Week 37 and counting...

This past weekend Chris' parents, Tim and Jan, came to the big apple for a visit. We ate a lovely Italian meal in Hoboken on Friday, and on Saturday, we went to the MOMA for a few hours of sculpture and paintings. It was Tim's birthday. We tried a restaurant recommended by a friend, called SushiSamba in the Village. It was a combination of Japanese, Peruvian and Brazilian cuisine...very interesting flavors and lovely presentation! -It was clearly where all of the hip young New Yorkers wanted to be for dinner, and everything we tried was an adventure that didn't disappoint.

After dinner, I suggested that we walk a few blocks to visit Magnolia Bakery, a place I used to enjoy a good cupcake from when I lived here the first time around. It seemed a good place to find birthday-celebrating sweets. When we were approaching the bakery, we noticed many people standing around out front of the store, as well as many people standing around inside. It is not a large place, and I was not at all surprised to see it crowded, knowing of its popularity. We went to open the front door, and were met with a barrage of "There is a LINE here!!" shouted towards us...and as we apologized and started to walk around the group standing in the front, it was clear that there was a line wrapped around half of the block out of sight from the direction we first approached the store.

Saturday night, about 8pm, and here were about 40 or 50 people standing in the brisk air waiting for 30 to 40 minutes for first-come, first serve cupcakes. We realized as we chatted with the two young women in front of us, and the folks directly behind us, that any notion of just getting one or two cupcakes was rather absurd after investing such a time commitment just to get in the door. Tim spoke with our neighbors about whether he could get an honorary birthday cupcake, and the girl in front of us said, "This isn't some TGI Fridays, sir...this is New York City!" With her wit, these two had humorous barbs flying for the rest of our wait in line! Inside the bakery is a sign, "limit one dozen per customer" which put all sorts of pressure on a person to buy more than a teaser cupcake. We enjoyed many laughs with our sugar-loving new friends, and nearly started a riot when it was clear the staff was more preoccupied with their carry-out Chinese food order than they were with making desperately-wanted chocolate cupcakes. Certain expletives were shouted from the outside towards customers inside, who were taking too long, taking pictures and annoying the locals by being touristy, or just taking too many cupcakes and creating a panic among the outsiders...but it was all in good fun. When we made it to the front door (the second time, ha ha...) our stoic Bouncer was Tim's last chance for a free birthday cupcake. The bouncer said, "Is it really your birthday?" and Tim responded with a hopeful, "Yes!" but all the guy did was say, "Well, Happy Birthday, man." and then told us that we were all having such a good time waiting in line, he could afford to let us wait a little bit longer. (Were we being punished for having too much fun?) When we assured him that we could turn on him at any moment, he finally allowed us entrance to the baked goods palace. The journey was every bit as fun as the destination. And my teeth are still aching from the butter cream icing.