Thursday, November 24th, 2016
Los Angeles, CA and New York, New York
It’s 8am and I am waking up for my flight to New York City! I am
going to spend my long Thanksgiving weekend at Sarah’s
temporary brownstone in Brooklyn. This is going to be awesome!
I drive myself to LAX and quickly realize that the economy
parking lot is full. I was afraid this would happen. I make the snap decision
to wing-it and drive up Sepulveda until I find a residential neighborhood with
no parking restrictions. I grab the first spot I see, order an Uber, and hold
my breath for a hassle-free airport experience.
Luckily, all goes smoothly and I am at my gate 45 minutes early.
I grab a cup of coffee and call my parents to say hi. They are about to start
their Thanksgiving dinner and won’t stop talking about their special recipe for
mac and cheese. Eventually I get off the phone and have just enough time to
download the second Harry Potter audiobook before I board my flight.
The flight is smooth and I land at JFK at 7:05pm Eastern Time.
Whoa, it’s cold here. Per Sarah’s instructions I find the cab line, which is
completely empty except for a couple who can’t stop making out. They cut in
front of me, but I don’t even think they saw me, so I don’t take it personally.
I wait less than a minute for my cab and then am off to Sarah’s house!
When I arrive, I cannot believe how beautiful Sarah’s place is.
It has super tall ceilings, large windows and dark brown, wooden floors. The
entire space feels very open and has a strange old world feel to it. After about 5 minutes of getting settled, we
decide to head over to Little Italy for our Thanksgiving dinner. It’s dark and
rainy, but after only 2 train rides we arrive. The restaurant is pretty empty
(to be fair it’s almost 9pm on Thanksgiving). There is a small family blocking
the front door and their adolescent kid will not move. Sarah chirps “watch it” as
we push past. I can already tell that New York fits
Sarah like a glove.
The host and servers at the restaurant are obviously Italian and
are extremely over the top in their presentation of the table and menus. We
each order a glass of wine and examine the menu. I order chicken in a cream sauce with veggies on the side and Sarah has the scallops. The food is
delicious and we have a lot of catching up to do.
Sarah has to work tomorrow, so after dinner we head back to her
place and drink one more glass of wine in her living room. Around midnight
Sarah really needs to get to sleep and I am not tired at all. After all, today
only had 21 hours for me. I take a quick shower and lay in bed staring at the
celling. Before I know it, I am asleep and my first day in NYC is complete.
