Not just a highway sign but the first hamburger, the first pizza and great museums.
Saturday Part 2
Saturday morning began with a nudge and a push, as I was feeling sick from a flu that was coming on, but with the itinerary that Renny had in mind we could be in New Haven for a week and still not see it all.
We started the day with a healthy breakfast by going to Claire's Corner Copia. Claire has her own recipe books that she wrote and everything there is ridiculously healthy for you. Everything's vegetarian, kosher and basically, whatever your dietary issues you can eat there and not feel conspicuous about it. We all had the 5-grain pancakes with a raspberry sauce, which was, as Margherita said, "To die for." I personally didn't have suicidal tendencies after eating them but Margherita's a strange bird.
From there, we got in the car and drove to the Whitlock Farm Book Barn in Bethany, which is just a few minutes into the countryside, north of New Haven. Mr. Whitlock was basically this farmer who had a lot of books and decided to turn his barn into a bookstore.
It's pretty unique to the area and knowing that I love old books, we decided to give it a try. The barn has basically the oddest assortment of old books that I've ever seen and I picked up this old set of postcards on Pompeii for only $1.50, which made me quite happy. The caretaker of the store was a bit cranky though and said she had no time to talk to us, but if you just walked up, gave her the money and smiled... well, she smiled back at least.
From there, we drove back to town and went to the Knights of Columbus museum. Now, why would we go there you ask? I had no idea. It was originally an idea that seemed to work to fit in between the book barn and a tour of Yale, but I admit I was a bit scared. I mean, how exciting could the Knights of Columbus museum be? Well, if you've caught on to the tone of this story already you can see where this is going.
I'm so pissed that we only had one hour there. Arrggggghhhhh. It turns out that the Knights of Columbus basically have this connection with the Vatican so they get exclusive exhibits straight from the Vatican. They had the most amazing statue of Saint Peter that is an exact copy of the one in St. Peter's Basilica and an entire exhibit from the Vatican with Christmas art. This museum alone was worth the entire trip.
The museum was recently opened and everybody seemed apologetic because they were only "in their new home for 9 months" but if they didn't say anything, you wouldn't have known as everything fit in perfectly. I could go on for hours about the museum but I'll tell you to keep your eyes out for JFK's application to join the Knights of Columbus and always read their updates on the latest Vatican exhibit, which I'll definitely be back for.
From there, we went for a quick lunch at the deli called, the Market (although it's a deli, and not a Market) on Broadway and then onto the Yale Tour. It turns out they have a tour every day, sometimes two and they're usually packed. One of the upper classmen from the college do the tours and considering everybody mentions Yale and this is where Ex-President Bill, Hillary and both Presidents Bush went to school we figured it must be worth checking out.
Yale looks exactly as you would expect any European University to look and in fact, since that's what they intended they did a rather good job. They even went so far as to age all of the buildings by pouring acid on them and breaking windows. The acid didn't work so well on the tower as it now requires structural support. On the other hand, Yale is so embedded in our history I can't emphasis enough how this should be a part of any visit to New Haven. The tour guide even told the story of large President Taft's attendance here and how the CIA snuck onto campus to copy the measurements of a statue of Nathan Hale, which was actually not a copy of Nathan Hale... it's a long story but in the end they copied a statue which was thought to be of Nathan but wasn't so they felt very foolish. Those little stories are more interesting than the main, "this is the library... this is the cafeteria" type of stuff.
From there, we went to the Grove Street cemetery, which basically has a few hundred people from America's history lying there. I wish it wasn't so cold that we had to run in and out but we did see Noah Webster's, Eli Whitney's and Charles Goodyear's graves. As far as graveyards go it was very pretty but then again, it was a graveyard so you can't say anything too nice about it because that's just plain morbid.
I was starting to fall asleep at that point even though Renny seemed to have caffeine in her veins. We stopped at the Atticus Bookshop and Cafe for some cappuccino or as its sign says, "Millions of books and millions of scones." We didn't have the scones actually which might have broken some of their rules but we did have the bread that was really damn good again. I was starting to like New Haven but I didn't want to admit it so I just grunted.
With the caffeine fully in my veins, we went to the Yale Museums, starting with the Yale University Art Gallery and then heading over to the Yale Center for British Art. The reason that I mentioned them together is that they were both designed by architect Louis Kahn, with the Art Gallery being the first and the British Art being the last. Both have very similar architecture, but enough of that focus, the best thing about the museums are... they're a good, cheap date. I've never heard of a museum not asking for a "mandatory donation", but these museums are free. In addition, they even have everybody from Van Gogh to Picasso, which isn't much of a range of artistic talents as the two styles are rather similar but they're the only names I was familiar with. There was modern art there too though including a strange piece of art by an artist who simply bought a shovel and called it art. After seeing that I think I reached my art quota for the day. Margherita enjoyed it more but I got us moving quicker by commenting about the odd looking art to the point she got frustrated.
Well, it was getting late and it was time for dinner so we went back to the hotel to change.
On the way to Roomba, which was, only two blocks away (within the aforementioned 9 squares), Margherita saw Celtica an Irish import shop that had a pink hat that she "just loved". We had this big debate between Mr. Budget and Mrs. Fashion but Mrs. Fashion won out on the debate, and no thanks to Renny's input Margherita walked out smiling and dancing in a pink hat. The girls loved it but Mr. Budget was very upset at me.
Fortunately I told Mr. Budget to keep quiet as we went to Roomba for dinner because a much more reasonable investment according to Mr. Budget is good Latin food than a silly pink hat. At Roomba, we met up with Karolyn and the four of us started the meal with drinks. I had a Kiwi Colada so after that the dinner was pretty much a blur, but everything was completely made up of Latin cuisine and basically brilliant. The way he combined elements from every other type of cooking and merged them into his Latino cooking made it seem effortless... no that's not true at all. It actually made it seem that I could never become a cook and would be damned to try. I mean it takes either a warped mind or a genius to put together all of these ingredients and make it look like an art piece and taste great at the same time. I mean I could turn my mashed potatoes into a castle by the age of six but the chef would take various foods that I never knew existed throw them together and the whole time you're wondering if you're in a restaurant or the Guggenheim. Don't even start on dessert because after Margherita's coconut Cr?me' Brule and my chocolate mix of death our stomachs were entirely engorged.
I have no idea how, but we somehow gained the energy to walk to the car and then off to the Long Wharf Theater to see David Schulner's play, "An Infinite Ache". To start off the experience, the Long Wharf Theater is one of those buildings that you see from the highway and think, "Oh that's a meat packing plant or something, lets keep driving." Well, between the packing plant and the odd looking buildings there's the theater.
The play, "An Infinite Ache" is basically the journey of a relationship broken down into only the key elements... from meeting to death, it follows the couple at every turn, one scene leads so seamlessly to the other, it's almost frightening. A sample of dialogue illustrates it better when he goes from, "I can't believe you're cheating on me" to the next line of "The marriage therapy is working out well". Out of the few hundred plus plays that I've seen over the past 10 years I have to say that this is one of the best.
To top off the evening, we drove back to the Omni Hotel and went to Galileo's, a bar on the 19th floor that offered views of the entire New Haven area. It was a pleasant topping to our overnight in New Haven. The next morning we woke up, and the flu was getting the best of me so we headed back to New York. In summary, New Haven is one of those cities that we will definitely be back to and have already recommended to everybody we know. It has so much to do between the high quality restaurants to museums to a great nightlife... well, you get the idea. My view on Connecticut hasn't changed for the western half of the state yet, but I've fallen in love with the center of it at least, and especially with New Haven.
Read part 1
