"Brooklynites" for the weekend!

This weekend we took a hike to the big apple. Well...more like a bus. My friend Emery and her husband, graciously offered us their apartment while they went skiing for the weekend. Without hesitation, we jumped on the opportunity and our friends Andreas and Kate joined us too.

On Friday morning, we boarded a bus that came highly recommended – DC2NY. The tickets were only $30 and the bus was clean, played a movie, had free wi-fi and even offered everyone there very own bottle of water (oh la la). Everything went smoothly, until the last hour. When the gentleman behind us, made a very unusual sound, followed by another and another. Soon we realized that he was throwing up, not only what he had for breakfast that morning, but what seemed to be his last 20 meals! The sound, smell and overall feeling, was utterly disgusting. Plus, it was a very uncomfortable and a weird situation, as everyone remained shocked and in silence, the bus driver did not even bother to stop, nor did the family of the ill man request him to. None of us had any clue where all the “stuff” coming out of him was going. Terrified, I quickly grabbed my purse from the floor and prayed that I would not soon see his “insides” trickle down, near our seats (sorry for the visual). As Matt likes to finish the story, “on top of ALL that, he had the NERVE to leave his jacket on the back of my seat the WHOLE trip and got mad because I was leaning on it”. Needless to say, after almost 5 hours on the bus, we were very happy to arrive at Penn Station.

Kate and Andreas were on a different bus, a few hours behind. So, Matt and I ventured to Brooklyn, which is where we would call home for the next two days. We dropped off our stuff, at our friend’s brownstone and headed back into Manhattan, just in time for a quick walk and dinner. Turned out that Friday, was NYC last day of Restaurant Week (totally lucked out), so we headed to Delmonico’s – which is a famous restaurant in the Financial District, has been there since 1837 and apparently even Abraham Lincoln frequented the locale! Menu – Crab and corn chowder, filet mignon with mashed potatoes and vegetables and raspberry cheesecake. Mmm.

Afterwards, we "rolled" back to Brooklyn and while the boys went to a place called Bierkraft to get some beer (one was even made with jalapeno, eek), us girls quickly put on our pj’s and settled in.

The next day, it was snowing and for some reason, as if I’ve never seen snow before, I kept repeating “oh my goodness, oh my goodness” over and over again. We bundled up and began our trek around the city. Luckily, the weather was not that bad at all and we explored more than 5 miles. Through Central Park, into the Upper East Side, SOHO, Greenwich Village, all the way down to Chinatown. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant, which gave us the perfect amount of energy to keep going – shared a prosciutto and arugula pizza with Matt, that was delicious. In the late afternoon, when everyone agreed it was time for a serious break, we decided to go see a movie near NYU’s campus. Choice of the day -  The Vow Safe House with Denzel Washington (my favorite!!) and Ryan Reynolds (Sandra Bullock’s favorite?)

The evening ended with some more walking and dinner in Brooklyn at a Latin restaurant, where a quinceañera party was rockin’ out in the basement. We were veeery close to crashing the party, but contained ourselves.

Sunday morning, the sun was deceivingly bright. We left the house, naively thinking that the weather could have only improved. In reality, the icy wind was blowing to such a degree, that our finger tips and thighs went numb for a while. We realized just how lucky we had been the day before. Unfortunately, none of the brunch spots that my friend Ashley kindly recommended had available reservations, so we settled for Starbucks and proceeded to the 9/11 Memorial. Upon arriving, we found out that visitor passes were needed to get in. We had no clue, but lucked out when someone was handing out “complimentary tickets” and even directed us to an “expedited line”. Security was even more chaotic than at the airport, but it was well worth it. The twin reflecting pools were stunning. The way the water falls, the fact that you cannot see the bottom, the park, the inscribed names. We felt very fortunate to have been able to visit and see it first hand. Some quick facts about the Memorial -

• The pools sit within the footprints of where the Twin Towers once stood
• They are each nearly an acre in size
• Architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker created the Memorial design selected from a global design competition that included more than 5,200 entries from 63 nations
• The names of every person who died in the 2001 and 1993 attacks are inscribed into bronze panels edging the pools
• The National September 11 Museum will open around September 2012
• One World Trade Center (1WTC) is supposed to be completed by 2013 and will be the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere (105 stories)

Luckily, there were no "incidents" on the bus last night. Plus, there was no traffic and we got back in less than 4 hours. They also showed Midnight in Paris! While I definitely enjoyed our weekend, New York and DC are VERY different (people's attitude, cleanliness, subway, crowdedness, distances, etc). Our visit made me appreciate Washington a lot more and I was happy to be home.

Happy birthday to my mom (who just launched a Peerbackers campaign)!!