of course - and her friend Melissa; as well as two dancer friends of Rod's and eventually Brian, again, and Annie. Was a nice small send-off crowd! My favorite highlight of the evening was the finale at MR when we all did shots. I even got Nicole and Tammy, two people who I never thought I'd see do shots, taking them! I was quite proud. Finally, after MR closed, a few of us headed up to Botanica, my once absolute favorite bar, and had one last drink before I made my way home. Here are some pictures from that night:
One of the biggest challenges in moving to Rome for me was figuring out how to bring my cats with me. I absolutely could not imagine leaving them behind for 4 months - and if they can't come, then I couldn't go. I know, I know. You all think I treat them like my children - and you are right. They are the only real responsibility that I have so I take it pretty seriously. They keep me grounded - if not insane - and for that we must all be grateful. The EU, and thereby Italy, allows pets to come into the country without quarantine. I had to get the boys checked out by a vet before I left and have him give me some certificate from the USDA that says they are in good health and have had their rabies vaccines. I also had the vet fill out the Italian pet import forms, which I got from the Italian consulate. Beyond that, I had two cat carrier crates that I was prepared to use, but then when I went to the vet office a pet taxi driver told me that the airline may not allow them to travel in the crates I had because they were too short. (They are the right size to fit under the airline seats, but if you are shipping pets by cargo, which is what you have to do on trans-Atlantic flights, then you need bigger crates.) So I had to also purchase new crates at the last minute for the boys. (You can see the kitties in their crates below!)
The whole flight thing freaked me out like you have no idea. I took 2 Xanax to calm myself down but I was totally having visions of all those Barbara Walters 20/20 exposes where they show how horrible animals are treated on airplanes. I worried that my boys would come out dead or without fur or all their limbs or body parts. I imagined all types of horrible, horrible things. So when the time came to give them to the people to put them on the plane, it was really tough. Cats can read their people's feelings and they knew all along that I was nervous, so I tried to be as brave as possible to calm them down (hah! ridiculous, I know). The baggage screeners made me take each cat out of their crate in the airport so they could test for bomb residue inside the crates (explosive kitties! what a mean, horrible idea!) and that freaked them out a lot. Then I gave them away and watched as the lady wheeled them down the hall. At that point, everything was out of my control, so I went and got on the plane and tried to relax. I had the stewardess check on them and confirm with the pilot that they made it on board, which they confirmed just before we lifted off. As soon as I heard that, I literally passed out. For 2 hours I was virtually dead to the world. All the stress, xanax and whatnot finally got the best of me. When I arrived in Italy, Mao in his crate was already coming out on the luggage carousel. Was a crazy funny thing to see! Then came Kaizar! I stacked them up, got my suitcase and took a painfully expensive taxi ride to my new apartment. The rest is history! | |||||||||
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Content & Photos © 2004 Laura Laytham, laura@girlsaresmarter.com.