June 17, 2004 [Thursday]......Call Her Esther
Tonight was the long awaited Madonna concert at Madison Square Garden. She is there for 6 shows and we have tickets for 2 of them. It's also one of the most expensive tours with all the floor and close seats at $300 a piece. On this tour she plays a lot of her hits in a pretty spectacular looking show. Madonna is supposedly a Kabbalist now so she announced this week that she wants to be known by her new Kabbalah name, Esther.

June 15, 2004 [Tuesday]......Five For Fighting
The band Five For Fighting were playing tonight at Irving Plaza so I went along to the show. Their name is derived from the ice hockey term for the penalty minutes you get from fighting.

June 14, 2004 [Monday]......Broadway Under The Stars
Tonight was the annual Broadway Under The Stars performance in Bryant Park. Performers from various Broadway shows come to put on a show featuring many songs form different Broadway shows. The setting is in Bryant Park where around 10,000 people gathered on the lawn and surrounding areas.
True to New York, there was the sound of jack hammers on the pavement across the road from time to time while songs from the park continued.

Puerto Rican Day Parade 2004 on 5th Avenue [nyc] 

June 13, 2004 [Sunday]......Puerto Rican Day Parade
Every month there seems to be a parade in New York. Parades are big and popular, none moreso than the Puerto Rican Day Parade which was on today. This is one of the loudest parades for sure. There is an abundance of red, white & blue; this time for the Puerto Rican flag and it only takes the smallest trigger to encite a "Puerto Rico! Puerto Rico!" chant.

We watched the parade for an hour as it rolled up 5th Avenue before leaving to go further uptown for a visit to the Frick Collection museum. This museum has a much different feel than many others as the setting is in an old building that used to be a mansion where the former owner lived. Through the window out to the street, the Puerto Rican Day Parade was coming to a close but still loud and echoing through the quiet walls of the museum.

June 12, 2004 [Saturday]......Seaport & Sweet Sunshine
This afternoon we started downtown at the World Trade Center site and walked down into the new Path station that is beneath Ground Zero and connects trains over to Jersey. The station itself covers a huge area underground and goes down maybe 5-6 floors deep.
From there we walked toward South Street Seaport on the East River, stopping briefly for some Empanadas, one of our new favourite foods.
South Street Seaport is always a hive of activity on the weekends so we had a walk around the pier.

The last stop would be further north in the Lower East Side at a cake store called Sugar Sweet Sunshine. This is owned by a former worker from Magnolia Bakery and has its own specialty cup cakes which were extraordinary.

June 8, 2004 [Tuesday]......Yankees mid-week
Went up to a night game at Yankee stadium. Yankees beat the Colorado Rockies in a low scoring game 2-1.