This week, the Owl spent a couple of days in her home city, the one and only New York City. As in a past Owl post, the delight of a short trip to the land of noise, interesting people and lots of concrete is just too much not to share. In case you do not care about New York, carry on with your boating and golfing and whatever you are doing this summer. In the case that you do care, here are the Owl’s learnings from this trip:

• According to Broadway insiders, the week of July 4th is the slowest for Broadway shows. This means we sat in the third row for POTUS (brilliant and hilarious and woman-focused, and closes August 13–run!) and fifth row for Mr. Saturday Night (Billy Crystal has still got it) for about $100-$130 per ticket. Get yourself to the TKTS line and choose your favorite.

• Always always always go to a Matisse show anywhere. In particular, the current show at MoMA (closes in September) is pure genius. It is about the Red Studio and the art in the painting and the paint in the art, and Matisse’s studio and how no one bought his stuff and then they did. Matisse is my very favorite artist on the planet –his love of color is my love of color and he reminds me of my dad Papi Owl who is also a major fan. Go. Then wander the other exhibits and find yourself a Paul Klee or a video of a girl on a train where no one else is and wonder.

• If you can, walk everywhere. We walked back to our hotel (the fantastic Lucerne Hotel on 79th and Amsterdam) from the show on Tuesday night, then on Wednesday walked from the hotel through Central Park’s Ramble to MoMA (63rd) to Times Square (42nd) to NYU (12th). Just about 9 miles. Walking is how you avoid the ubiquitous nuttos on the subway, and also eat stracciatella at the Venchi gelato place at Union Square, wander a farmer’s market and then pass by the Black Lab Cafe where you spend an hour the next day meeting the Black Labs. Oh fine, take the subway sometimes, because it is quite literally a hot melting pot in summer.

• Have a white sangria at Victor’s Cafe. And tapas. Just trust me on this one.
• Zabar’s. I love you, Mamaleh’s, but there is only one Zabar’s. Yeh, no blog post on New York without Zabar’s. Deal. Nova and bagels.

And that, dear readers, is how the Owl spent the last three days. Now back to semi-rural and a walk in the woods.

Happy Summer!