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Aug. 10th, 2008 09:39 pmI'm in New York now, visiting my grandparents (among other people). My brother and his girlfriend now live in Queens: after the grandparents and I had dinner with him last night, the two of us went off on our own for a while.
We went to Brooklyn, where my brother's friend recently opened up a restaurant called The General Greene. It was busy because it had recently gotten a good review in New York magazine, but we got two seats at the bar and had some drinks and dessert. The owner has made up some unique cocktails and recipes, which are quite good. Since my brother worked part-time as a bartender there shortly after the place opened and the owner still owed him some money, we got our food and drinks gratis.
Afterward we hopped on the subway to Astoria, Queens, where my brother lives. I spent the night on their very comfy couch and we went to brunch this morning. My brother's girlfriend works at a publisher's and gets free books - more than they have shelf space for - so they were glad when I took some off their hands.
The apartment, by the way, is smallish but nice. It is also scrupulously clean and organized, thanks to the efforts of my brother's girlfriend, who, so my brother says, berates him for being too messy. The floors are all tile, which is a little ridiculous, but that can apparently be chalked up to the fact that the building's in a historically Greek neighborhood.
Something I learned about my brother's girlfriend: there's a good chance that she's descended from Lapu-Lapu, the king of Mactan, an island in what is now the Philippines. Lapu-Lapu achieved his place in history by leading the native warriors who killed the sixteenth-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and 30 of his crewmen. When my brother told me about this I immediately thought of the Animaniacs' The Ballad of Magellan.
Tomorrow I get to visit my friend Marjorie! Then I go back home on Tuesday.
We went to Brooklyn, where my brother's friend recently opened up a restaurant called The General Greene. It was busy because it had recently gotten a good review in New York magazine, but we got two seats at the bar and had some drinks and dessert. The owner has made up some unique cocktails and recipes, which are quite good. Since my brother worked part-time as a bartender there shortly after the place opened and the owner still owed him some money, we got our food and drinks gratis.
Afterward we hopped on the subway to Astoria, Queens, where my brother lives. I spent the night on their very comfy couch and we went to brunch this morning. My brother's girlfriend works at a publisher's and gets free books - more than they have shelf space for - so they were glad when I took some off their hands.
The apartment, by the way, is smallish but nice. It is also scrupulously clean and organized, thanks to the efforts of my brother's girlfriend, who, so my brother says, berates him for being too messy. The floors are all tile, which is a little ridiculous, but that can apparently be chalked up to the fact that the building's in a historically Greek neighborhood.
Something I learned about my brother's girlfriend: there's a good chance that she's descended from Lapu-Lapu, the king of Mactan, an island in what is now the Philippines. Lapu-Lapu achieved his place in history by leading the native warriors who killed the sixteenth-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and 30 of his crewmen. When my brother told me about this I immediately thought of the Animaniacs' The Ballad of Magellan.
Tomorrow I get to visit my friend Marjorie! Then I go back home on Tuesday.
