an adventure

NY. we were a little crazy. it's true. but it was soooooooooo fun!




we left after work and drove straight up to my house. the drive was not so bad on the way up. OBVIOUSLY we got taco bell. it was great, because taco bell is fantastic for any occassion. anne drove first, then ry, then i scared them with my crazy new york driving skills through new jersey, brooklyn and queens. it was pretty fun bc ryan and anne kept asking me "what's that? where are we?" haha. i also enjoyed the tutorial i gave...pay attention here...apparently southerners don't know anything about NY geography. Manhattan is an island. when people talk about NYC, they are usually talking about the things that reside on the island of manhattan. NYC is actually made up of five boroughs, two of which are on the island of Long Island. the boroughs are Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens. long island has two additional counties, nassau and suffolk. this had to be explained over and over and over and over...but i think the message eventually got through. i felt like i did my part to educate anne and ry.

anyway back to the story. i had a plan to take them to central park to walk around a bit. then to go to w. broadway in soho and shop. then to the san gennaro feast, dinner at la mela, broadway show. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

so we took the train into the city early sat morning, it was beautiful, we get to columbus circle = pouring down rain. ryan bent over to fix her jeans...this women with a cart skoots by her and says "i can see your underwear." HAHAHAHA. Ryan says, "Thanks!" like as politely as she can. people in ny dont do polite...so the woman did not turn around and say "youre welcome." haha, it provided great entertainment for us though.

we walked around, showed them the carousel, the pond, playground, baseball field. we took a carriage ride which i had never done before and went on a quick tour. we didnt get to go to the zoo, the theater or tavern on the green -but thats ok. then we went way downtown shopping. obviously i spent forever in anthropologie. i bought a hand-knit hoodie and a pair of black pants. ry bought like 3 pairs of jeans. then we went to canal st. and ry and anne were scared. haha. but good news -- i got a new manhattan portage bag! and some earrings.

then we went to little italy and ate zeppoles and it was great. i talked about eating them all day, and told anne and ryan that theyre the best food ever. they said i was right. whew, thank goodness they validated that, huh? haha. then we had an awesome dinner at la mela. i love eating there, even if it can be touristy. i also love a great restaurant in times square on 8th called John's pizza thats a little touristy, it used to be a church...anyway that's neither here nor there. la mela was great, as always. i loooooooooove their rigatoni. most people adore the gnocci there, but it's far too heavy. i always eat like 8 helpings of rigatoni and then like 3 tartufos. anyway, i think anne and ry liked it alot, so i was very excited about that.

then we saw The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on broadway. HILARIOUS. funniest production ive seen in a while, definitely funniest one ive seen on broadway. ry and anne loved it, so phew! i felt the pressure taking them around showing them stuff, and i was hoping i didnt pick a shitty play...but good thing, it was awesome! the characters and the actors were great and the theater was small and we had awesome seats.

we walked through times square and ryan was freaking out, telling me i need to tell her where every single thing is - though in times square, what you see is what you get. so i tried to point everything out but i think she may have thought i wasnt telling her everything. it was good to walk through at night, bc everything was lit up, it looked beautiful.

sunday we got up early and went to the empire state building. in the 20 years i lived in NY full time, i had never been up there. sad right? but i pointed out everything fantastic to ry and anne, including my house. you can't really see it but you can see the general direction.

we also realized we ate a ton of awesome food this weekend. including: the awesomeness of Taco Bell, Ny bagels n cream cheese, ny pizza, zeppole, ny italian at la mela, ny deli bacon egg n cheeses, ny deli turkey sandwiches, and some smoothies. geez! we were only there for like 40 hours haha! anne and ry would eat something and be like "this is sooo good!" i agreed.

so lauren met us for all of these festivities. and let's just talk about her for a second. i love her. i miss her so much. it fucking suckkkkkssssssss. she always tries to convice me to move back to NY and i tell her to come back here. i feel like my life here is incomplete without her. guhhh, sigh. come back best friend :(

there's lots more to write, but im too tired right now. more to come..........