Springtime in this city:



I put my transparently pink Nalgene bottle on the floor to attempt to capture the splendor of morning sunshine. It sort of worked:
On April Fool's Day, neighbor Jessica and I thought it would be funny to take roommate Dina's mattress and put it on neighbor Angana's bed.

This is an incriminating shot of Jessica committing grand theft mattress.
Here are the results — the bed on the left is, of course, a foot higher than the other, thanks to Dina's mattress.

My original plan was to move her entire bed in there, which would have been awesome, but I did not have enough time or energy for such a feat.
Dina's birthday was on April 9; many of us celebrated with a dinner at Lemongrass Grill on the 8 (she had a water polo tournament on her actual birthdate). Here I am with a grinning Jessica and a rather serious Dustin.
Then, on Sunday, Dustin and I went to the Cloisters — a fake monastery building in the middle of Fort Tryon Park way up on the tip of Manhattan. This park is really, really awesome. Here is some of the excellent landscaping:
In going for an old-fashioned, cobblestoned look, the planners of the Cloisters went a little overboard...
Dustin stares pensively through the arches that make up part of the fake-monastery building:
The flowers in this park were really beautiful too — the weather has been lovely for the past couple weeks (it was in the 70s when we were at Fort Tryon Park), and the trees have responded with blooms galore.
A few days later, as the sun burned over Washington Square:
The northeast corner of Washington Square bursts into pink-ish splendor —
Look at the amazing specimen of Sciurus carolinensis I found in the tree!
Here is the Row, which is on the northern edge of the park (just to the left of the Row is Fifth Avenue and the arch).
On Saturday, April 16, I took a lovely walk to work up Lexington Avenue. This is what Gramercy Park looks like to the jealous ones of us who don't have windows overlooking the park:

(The park is private and enclosed; the only people with keys are those whose windows overlook the park. It is the only private park in New York City.)
I think the lighting is very beautiful here.
And finally — check out my impulsive Amazon.com purchase. This film is awesome (it's called Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears or, phonetically transcribed from the Russian, Moskva slyezam nye verit), and I got an international version that has subtitles in about twelve languages.
I was amazed when I flipped the DVD case over and could read some of what it said! Also, I think Cyrillic characters look really amazingly cool.