Weekly Update #2

Aurthur Ashe Stadium

A busy week! And very little of it spent in Ithaca.

The quick version:

Last Friday, Jenni and I drove down to long island to spend the long weekend with Jenni's family and attend some of the US Open. Jenni returned on Monday, but I stayed down due to my appointment on Wednesday to get my passport. Then I drove up with Jenni's grandmother, aunt, and cousins en route to Niagara Falls, where we will be staying (on the Canadian side) this weekend.

For more US Open pics click here

The less so version:

After dinner on Friday night, we were given the choice of going to the Open on Saturday or Sunday, and then watching Jenni's cousins for whichever day we didn't choose, so the other adults could all go together.

We chose Saturday and watched 4-5 matches mostly in Louis Armstrong Stadium. 

The way the tickets work for the open are that if you buy reserved seats in a stadium you have guaranteed seats and can wander the premises and watch any matches on the other courts as well. This excludes Aurthur Ashe Stadium (by far the largest tennis arena in the world) which is reserved tickets only. Some of the players we saw include Caroline Wozniacki, the women's top-seed; American Mardy Fish, who we watched in a wonderful 5-setter; and Robin Soderling who went on to the quarterfinals. Jenni's cousin was a ball girl again this year and her ball person friends stole us some otherwise Disneyland priced drinks. Nice.

Water Heater Issues. Joy.

The next day we took the cousins to the yaught club but it was too breezy for the pool, so we then drove ~35 minutes to the only theatre showing Scott Pilgram vs the World. Jenni drove home the next day and I played tennis with two of her uncles. It was rather low-key and included a round-robin tournament using ping-pong rules. That night was made eventful by the bursting of the water-heater leading to about 6 inches of water in the basement.

For more USS Intrepid pics click here

On Tuesday I decided to go into the city cause... well, why not? I also wanted to scope out the regional passport office at which I had an appointment scheduled for the next day. I decided to bring all my documents just in case they could fit me in and, sure enough, I had my passport by the end of the day. In the intervening time I went to the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier/museum. Very cool. The ship is huge and worth it on its own, but the interiour has been extensively remodeled to be a first rate air/sea/space museum. On top are many antique planes and the pier has one of the retired Concord SSTs. I signed a petition they are sending to NASA to have one of the retired Space shuttles brought to the Intrepid. After retrieving my newly printed passport, I went near times square and read a book and people watched until I needed to leave to catch a train.  

My early passport getting resulted in another day at the Open, this time with tickets to Ashe. The highlight of which was the Monfils/Djokovic match.

And finally on Thursday we (Jenni's family and I) drove up to Ithaca en route to Niagara Falls this weekend. ...which we need to get going for right now so...

Ciao!