Mysterious Lederhosen

Our friend Thomas has a knack for appearing in photographs to be wearing lederhosen. Judge for yourself. Though born in Europe and admittedly fond of knee socks, Thomas has never touched lederhosen ("no, never" he insists). Weird!



Final note: though purely speculative, a connection has been offered between these lederhosen sightings and the rise and fall of the Canadian dollar. We will continue to publish these photos as they appear, but as with all financial tips, invest at your own risk.

East Harlem Adventure

Our first attempt to get to East Harlem landed us in Queens. We caught the M60 bus on 125th but didn't get off at 2nd ave like we were supposed to. This will cost you a trip over the Triborough Bridge into Queens! And a trip back to the tune of 1.5 hours, which, needless to say, only stoked our appetite for adventure. Such an elusive neighborhood must hold great rewards! After making our way back to East Harlem, we trekked down to 117th and 1st ave where we took in the sights and felt right at home:













First stop was Everything Must Go, a skate shop with a killer selection of old school Stussy tees among other tasty apparel like Claw Money and Clae shoes (they're back finally!).

Finding ourselves famished, we walked two doors down to Patsy's, famous for their coal-fired brick oven made pizzas. This is the original location of the Grimaldi family pizzeria, with the second location in DUMBO under the name Grimaldi's. Having DONE Grimaldi's earlier this summer...

























...we were eager to weigh in on this famous family feud. We couldn't tell which one is better...they're both pretty damn good pies. We're Canadian anyway, what do we know about cuisine? However, we do know a little about enviro-stuff and their eco-rating suffered as we were served our drinks in disposable plastic cups. Still, it was a treat to spend an hour in the authentic 'no frills' environment of this great family pizzeria as-yet unknown to tourist hordes (just wait for the 2nd Avenue Subway!!). Overall, totally worth the trip.












Next on the agenda (actually the only item on it) was finding yellow laces for some recently acquired sneakers. Funnily enough, everyone we asked pointed us to a different beauty supply store and sure enough, every beauty supply store we popped into carried a vast selection of colored laces. In this neighborhood, evidently, shoelaces fall in the domain of "beauty supplies"! Although we didn't find the colour we wanted, we did pick up a pair of black (and beautiful) laces. It was an interesting discovery nonetheless.

Having exhausted our "agenda" we wandered for a bit before stumbling on a total gem of a bodega. Called El Barrio Meat Market on the corner of 116th Street and 2nd Ave, it has a juice bar window shaded by a bamboo screen. $4 buys you an amazing smoothie with your choice of sweetener (honey or sugar), your choice of milk, and an assortment of accoutrements like granola and whey or soy proteins. Smell ya later Jamba Juice! Ya!

We couldn't have spent the day a better way, our trip to East Harlem (and Queens, a bit) was a total success!