New York City - Day 8

We stayed in the somewhat cool apartment until well after noon.  New York is suffering from a heat wave and many places aren't air conditioned.  Raven has a window unit in her bedroom which really helps.  We walked to a burger joint, Black Iron Burger Shop and had the best burgers ever.  I also liked the fact that they were rather inexpensive as well.  To accompany the burgers we had batter-dipped and fried green beans served with a spicy honey mustard.  Of course we each order a beer to wash the burgers down!

We took the subway to West Village, it was a long and hot walk/wait/ride.  We were looking for something to do in which we could avoid the heat. We bought movie tickets to the 5:30 showing of "The Killer Inside Me", but it was not even 4:00, we needed to do something as we waited.  We walked to a bar called The Blind Tiger and guess what.....No air conditioning!  We sat anyways and ordered colder, somewhat lighter beer to try and stay cool.  Admittedly, the ceiling fans just weren't keeping us cool enough!  We tried cooling our faces with the side of the glass of beer; that helped.

Rainy ordered a refreshing Fuzz Berry!

When we left the Blind Tiger, we made the best move of the day....we stopped in an air conditioned shop for ice cream!  Rainy had cantaloupe sorbet and Julie had pistachio ice cream.  Then it was off to the movie.

The Killer Inside Me featured Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck in a Michael Winterbottom film.  The story was about handsome, charming, unassuming West Texas deputy Lou Ford.  Lou has a bunch of problems.  Women problems.  Law enforcement problems.  An ever-growing pile of murder victims - and the secret that he is a sadist, a psychopath, and a killer.  Suspicion begins to fall on Lou, and it's only a matter of time before his alibis start to unravel.  But in the savage, bleak, blacker-than-noir universe, nothing is ever what it seems.  We all enjoyed the air conditioned theater almost as much as we enjoyed the movie!

We had a little time before our 9:00 dinner reservation, so we stepped into the Barrow Street Ale House for a drink.  Luckily this bar was air conditioned!  Like most of the establishments in NYC, this ale house was long and narrow with dark wood paneled walls and comfortable booths to sit in.  We relaxed and let time slip by.

Our dinner reservation was at Samba Sushi, the only chain restaurant we have eaten at.  This was allowed because the NYC location was the original.  The food is a subtle blending of the tastes of Japan, Brazil, and Peru.  It was a bustling restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating; of course we sat inside as we wanted the comfort of air conditioning!  Raven ordered a saki, Rainy drank a special cocktail, and Julie had a glass of champagne.

Our first appetizer was a plate of crispy fried snow crabs which Julie found delicious and different all at the same time.  We shared a plate of sashimi in which of the four fish selections were marinated in a sauce that enhanced their flavor.  Next we had 2 rolls.  We were still a bit hungry so we ordered a Pacific roll and fresh oysters for Raven & Rainy.  We each ordered a hand roll as well, Julie's with tempura shrimp, Rainy's with eel, avocado and cucumber, and Raven's with octopus.  The meal was very good, and not too filling so we had room for dessert.  Once dinner was over, we walked to the subway for the train ride back to the East Side.

As we were walking from the subway to Raven's apartment,  Rainy noticed this knit graffiti tree.  She had heard about the phenomenum but hadn't actually seen one, so we were all pretty excited about this simple yet beautiful artist statement. It was still hot and humid for our walk home.  Because we turn off the room air conditioner at Raven's apartment when we leave, we returned to a very hot space!  It was late, we were tired, we all lay close to the air conditioner letting it cool our tired bodies.