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Some fun things about our vacation:

• The Shake Shack, at Madison Square Park, serves the best hamburgers I've had in years. Maybe ever. I hear it can get crowded, but it had been raining so there was hardly anyone there. But they had a guy drying the tables, so we were able to sit down and eat. The best of both worlds!

• Nellorat mentioned that one sign of a true New Yorker is when they are not only totally comfortable finding the right subway line, but they even know which part of the train to get into, to facilitate the next connection. In contrast, for years my method of navigating the subways has been to follow someone who knows where they're going. Which felt really lame, and could be bad if I ever got separated from that person. So I got a subway map and started paying attention. By the time we left I felt like I could have gotten around by myself if necessary.

• The Fluevog store. They had shoes Zappos doesn't carry, like the ones I bought. (Which by the way, thank goodness I bought them, so I had shoes to wear to the funeral.) I also looked at a pair of flats in the same style as my Twiggy boots that Georg bought for me, but they were black with yellow straps. They were on the sale rack and the guy offered to knock another $10 off if I bought both pairs, but I decided against it because the colors just didn't work for me. I wish now I had tried on more styles.

• Sarah's Travel Tip: if you forget to pack shaving cream, hair conditioner works just as well.

• The Max Ernst show was amazing. A tremendous range of work, and I really felt like I learned a lot about Ernst. The Chanel show was also very impressive. And well organized, unlike the Dior show we saw at the Met a few years ago. I remember it being an unpleasant experience to view that show, because it was badly laid out and terribly crowded. The clothes were great though. But anyway, the Chanel show. I thought it was going to be only Coco Chanel but there were also a fair number of designs by Lagerfeld. Which mainly served to point out how quickly Lagerfeld designs age. They had Lagerfelds from ten years ago that looked terribly dated, and Chanels from seventy years ago that looked completely current. The only Chanels that looked at all dated to me were the flouncy chiffon gowns, and the casual dresses from the 20s.

• Le Pain Quotidien was a yummy little bakery near our hotel. We shared a basket of wonderful bread, with jams and hazelnut spread to die for. I am still thinking about that hazelnut spread. It was like Nutella without chocolate. If I lived in New York I would eat there every day! Lucky for me, I could never afford to live on the upper east side, so I'd walk dozens of blocks to get there, to balance out all the bread and pastries and hazelnut spread.

• I don't look like a tourist!! A woman chatted with me in the bathroom at Whole Foods & clearly thought I was a local. Yay, even carrying a camera bag didn't make me look like a tourist.

• Kang Suh, the Korean restaurant we went to on Sunday night. Somehow we ended up walking over 2 miles to find the place, but we tried to look at it as an adventure rather than a hassle. And it was an adventure: on the way we browsed the Lush store, and walked past some interesting looking places. (I still wish we could have stopped at the self-described "Best Glatt Kosher Shwarma In Town"!) Kang Suh was recommended by the Village Voice as "the best sushi value in midtown." Well the sushi was great, but if that's a good value, I'd hate to see what they consider a bad value. The Korean food, on the other hand, was excellent and a good value even by my standards. A bit confusing though. There wasn't much accommodation for the few non-Korean patrons: they just plunked down a half-dozen dishes of mysterious things, and rushed off. I tried everything except one dish that was super red from chilis, and it was all yummy. The manager did take pity on Georg and showed him how to prepare his entree, which was a big bowl of rice topped with greens and raw fish. The manager showed Georg to add a spicy red sauce and mix the whole thing together. It was really good.

• Lamest "dumb tourist" remark I made all week: "Hey, check out the kids in zoot suits!" In reference to two Hasidic boys. What can I say, they weren't old enough to have the curls and I didn't recognize the clothing. All I saw was two kids wearing matching hats and oversized pinstripe jackets. In my defense, at least nobody heard me. And it wasn't as stupid as asking the owner of the 2nd Avenue Deli for a roast beef and swiss, which I did the first time I ever went to New York.