Bo Peep Blog

Waaaay back in the fall, my inbox started receiving messages from the New York International Gift Fair (herein named NYIGF), that for the first time ever this year, had added a Baby and Child portion to the show.  I started humming and hawing and then I started scheming.

A little background: I grew up in Vancouver, and when I was 10, my mother took me to NYC for a week.  We went with my best friend Ellen and her mother, and to this day (and much travelling since) it remains one of my favourite trips of all time.  What a luxury, having my mother all to myself for a full week!  New York was just as exciting as it’s always been – full of people, taxis, monuments, theatre and sweet sweet treats – it really is an amazing city.  Was there some way I could recreate this magic for my small town girl?

Back to the scheming: we had the airline points, we had a place to stay (Ellen now lives in Brooklyn with her family) and we had the perfect excuse to go from one wintry place (home) to another (New York ain’t no Mexico) – work!  An added bonus to all of this: my aunt and uncle were willing to come from Buffalo for the weekend we were there, so we would work, eat and visit.  Let the travelling begin.

The Girl is 9 and loves to read.  I knew the long trip would be fine and it was – we had a delay in Denver, so she practiced her dance routine.  She also found the electronics plug-in station and made herself comfortable while playing Harry Potter LEGO on her DS.  Resourceful, my girl.

Finally, we arrived at La Guardia and The Girl got to experience a first: revolving doors.  We definitely don’t have these here, but they are EVERYWHERE in New York.  If I had let her, she would have stayed in there for multiple rotations.  As it was, the novelty didn’t wear off over the course of a week, and she insisted on doing 1.5 rotations every time we went through one.

We got to Brooklyn safe and sound and had a great night’s sleep.  While I had a ridiculous amount of pegs in my google map, she had only one:  the LEGO store.  So first thing on day one, we jumped on the subway and headed into The City – straight to Rockefeller Centre where the newest LEGO store is.

After custom making her own LEGO figures, buying LEGO Star Wars keychains for her friends and investing in some more Star Wars LEGO, we were off to take a souvenir picture for my friend Marc.

Then to lunch at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, where the waitstaff are all starving artists thespians .  The Girl was serenaded by this lovely man – and just about died of embarrassment.  For someone with a budding career on the stage, she certainly doesn’t like attracting attention to herself!

Off to the MOMA to see some fabulous art.  Her first Andy Warhol – Soupcans, Elvis and Gold Marilyn – and I got to appreciate Jackson Pollock, as I was lucky enough to be standing next to someone explaining it to his friend.  We briefly met up with my aunt and uncle to make plans for the next day, saw Times Square for 5 minutes at night, then headed back to Brooklyn.  I had worn out The Girl on the first day.

Day Two saw us back at Times Square – and the beginning of my practice taking self-portraits with my Blackberry.

We met up with my aunt and uncle and jumped on a City Bus tour.  My facebook page started filling up with photos and Fun Facts, thanks to some great tour guides.  I think I still have friends.  Anyway – first stop of the day:  the top of the world!

We lucked out – it was chilly, but clear, so we had great views of New Jersey, the Boroughs and even the Statue of Liberty sitting out there in the harbour.  I’ll spare you the pile of pictures we both took in all our excitement.  However, you have to see this one: I love architecture and New York is filled with Art Deco, as much of the city went up (and up and up) in the early parts of the century.  Form, function and Style.

From there, it was time to eat!  I was armed with lists from friends and family – including 4 “must-tastes” for my chocolate-loving palette from Marc at Mink Chocolates in Vancouver – and so we were headed for Max Brenner’s.  On our way, though, we passed this little shop and had to go in.  Mini cupcakes!  How can you say no to that?

We couldn’t.  A little more walking and then we passed a man setting up a sidewalk shop – all purses.  Lucky for us, he announced that all of his merchandise was now $1!  That’s right, $0.96 CDN would buy you a perfectly good handbag!  The Girl decided she needed one, so she dug out her $1 and got right into the fray.  She emerged with this beauty (and TOTALLY impressed her great-aunt):

Around the corner we went, into the world of Max Brenner.  The place is an experience.  The food was good, the music was loud and it was PACKED.  150 people on two levels (not to mention those in the lines or in the chocolate shop), all ignoring the recession.  Fantastic.  Oh yeah – and it smelled like (my idea of) heaven.  Chocolate bliss.

The Girl and I both had unique drinks – her hot chocolate came in 3 pieces: one bowl of chocolate shavings, one container of hot milk and one container with a candle in the bottom.  She mixed the milk and the chocolate over the flame with a metal spoon, which then doubled as a straw.  My chocolate chai came in a pitcher that didn’t dispense out the spout, but rather out the bottom when it was placed on top of a mug.  Original ideas like those two built just added to the whole experience of lunch.  We were then off to the Strand – where I started stressing about how we were going to get everything home.  18 miles of books?  (Okay, maybe THIS is my idea of heaven).  I showed such incredible restraint, and so The Girl brought home 3 times as many books as I did.  Back onto the Subway for the ride home to Brooklyn.

The next day took us back to The City for our next monument:  the Statue of Liberty.  This was in Battery Park – it is a piece of the World Trade Center, and this is where it landed (roughly 600m from impact site).  It took two weeks post-blast to cool off.  We didn’t go to the Site, as the monument has not been completed yet.  My personal opinion?  This piece of shattered, molten, bit of building makes a devestating monument and would have been worth the relocation costs – but nobody ever asks my opinion.And we were off!  After we went through security of course.  I have mixed feelings on all this security.  I know post-9/11, America doesn’t feel safe.  I really really appreciate that, but I have to wonder if there isn’t some other way – all this “take your shoes/belt/watch/jacket/backpack off so we can scan you and make sure you’re not a threat to us” starts to get tedious.  It feels like I’m guilty before I’ve been proven innocent, like I’m inherently untrustworthy because I’m a human being (and that I definitely SHOULDN’T wear an underwire bra, because damn if they don’t set off security every single time) – and I’m a tourist.  I would be more resentful and miserable if I had to do this every day on my way to work.  If I treated my staff like they were potential tourists, I think I could count on very low productivity – or else a super high turnover rate.  It doesn’t do good things to your psyche to be treated like a potential criminal, but again, just my opinion.

Lady Liberty is beautiful and a feat of engineering.

Another beautiful day in NYC and a great visit with my aunt and uncle, who we don’t get to see very often.  Back to Brooklyn we went for dinner with another childhood friend who also now lives in NYC.  (Why didn’t I sign onto this neighbourhood program?)

The next day took us to Magnolia in Greenwich Village because I have their cookbook.  Failsafe cakes and cupcakes, I swear.

Tasty treat under our belts (um, over my belt, but whatever), we wandered through the village and found ourselves two more bookstores.  Amazing how well our bookstore homing devices work, wherever we go.  It’s like a genetic superpower.

We had a list of 4 chocolate shops from Marc, and so far we had managed Max Brenner.  Today we were going to add Jacques Torres and possibly Kee’s, if we didn’t get too distracted.  This was the sight in Jacques Torres:

The treats were tasty, too.

And then…we got distracted.  We found Evolution.  They had shells, fossils, rocks and skeletons for sale.  Hector the Collector The Girl was in a new heaven.

We found Rice to Riches.  She didn’t believe me that she’d like rice pudding, but she did.  Tasty, full fat and The Best. Signage. Ever.  Really.  I need to figure out how to do this to my store.

We trekked to Kee’s, where I didn’t take any pictures.  The location we went to was very very small – enough room for a couple of display cases, a few customers, and oh my goodness, some of the nicest treats we’d had anywhere.  If you take your chocolate seriously, you need to go to Kee’s.

At some point, I recognized that we’d have to go the gift show.  That’s why we were here, after all!  So the next day found us at the Javits Centre and here’s a taste of what will be showing up in Quesnel pretty soon:

Everything else is top secret, lest the competition is watching me.

Another day found us at FAO Schwarz – a New York institution.  I realized within about 10 minutes that I had brought the wrong kid with me to a 2-story toy store though.  Really, I should have found another fabulous bookstore – this girl is not into toys.  Or maybe FAO Schwarz has lost some of its’ lustre?  Either way, it wasn’t the same experience as it was for me 27 years ago.  She did like the Star Wars characters made out of LEGO though, so all was not lost.

Best head off to Williams-Sonoma in search of Star Wars cookery tools.  I had read about these on a blog and knew my family needed the cookie cutters, the Stormtrooper spatula, the pancake molds and the cupcake thingies.  That’s right – we went all the way to NYC and apart from a few books and a pair of pants, I spent money on myself by buying Star Wars cooking tools.  All I can do is stare at those words and wonder what happened.

Well, we had an evening date, so across town we went for treats at Dylan’s Candy Bar and really amazing pizza here.

Last year, The Girl’s dad and I went to Vegas, where we saw the Blue Man Group.  We knew she’d love them, so we bought tickets when they came to Prince George (an hour north of us).  Due to highway construction, though, The Girl and her dad were stuck in traffic and missed the concert.  As soon as I booked tickets to NYC, I started looking at Blue Man tickets.  We went.  It was just as awesome as it was in Vegas for me – and even better for her.  She laughed SO hard.  And then on the way out, there they were.  All three of them, plus all their musicians.

This kind of thing doesn’t happen everyday.

Are you counting?  Have we made it to all 4 chocolate places?  Max Brenner’s, Jacques Torres, Kee’s – that only makes 3.  So off we went to La Maison du Chocolat, where the lovely lady serving us our hot chocolate and patisserie spoke French.  We practiced our langue seconde and really really enjoyed the calm of the place.

Marc had actually added a 5th – Marie Belle – but that will have to wait for the next tour de New York.  We will bring bigger luggage too, since we really didn’t bring enough treats home with us.

Our last day in NY was Brooklyn day.  Ellen lives right across the street from Prospect Park, but we didn’t go in it, not even once.  (We didn’t go in Central Park, either, so there.)  Why? You might ask.  I think it has something to do with the fact that we left a place all covered in snow and then came to another place that climatically-speaking, felt just like home.  When I came as a kid, I came from Vancouver – no snow, not really cold – and so New York in all its’ cold and snow was very exciting.  We took a horse and carriage through Central Park and it was magical.  When it’s your norm, it’s not so magical or exciting – especially if you didn’t bring your big hefty boots that keep all the water out.  So we headed to the Brooklyn museum, which was beautiful and had a very impressive collection.  Did you know, for example, that Norman Rockwell made his paintings from staged photographs?  I did not, but was happy to learn that.

Of course, sqeezed into all of that was visiting with Ellen and her family.  We managed one date out for coffee & treats, but mostly we caught up in their apartment.

It was a wonderful trip but we were ready to go home.

It may be a few years before we get back – and we might even take the boys – so I am marking up our map for the next trip.  We’ll keep you posted and maybe you’ll even come with us!