The Key to the City: Queens Edition

G-san obtained a Key to the City and graciously invited U-chan and me to join her in exploring one of the boroughs today. Specifically, Queens.

Why, you may ask, does G-san have a Key to the City? Is she a head of state? a conquering hero? an amazing celebrity? Well, of course she is! But the project website describes it this way:

Keys to cities are traditionally given by a mayor to a hero or dignitary, symbolizing that they can have free entrance to the city. This new Key to the City belongs to us, and is awarded among ourselves.

We opened locks at the following places:

• Tortilleria Nixtamal: We had lunch there (note to self: get the carnitas next time!), drank some delicious horchata, then opened a key to the basement for a hands-on tour of the kitchen...



• Louis Armstrong House Museum: The key opens a small bathroom with all the original decorations (for viewing only, not for use) and is graced by a rear-view photo of Mr. Armstrong himself, buck naked backstage. The docent said Mr. Armstrong loved that photo and had 1,000 copies made so he could autograph them and send them around to all his friends and admirers... but supposedly his agent ripped them up (boo!) except for this one.
  

Mr. Armstrong was apparently a fan of a particular laxative. We were supposed to get a sample (?!) but they ran out a few weeks ago:


I would have been happy to accept this sample in lieu of the laxative, but the docent didn't seem very interested in that idea:

• a district councilperson's office: The key basically opens a glass case that is used as a drop-box.



• Eddie's Sweet Shop: The key gets you a discount and allows you to open a little drop-box.

Afterward, G-san had to go back to Manhattan, but U-chan and I enjoyed the views at Long Island City for a while.

Enjoyed dinner at Sripraphai with Chris.

Since I had to change trains in Times Square anyway, I disembarked to go see the movie "Inception". En route, I took a photo of some sculptures at the Hilton Times Square.


As I finished up, some guy ran up to me and said "You're beautiful!" Now, that's something that doesn't happen to me every day.

Some of the images in "Inception" were pretty cool. Maybe $18 worth of cool in the IMAX format. Fortunately or unfortunately, I was too sleepy to worry about logic or meaning.