Friday, November 25th, 2016
New York, New York
It’s 7am in New York and Sarah is bustling around her apartment getting ready for work. I am strangely not tired.
Sarah makes me a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee. I don’t expect to like it, but I have to admit that these east coasters are onto something! She also allows her neighbor’s cat to come in through the bedroom window. He is super cute and, almost immediately, he is begging to be let out of the front door. Cats.
Once Sarah leaves, I settle in on her couch to drink coffee and watch the morning news. I am already enjoying life as a New Yorker. It turns out that we are in a neighborhood called Bushwick. I have this vague memory of a Girls episode that took place in this neighborhood (later when I look it up, I’ll find it’s titled “The Crackcident”). I decide to spend the morning in Williamsburg, which is only a few miles up the street. I spend a few minutes on Yelp, picking the perfect restaurant for brunch. Eventually I decide on the Two Door Tavern, based more on the photos than the menu. I order an Uber and I am off!
Two Door Tavern is as hip as Yelp suggested. I order a large plate of bacon and eggs as well as a cup of coffee. I eat my breakfast slowly as I appreciate all the different kinds of hipsters. When I am finally done, I literally shimmy out of the café; it is so packed. I spend the next few hours wandering around different shops. I want to buy some hip clothes from Brooklyn but I am wearing so many layers that I cannot bring myself to try anything on; I make a mental note revisit some items online, once I return to sunny LA.
Eventually I get tired and pull up Google Maps to see what else is around. I find a coffee shop called Northerly that sells a drink called Buttercup Coffee. It sounds like it has butter in it, so I go to check it out. When I arrive, the barista talks to the customer in front of me for like 5 whole minutes. Luckily, I don’t have anywhere to be (apparently, that’s something we all have in common). Eventually I get my chance to order. I chat with the friendly barista for a while and eventually get my butter filled coffee. I’m loving all the trendy food in Brooklyn!
Upon further investigation, it turns out that I am only about 2 miles away from Sarah’s house, so I decide to walk back. As I start to get closer to Bushwick, The Crackcident makes more sense. Nonetheless, it’s the middle of the day and Sarah tells me this neighborhood is safe. I want to get some photos of the stray cats, but literally everyone is staring at me, so I just smile and keep walking.
Eventually I arrive at Sarah’s house and have about an hour or so to relax and take care of a few items for work. Around 3pm I head out to meet Sarah in Manhattan for dinner. Sarah has given me hyper-specific instructions for getting into town and I am eternally grateful.
I successfully arrive at the 58th Street Library stop. There are at least 7 exits from the subway station. I pick one at random and walk out into the chilly rain. I end up in Bryant Park and decide to walk around for a little bit. This place is in full holiday mode, with little heaters distributed throughout endless rows of vendors. I spend some time looking a jewelry and purses. I even buy a cup of bone broth from one of the street vendors (more points for New York and it's awesome food!).
Eventually I make my way into the library. It’s beautiful. And warm. I spend an hour or so walking around and taking all sorts of arty pictures. I make a stop by the gift shop and am impressed but still unmotivated to buy anything (there’s something about not having a car that is making me think twice about purchasing anything).
Around 5pm I start heading over to Grand Central Station. I stop to look in a few extravagantly decorated store windows and eventually end up in the train station. I only have a few minutes to look around before I meet Sarah right in the center. She is done with work for the weekend and ready for happy hour!
We go to the a restaurant called the Grand Central Oyster Bar and decide to sit at the bar. After one round of cocktails, I am already drunk. New York bartenders do not fuck around. We order mussels to share and then I have a bowl of the seafood soup. The food is awesome and I am still drunk. Oh well, it’s vacation. After one last round of champange and a very spirited conversation with our very New York bartender, we head out to our evening activity - The Radio City Christmas Spectacular. I’m so tipsy and excited that I basically skip out of the train station.
We are only about half a mile from the Rockefeller Center but neither of our GPS’s can quite grasp our location. We wander around in the very chilly air for a little bit before eventually calling an Uber.
When we arrive, there is a line around the building. We already have tickets, so we decide to walk to the front of the line and ask if we can go in. Surprisingly they says yes. We walk right in and to the Will Call window; I feel like we broke a rule, but am also excited to be inside.
Immediately we go to the bar and order 2 glasses of wine. The wine is prepackaged and comes in little plastic glasses with lids on them. The lid is air tight and we can turn our containers upside down without spilling a drop. We are overjoyed by these physics. We try to take some selfies but can’t really get the background we want. After basically sitting on the ground to get a good shot, a nice man offers to help us. He takes a few photos and they turn out horrid.
Eventually we find our seats and are the middle of a huge group of tourists. We notice that the upper balcony is almost completely empty. We move up there and end up with 2 full rows to ourselves. By the time the show starts our feet are all over the chairs in front of us and our plastic containers of wine are only half full. We talk over the entire show and can’t stop laughing about the creepy Santa Claus character.
Once the show is over we have a long trip back to Brooklyn. I follow Sarah through a maze streets and subway stations and eventually we end up back at her house. We hang out to drink a few glasses of water but end up falling asleep very quickly. Being a tourist is both fun and exhausting.
