Henry Street Strawberries and Cream

Mc Walk Through

Only in New York...

Micro Neighborhood

Matt read recently about Pomander Walk, a tiny street on the Upper West Side that was modeled after a street in London. We went for a stroll last weekend and found it. A gate would not have deterred me for walking in but this gated community was actually locked. I was however able to snap this photo through the gate:-)

Wikipedia explains more..."Pomander Walk is a micro-neighborhood in the Manhattan section of New York City. The Walk runs between 94th Street and 95th Street, with gates at each end. It is located on the Upper West Side between Broadway (New York) and West End Avenue.

Pomander Walk was built in 1921 by nightclub impresario Thomas J. Healy who planned to build a major hotel on the site. The neighborhood is named for Pomander Walk—a romantic comedy by Louis N. Parker set on a small imaginary street in Georgian London—that opened in New York in 1910. The unusual Tudor Revival architecture of the houses was based on the stage set. The stage set was itself designed to resemble a street in Chiswick, London.

Although designed to look like single-family homes, each house in fact originally contained two small apartments, one upstairs and one on the ground floor. In recent years some of the buildings have been converted to single-family homes.
Pomander Walk was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982."

Yoga #2 and 3

No those aren't positions, they are additional times I've tried yoga in the last couple weeks.

Last week, we had a new instructor. I could tell she was incredibly knowledgeable but Christina is referring to her as drill sargent yoga teacher. I think it she was just a funny contrast to the first week's instructor who I might call nursery school yoga teacher...which really is the course she normally teaches. There was less chanting and more attempts to do handstands!!!!!!! This was awesome with the exception of the fact that I pulled my butt. Really. I was also impressed that when I mentioned that I had pulled my hamstring the week before, the instructor was immediately able to suggest a fix (I hyper-extend my knees!?) So now I've spent the last week try to "micro-bend" my knees when I'm on the subway and use my shoulder muscles to stand up straighter.

This week's fun was foot work-- something about your inner heel connecting with the outer part of your foot by your pinky toe and the outer heel connecting with the inner part of your foot by your big toe. Not too sore this morning so that is a good thing. I don't get (technically or spiritually) some of the things we are doing, but I leave happy and the 90 minutes fly by so that's all that matters to me:-) My research for the week... the teacher referred to "The yoga" like "The French" or "The George Washington University." Guess I actually have no idea what yoga really means. Time to Google.

Christina is away for the next few week's so I've lost my cohort in crime. But I WILL motivate myself to go alone (perhaps by investing in a multi-class card.) By the time Christina returns, I will be a yoga fool!

As seen in Park Slope

Don't know the story. Don't even remember what street this was on. But as Matt and I were stopped in traffic, we happened upon this quartet jamming on the sidewalk in Park Slope. Very cool!

Brooklyn Brewery

When Erica visited a few weeks back, we met up with Christina and Heather for a tour of the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg. My review is simple... if you like beer, you'll like the brewery. If beer is not your thing, you should either skip it or do what I did and stop at the nearby Bedford Cheese shop beforehand and bring some fantastic cheese and baguette to snack on:-) The brewery is neat in that they allow you to bring in food to enjoy while you sample the beer. In fact were enjoying our cheese and beer so much that we didn't even make it on the tour:-o Wheat beer, IPA, dark beer, I don't know. They have lots of it.

Yoga

Down dogs and warriors (1&2) and plank position oh my!

Christina convinced me to try yoga last night.

Q1: where to go? There seem to be about 100 yoga studios between BH and Ft. Greene. Where's the best? Who knows, but we selected Mala Yoga in Cobble Hill.
Q2: what to wear? I decided that if I stick with this I will get myself something from Lulu Lemon! But in the meantime, a pair of running tights and a t-shirt seemed sensible.

As the class started, the instructor encouraged us to think about what we were feeling (um, I'm feeling I want to giggle). "Think about someone you're going to do this class for" (um, my mom, who giggled the time she did a meditation class). "Now let's do three chants of Ohm" (um, okay, now I really want to giggle!)

But my the third Ohhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I was getting into it.

The stretching was great and as a beginner I think I did pretty well.

At the end of the class, as we laid on the floor, covering our third eye with our index and middle finger, while switching between covering my right and left nostril with my thumb and ring finger as I exhaled. (Yes, another giggle moment, but I kept it together as I thought it would be frowned upon:-))

Yoga next Wednesday? Since I am not too sore today I think I'll definitely go back for round two!