I went to New York this past weekend with Jo, and this is what we did (sing to the song These are the Dave's I Know by Kids in the Hall)
-Up at 4:45 a.m to drive to Buffalo to catch 8:30 flight to JFK (do you have any idea how much cheaper it is to fly out of The U.S, compared to flying out of The Canada? Well, enough of a difference for this girl to wake up at 4:45 a.m.)
-Ahhh Jet Blue, I love you, with your salty snacks and t.v. screens too.-Arrive at JFK at 9:30 a.m. We have the whole day to have FUN!
-Thank goodness Jo is subway map literate. All I see are my A-B-C's and pretty colours.
-Get off subway at Brooklyn Bridge, walk it, take pictures of it, already, the people watching is amazing.-Hunnnggggryyyy. No shortage of restos - we pick a quirky one towards Greenwich Village and I have maybe the best panini ever, and the patrons of the restaurant are all like no big deal - we eat like this everyday. Huh.-Walk walk walk, picture take picture take picture - are we in fashion-ey area? Lots of skinny, uber pretty people everwhere. Oh wait, all of NYC is like that.-First official destination - Greenwich Village food/walking tour. We did the Soho tour last time we were in NY, and it is amazing. These tours are led by locals, or people who really know their shit about the area, and as they guide you through the area, you pop into 8-10 restaurants and shops and sample their wares. You are stuffed when your are done (which is great when you are surrounded by model-type people). The super fun part are the little surprises they add to the tour, like surprise! You are standing on Leo DiCaprio's front stoop! The bad part is Surprise! You are not aloud to lick/dry hump said front stoop (sad face).-After the tour Jo needed a nap so we checked into our AWESOME hotel so he could have a little rest. Why was it awesome? It was only $200 a night (this is really good for Midtown) and while it is a hostel/hotel, it has a really boutique-y feel (beautiful people giving you your room key, cool vibey tunes piping through the lobby). Now the room was ridonkulously small, but you are not in NY to hang out in your room, are you.-Can't nap. Too excited! Leave our funky little part of town, and, we make this mistake everytime we go to NY, we head to Times Square. Why why why do we always do this? Instant regret as soon as we hop off the subway and meet the throngs of people on the street. We escape, and find a great little restaurant off the beaten path where we sit beside the most miserable looking threesome I have ever come across. I love watching really rich miserable people, you're right mom, sometimes money CAN'T buy you happiness!-Knock back our vodka redbulls (yeah, we're badass) , let get this party started! Oh, what party you ask? Only Social Distortion playing at the Roseland Ballroom. I won't bore you with the details but seeing your absolute favourite band playing in NYC is akin to Mitt Romey realizing his son is gay and that his daughter had an abortion last night. Are you smiling? I smiled like that alllllll night.-We were utterly exhausted at this point, but found a bar to have a cleansing ale in before calling it a night.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz -WAKE UP! There is a bagel shop across the street that I have been thinking about since we checked in. I will never eat a bagel again after eating a bagel here. How do New Yorkers stay so skinny? Omg it was so good, and soooo much cream cheese, these people are soooo lucky that they can eat here any time they want. Life is so unfair.
-Next up on the agenda The Highline. My pal Lexie (what up Lexicon) kept talking about his place and I didn't really GET it. I checked it out online and still didn't get it. We then walked it from begning to end I think I finally got it. It is amazing. The marriage of art+nature+urban setting+people is just amazing. We were in awe of this place and I would have loved to seen it at night.
-We then ventured to Chelsea, hit the famous Chelsea Market, made a mental note of craft ideas I could steal off of the vendors and daydreamed a little about my Etsy store. Because it is Halloween, the decorations were amazing. It also made me a little sad that places like the ByWard Market in Ottawa could not be a little bit more....flexible in how how they do things. Chelsea Market is done so well.
-What's the big deal about Pastis? Whenever I read my gossips (hardly ever okay all the time), Jennifer Aniston is always all like "when in NY I have to eat at Pastis" and other celebs are all la-dee-da about it too. I looked at the menu and it was kind of meh to me so we moved on down to a pub called The Gaslight. Most depressed wait staff ever, but a great patio for watching, you got it, rich skinny people (I think they kept looking at us and judging us for eating).
-Okay, what's a trip without a little detour on 5th. I love a store called Uniqlo so we hit that up, and I excused Jonas from the H&M experience (so busy, so loud!) We then toured the stores we cannot afford to shope in (who ARE these people? What would it take for the Prada man to air kiss me? Oh, maybe taking off my backpack) and hit FAO for the kids gifts.
-Grabbed the subway to head to the Bronx to visit my cousin, Lisa. She told us to take the train, but we decided to take the Subway (were are totally NY now) and man oh man did we got off at a dirty part of town. She and her husband were pleasantly surprised that we made it to their house alive after the 10 blocks we had to walk to get there (the other side of the tracks took on a whole new meaning here).
-Lisa and her husband are Irish. So naturally they took us to where the Irish hang out, it was a costume party at their pub that night, sigh, New Yorkers even have cool Halloween costumes. Did you know the Irish could party? Best kept secret ever I bet. An amazing cover band rocked all night long, I almost got into a fight with an Irish lass in the ladies bathroom, but later we bonded over socialized healthcare.
-So exhausted at his point I don't really remember going back to Lisa's (wait, maybe I was drunk? Shoot, we'll never know).
Sunday morning, caught one of the last flights out of JFK due to Hurricane Sandy. Can't believe we dodged that bullet.
What a weekend.
*Dedicated to Shawn B. I have outed you, now you have leave a comment Shawn.
P.S. Free not-yet created craft from my not-yet created Etsy store to the first person who can tell me who this guy is - he was on our food tour and I swear he is somebody famous-therefore-important.
