Celebrating Mark’s birthday
In the beginning of the last week of September, Alex finalized a drawing for Mark´s upcoming birthday. The rest of the week was spent with walking George and some delightful cooking. Friday night, Franzi was off to get a pedicure and manicure to start into the weekend. In the meantime Alex got his hands dirty and finished the BMW maintenance by adjusting the valves. We also got some flowers to make the apartment a little more cozy. On Saturday, Franzi pickled onions for the first time and we had a wine at Beron Beron. Later in the day, we headed to Gran Torino for Mark´s surprise birthday dinner. After some good food, we went to Taqueria Mexico 2000 for some margaritas and churros to end the night as Gran Torino was not allowed to serve any alcohol due to a COVID related violation they were accused of.
Kushal time
During the next work week we had a dinner with Kushal at Kiki´s – even in COVID times we still had to wait 45 minutes for a table but it was well worth it. Otherwise we had some fun with George and discovered a great new recipe.
On Saturday, Franzi met with Brittany & Pravani for brunch at Rosemary´s. After some furniture shopping with Brittany, Franzi got some fresh flowers on the Union Square Green market and headed home. For the rest of the day, we walked through the West Village enjoying the good weather – it seemed like we were not the only ones! In the evening, we met (again) with Kushal for dinner at The Bar and indulged in a spread of Chinese dishes.
On Sunday, Franzi met up with Coleen for some outdoor fun – inline skating in Central Park. After a run and exhausting two rounds around the park, we ended the weekend with a well deserved Taco Sunday!
A big bike adventure for Alex – PA700
The next week was a short one for Alex – he took off Thursday and Friday to join the PA Wilds Adventure Ride. Since moving to the US Alex got more and more into off-road riding. Luckily the Triumph of Alex is considered an off-road-suitable Scrambler.
The PA Wilds Adventure ride is a four‐day GPS guided tour of the Pennsylvania Wilds area using eight state forests and parks. The route is mostly dirt and gravel roads. Also some jeep trails in the forests are covered. Dirt sections are connected by back country roads and some highways. The event uses a so called “Roaming Rally” format. This means that the route will start and end each day at a different location. A new headquarter location is setup at each location where riders have to check in at the end of each day. In total the event covered 700 miles and thus is also called PA700. Riders could either camp or stay at the HQ hotel. Alex and friends did a combination of both.
The event was great fun and huge learning for Alex. Riding in dirt is basically the opposite of riding on the street. Luckily our friends are quite experienced Adventure bike riders and could teach Alex the necessary skills to “survive”.
Alex also created a short movie to capture the highlights from the PA700
For Franzi, the weekend started with sushi and a good movie. On Saturday, she met for brunch with a couple of work colleagues and took a motorcycle ride around the city. After Alex got back on Sunday, we finished off the weekend with making up for our missed Pizza night and chatting about Alex´s adventures.
Making the best from not travelling during the week
Work during the next week was only interrupted by a dinner with Priya at Kanoyama . Not traveling anymore definitely has the advantage of being able to get out during the week sometimes, which doesn’t happen often but at least it leaves a chance for some during-the-week distractions from work. On Sunday, we drove up to Shelton, Connecticut with Fabi and Char and visited a corn maze and a pumpkin patch where we fetched our pumpkins for soup. On the way back home, we stopped at Barcelona Wine Bar in Norwalk for some tapas and a heavy red to end the week.
German, Danish, and Italian food – all Europe!
The last week of October, we started traditionally German. We cooked some Gulasch, which brought the taste of Germany to New York at least a little bit. Also Alex got out his Lederhosen to celebrate October.
On Saturday, we had to bring our motorcycles to their annual services in New Jersey. This stole us about half a day but luckily we could at least use the time productively by working on the blog while waiting for the service to be done. Back in NY, we had a late lunch at Smør. They have great Smørrebrød and eating it out in the cold at least made it feel like we’re in Denmark. On Sunday, we treated ourselves with getting some fancy food items from Eataly and WholeFoods. In the evening, after visiting Washington Square park, we transformed our ingredients into a sage-goat cheese Mafaldine pasta with flank steak.
