Reflection #12

For this reflection, I will be talking about this weekend, and spending it with my 'cousin' Daniel. My cousin Daniel and I are related in a strange way. We are technically cousins since our parents are siblings, but his mom is from my grandpa's first marriage, so he and his brother are my cousins with a twist. Either way, I call him my cousin, and I love spending time with him. He is 26 years old and is going to Columbia for his Ph.D., and adding to that, he is also fluent in 12 languages, which makes going to restaurants him a lot of fun since he can order for us and watching him speak to the servers is very interesting and a lot of fun.

I decided to visit him this weekend since originally my sister and I were going to come up for anime con, but my sister's job got in the way, and I wasn't sure if I'd come up, but because I hadn't seen him since March, I decided to go. My cousin lives in Manhattan in a really old apartment, however, he keeps it in good shape, and has decorated very well. Last time I visited him in March I slept on a blow-up mattress since I was with him for over a week, but since this was for a couple of nights, I had to force him to put me on the couch to give him less work to do.

The first night I came down, was during him doing his laundry (laundry for me), so we had really good Malaysian take out, even though he usually cooks - we decided to cook all of Saturday. It was so much fun to catch up with each other and with all that has happened since we last saw each other and watch stupid youtube videos until midnight. Saturday was a lot of fun. The day started off with a good breakfast, he made poached eggs that we put on pumpernickel bread with lochs and goat cheese spread. My cousin loves eating well. After eating breakfast, we decided to go to a museum and walk during the daylight around central park. We went to an Austrian museum that had a Klimt exhibit and this one artist, Egon Schiele, that we both found we liked. It was a small museum, but it was worth it, especially since it holds the famed gold-Adele Klimt painting. After the museum, we walked back to the apartment to get some work done before cooking and playing video games. That dinner was a wonderful three-course meal. For the first course, we made salmon and Brussel sprouts - and let me say his salmon is one of the best I have ever had. The second course was a homemade roasted squash soup with garlic and carrots. This soup was absolutely amazing, especially once you added the yogurt and roasted squash seeds. The third course was a pumpkin pie I made, and the secret that made it taste amazing was that I added double the amount of spiced recommended - almost always do that. This was an absolutely great dinner, especially since I got to spend it with my cousin. Since I was to leave on Sunday, all we could do was visit my uncle in Brooklyn for brunch, which was a great way to end my trip.

All in all, I had a ton of fun with my cousin, and not just because of the food, but because we have very similar interests and he's a great conversationalist. I can't wait to see him during thanksgiving.

- Eli