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Thursday, April 30, 2009

The TEST is over . . . at least for a while

So I have finally taken my oral boards for the third time. Unfortunately I think I failed yet again. As such I will have to take the writtens again, pass them and then on to the oral boards again. I actually don't get the results until late May, but my feeling afterward was that I didn't do so great. The test was in New York, right in Times Square to be exact. Wendy came with me and then my parents flew out that day. We all met up afterwards (Thursday) and spent the rest of the weekend in Manhattan. It was a lot of fun riding the subways and just adventuring through the Big Apple. My birthday was the next day so we celebrated by going to the Mesa Grill - -chef Bobby Flay's restaurant. They have some very tasty food. I got the Rib eye steak, my Dad got the New York Steak, Wendy got the Tuna, and Mom got the Mahi Mahi. All were very good. The desserts were great as well. I took pictures of all of it and will have to post them when I am at home.
Wendy and I also saw Wicked, a new musical, the next day. It lived up to all the hype that we heard about from our family members that had already seen it. We got really good seats which made it that much more enjoyable, front and center. We want to take Eric and Rachel when it comes to Seattle so Wendy is working out how to do that.
Other thing that we did were of course Liberty Island and the Empire State building. We also saw Shrek the Musical. It was fun too but not as good as Wicked. The subways and taxis made the experience a lot of fun too. Our first cab driver was downright fast. At one point it seemed as thought we were topping 50mph on the street so I peeked up to see the speedometer - - of course it was broken and reading 0mph.
One of my favorite destinations from the subway was Chinatown. The first visit, we just went to have some authentic Chinese food. The second trip we did some wheeling and dealing. I was able to get a really nice purse for Wendy for only $15! It was fun to speak in mandarin again and use it to my advantage for getting the price lower.
Part of the fun there was the great places to eat. We also ate at Tavern on the Green which is in Central Park. We had some "Frozen Chocolate Cocoa" at Serendipity3 that was delicious and huge.
Overall it was great fun. We flew back on Sunday, but due to the fact that I was preparing for the test and it was in Manhattan, so it seemed like one of those vacations that you need a vacation(or maybe staycation) afterwards.