After waiting for American Airlines personnel to figure out how to open the cargo door on Bookworm's plane, we all had our luggage and grabbed a cab to the hotel. The Lombardy was quite lovely, and I don't think any of us had any complaints.
After we'd stowed our bags in the one of our rooms that was open, we left the hotel and had lunch at a deli, where I had a mozzarella, tomato and spinach sandwich on the best bread I had on the trip. It was a dark bread loaded with sesame seeds, and absolutely the star of the sandwich. Then we walked to the library. I was tired, having gotten up at 4 that morning and sweaty thanks to the walking, so although I wanted to take the tour, I elected to sit outside and wait for my family. I felt bad about missing the tour, so I called Mallie and after she cheered me up, I had an enjoyable hour people-watching. I was especially pleased by the number of people who took advantage of the free art supplies. When the tour was done, Mom offered to buy me a coffee, and then we looked at the library store. Mom didn't buy anything, but I got two tote bags and a gorgeous black and white scarf.
After a quick stop at the hotel to freshen up, we tried to get a cab outside our hotel. When that didn't work, we tried on Park Ave. and when that didn't work, we kept walking until we found a hotel with a helpful doorman and he got us a cab. After some confusion on the cabdriver's part, we made it to the right street, only to go past the address. The driver made a (probably illegal) U-turn and dropped us off on the opposite side of the street. We jay-walked across, and started looking for the address. When we couldn't find it, Mom called cousin Newsprint. He told her he could see us, so the four of us started spinning around until he told Mom to look up. When we did, there he was, in a very large window above a drug store! It turns out that 110 Whatever Street's door is actually on the side street.
Cousins Newsprint and Newsprintska are both former journalists who now teach at Columbia, and they had quite a selection of nibbles ready for us as well as red wine or an old-fashioned. I had the red wine but the old-fashioned made me smile because that was my grandfather's drink. I should mention that Cousin Newsprint is my dad's cousin, and their fathers were brothers. Clearly, Great Uncle Newsprint loved old-fashioneds as well, and taught his son to make them. Newsprint and Newsprintska took us to an Italian restaurant three blocks from their condo and we had a wonderful dinner and great conversation. Afterwards, we took a cab back to the hotel and went to sleep.
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