First of all, happy birthday to quirkstreet and fraterrisus, and an early happy birthday to majes, since I probably won't have a chance to be on tomorrow.

Having a wonderful, fabulous time with Kala. I'm glad we picked the hotel on Staten Island, because the ferry ride is lovely. Staten Island has a bit of the sleepy-suburb feel of Malden, and is probably where I'd end up if I lived in New York, since it's remotely affordable. Today we went to the National Museum of the American Indian, close to the ferry terminal in Manhattan, which was good, but we didn't have a lot of time before it closed. Kala thinks it's the only branch of the Smithsonian outside of DC.

The hotel we stayed at was very inexpensive. It's even cheaper for "short stays (under 4 hours)". I don't know that I've ever stayed in a hotel that had hourly rates before. :-)

On from a nice little coffeehouse and cybercafé called alt.coffee in the East Village. A lot of the parks around here have free wireless too, but it was starting to drizzle. About to meet Alex for Mexican food for dinner. Must run to make our appointment... Ta ta for now, hugs to all.