NYC II

After the weekend in New York I almost forgot what silence sounded like. I never thought that DC could be considered calm...but compared to New York it is virtually small town. I noticed walking home from the metro last night how few people there were on the streets. DC is definitely a big city but it is nothing compared to NYC. What follows is a quasi-brief recap of the weekend in New York.

Thursday-
$45 will buy you a round trip ticket from DC to NYC and back on the Bolt Bus. The bus comes complete with electric outlets and WiFi. After a 4 hour bus ride we arrived in NYC at 7th street and 33 Ave. This proved very convenient as Stephen lives a few blocks up from there. After I walked up to his place and dropped my stuff off I headed out on the town. 5th Ave is one of the main strips with all the fancy fashion and shopping, I walked up 5th to central park passing- the NY public library, St. Patrick's Church (looking inside was amazing, its hugely ornate and cavernous), Trump Tower, the Apple Store (which has a huge glass cube on the sidewalk with stairs that lead to a subterranean store) and arrived at the corner of central park, somewhere along the way I passed a gentleman in a gray suit with pink pinstripes and pink lining, it was a very expensive looking suit, I was impressed. I walked back down 6th Ave and met up with Stephen for dinner at Stout- they have a very respectable beer list and quite a bit of good food. From there we took the subway to wall street, saw the metal bull (they don't have a bear) walked down wall street a ways then jumped the Staten Island ferry (which is totally free of charge- yay for government subsidization). The Ferry took us past the statue of liberty (there are some pictures but they're kinda fuzzy), it was really cool to see all lit up at night. After returning to Manhattan we walked the 2 miles back to Kristen's (Stephen's GF and one really cool gal) place and watched a bootlegged copy of slumdog millionaire that the building security guard had given her.


Friday-
The day dawned bright, sunny and a bit cold. Stephen had work at 8 so I got up and went for a run in central park. Afterwords I met up with Kristen for a bagel and coffee and then joined her at her policy class (they were discussing the philosophy of abortion, it was definitely heavy on philosophy and light on policy, but interesting all the same). After class got out (I haven't been in class for a couple of months it took some getting back in the hang of) we walked up to grand central station, past park avenue, eventually winding up at the UN building. The UN looks pretty utilitarian, especially compared to some of the sky scrappers in the city. Kristen had to go to work and I was hungry so we parted ways and I headed back towards the "downtown" area. On the way I found Halal- best described as middle eastern-ish street food. I had a lamb pita (called a gyro) with salad and white sauce on it. It was AMAZING! there really wasn't a place to sit so after working through times square I stopped in the doorway of a building and ate my Halal while watching the crowds filter by. Kristen had mentioned that second hand stores in NYC have some pretty good stuff so I wandered down towards 23rd st. in search of a deal...alas the one pair of jeans I found were about 12 inches to long...by this point Stephen was about off work so I wandered back up and caught up with him. Kristen had obtained tickets to the Harlem Globe Trotters, we took the boy Kristen baby-sits and the show was definitely more for the kids. But it was still entertaining- even if it was partially basketball- After the game Kristen took Josh home and Stephen and I headed to Hells Kitchen (kind-of the restaurant district of NY). We found a bar called burger, shot, beer, 1,2,3- Burgers were a buck, shots 2 and beers 3. It was happening, the burgers were good (small and probably not worth a dollar but still flavorful) and the beer was...well... beer. On the way home we searched up the dollar/slice pizza place and then walked back to the Empire State Building (ESB for those familiar with the city). En-route to the ESB we stopped for coffee at McDonalds, There were several very expensively (expensively and well are two separate things in NY) dressed gentlemen. I had never seen anyone try to pay for a $7.50 happy meal until then. With coffee in tow we headed to the top of the ESB. It was frigid on top but that didn't stop us from taking in the city, and almost tripping over a gentleman as he proposed to his girlfriend- fortunately for all parties involved she said yes.

Saturday-
In true college weekend fashion we slept in till 10- then we got out and hit it again. On my wander Friday I found a nifty little cafe so we headed there for brunch, it was really good to have a big breakfast (and lots of coffee). From there we met up with Kristen for a bit (she was doing homework). Taking inspiration from Kristen's study habits, we loaded up and headed to a coffee shop near union square so Stephen could do some reading, and I could pretend to do some homework. On the way there was a street performer who lined up then jumped over 6 people. Normally this would be amazing, but considering New York is so overwhelming anyways it was just another distraction for a few minutes. The plan for the evening was to take Kristen and Her roommate to a Broadway show for valentines day. Unfortunately half of New York also had this idea- needless to say we didn't get tickets- so instead we got cheesecake from Jr's (amazing) and stopped by the drugstore to pick up a card (Kristen ignore this part!). While there we found a book of restaurant reviews picked a good looking Italian place and told the girls we were going to dinner. It was arguably the most amazing Italian food I have ever had! A good bottle of wine, amazing pasta and great conversation the night was almost complete- we just finished the cheesecake once we got back to Kristen's.


There are two days left to cover, but for now here are the pictures.

There could be a long blog post for each day as much happened. But for now the next two days should be posted soon.