Dina and I got back from NYC on Friday night. We managed to extend our departure date, so our time there was the same as it would have been, and despite missing a weekend, it was still an awesome trip.

Rather than bore you with excruciating detail, how about pictures!

Because of the massive delay, we had to fly through Boston. Here’s what we thought of that.

Once in NYC, onto the train toward Manhattan. This guy smelled so bad even the native New Yorkers were disturbed and disgusted. At least two people walked on the train, smelled him, and walked right back off. One young woman commented loudly about his smell, and made it her business to check out and comment on other peoples’ reactions. “Oh yeah, he smell bad! Yeah, I see you smell him. Oh that nasty!”

We met Dina’s friend Ayako at Grand Central Station for lunch. She was the reason we were coming to New York in the first place. But given our flight problems, we ended up only having two hours with her before she had to fly back to Japan. So sad.

Later, we met up with Carl (Carlo, as his sweet old Italian landlady calls him), Ryan, and Molly for New York action. Carlo was our host for the week, letting us stay in his Park Slope apartment. We spent a ton of time at Molly and Ryan’s — their East Village apt was conveniently close to everything. (They’re NYU law students, btw, hence the Manhattan living.)

We enjoyed a night of Sparks +. Danger. Carlo made a Sparks+ float (Sparks and Ben and Jerry’s). Not good.

People draw on Molly’s table.

While in NYC we did lots of stuff. We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge with Doug, Dina’s high school friend.

We had ice cream and visited the Brooklyn Heights Esplanade.

We visited Wall Street with Carlo, and I got friendly with the bull.

We discussed the face-finding feature of my new camera, and tried to figure out if it would recognize a fake face. Apparently, it won’t.

We got into an invite-only party hosted by The Onion and sponsored by Dewars. This meant free whiskey, free stand-up comedy by some well-known comedians, and hob-nobbing with some of the funniest writers on the planet. Seattle’s own Reggie Watts headlined, and absolutely KILLED.

Here’s Reggie doing his stuff at the Triple Door a year or so back.

Dina and went to Brighton Beach by way of Coney Island.

Brighton Beach has turned into the place for Russian immigrants to hang, so Dina had a grand time pointing things out to me. Things such as the Soviet film company Mosfilm (now a regular old production company) store.

Coney Island was pretty, but cold as hell (Dante’s hell).

One of the highlights of the trip was our MoMA visit. Best. Museum. EVER.

Dina has too many friends. We also met up with Dmitri and Satomi for a midtown lunch of Korean food.

All in all, the best NYC trip ever. It really helps to have people you know in the city . . . people who can invite you to cool things (such as exclusive bars) and help you ferret out cheap eats (such as Sea in Williamsburg).

More pictures on Flickr.