bah bah, bah bah bah bah

That morning, Kathi, Katharina and I headed downstairs to have breakfast, and talk about the day. We decided to go to Central Park, so they could ride in the boats on the lake, Shake Shake for lunch and then Greenwich Village and SoHo after. We debated on going sunset sailing, but that cost more than we all wanted to spend, so we chose finding a rooftop bar somewhere to see the sunset and the city lights once it was dark. 

We got ready and headed out... it was not even close to raining, more like, 80 degrees and humid as heck. After complaining for a bit on the walk to the bus, we sucked it up and went on with the day. We got to Central Park and walked around, finding lakes and bridges and fountains galore. Parks in New York are an interesting experience. In both Central Park and Prospect Park (in Brooklyn where Googa Mooga was), you are completely able to leave the city behind. It's kind of odd, but I really liked it. For such a fast paced, loud city, it's nice to have this place to escape to. 

I'm going to work on a way to stream the pictures from my Photo Stream in the sidebar or something so that you can see more than just the few that I post here and there :) 

In the park, we encountered geese, turtles and other wildlife we either hadn't seen, or hadn't seen that much of. The girls couldn't get over the squirrels and there were birds flying around that none of us had seen before. YAY WILDLIFE. We walked in along 72nd into the Strawberry Field area of the park. I'm bummed I didn't get a picture of the Imagine circle, but there were about 50 people there trying to do the same thing, so i decided against it this time. We walked further into the park, toward the lakes and the boathouse (which is rather famous in its own right) so that  the girls could go boating and I could go explore. On the way, we found the Bethesda fountain and plaza. Under the driving bridge, there was a walkway that was tiled and had lots of arches. There was a quintet of performers singing and playing instruments under there and they sounded beautiful. We stopped to listen for a while before taking pictures at the fountain. We made it to the boathouse, the girls went on their adventure while I went on mine. I found more tunnels, saw more birds and things, sneezed a lot (my allergies started up since there was a ton of grass and foliage), found a walkway lined with benches, trees and busts of different composures. There was a small open air stage that looked somewhat like the Jefferson monument in DC and new grads everywhere since NYU had some of their ceremonies that day. 

I walked back to the boathouse after about an hour and met the girls so that we could head out of the park. We walked around the park, found the Belvedere Castle and then found our way out of the park. We ate lunch at Shake Shack, which was recommended to me by a friend. it was a great decision, see?

From there, we headed to Greenwich Village to walk around and see the area. We stopped for coffee, phone charging and rest. Once we had been at this super weird, kinda douchy coffee place for enough time, we decided to start walking toward the James Hotel where we decided to enjoy cocktails and the sunset overlooking the city and eventually, the city lights. While leaving GV, there was all of a sudden an abundance of cops and helicopters. We asked a few different cops, all of which were super nice, and apparently there was a demonstration because of a shooting that is a reported to be a hate crime. We decided that it was probably a good idea to head to SoHo and to the bar. 

We stopped at a starbucks and changed into dresses and headed a couple more blocks to the hotel. It was a total fancy schmancy hotel and had a pretty cool ambience. They had a wall made of old computer keyboards in the lobby and a neat rooftop bar. When we got up top, the bar was neat, the outdoor patio had a tiny little pool and the whole top floor was either the outdoor patio or had wall to ceiling windows. The drinks were normal, expensive cocktails but so well made by an incredibly nice and personable bartender. I had a mint julep in a gold cup and all i needed was a derby hat. it was incredibly humid and hot so it suited the day perfectly. As a whole, it was a great way to spend my last day, and night, in New York. 

That night, when we got back, I skyped home with my family and then stayed up til 4 packing and repacking my stuff. such organized chaos. 

sunday sunday

New York was absolutely fantastic, and I loved every part of being there. I wish it could have been for a longer amount of time, but it just gives me more reasons to go back. I'm going to break up Sunday, Monday and Tuesday into different posts, as a lot of things happened and if I don't, it'll go on forever. 

On Sunday, Kristin and I did a whole lot of nothing. it was actually rather fun. It was raining out and neither of us really wanted to deal with it. We were tired, sore and frustrated that it was raining steadily all day. I said in my last post that we were going to head to Hoboken for Cuban food... well, that didn't happen. at all. we decided to stay in Union City and hang out with each other at the house. At one point, we walked a few blocks down to eat before coming back. Maria, one of the owners, suggested that we go to Noches, a Columbian restaurant that was relatively new in the area, but that was really good and always busy. Away we went!

We got the umbrellas, jackets and whatever else we could find and headed down the street. When we got to Noches, we were seated right away and the waitress asked if we knew what we wanted to eat. By this point, around 5pm, we were starving because we had barely eaten - a HUGE change from Googa Mooga. She suggested their empanadas and brought us two. They were wonderfully light and not too filling, but hearty and delectable at the same time. Instead of being made with a pie crust, they were more cornmeal based with a light crunch. The filling was shredded beef and beans, it kind of tasted like Ramona's by El Camino which was fine by me. The empanadas came with slices of lime and their housemade hot sauce - pretty much salsa verde, but it was made really well and I wish I could have shipped home a gallon. Kristin ordered their Arroz con Pollo and I had the Huevos Rancheros. Holy freaking crap, so much food. Kristin's dish was basically a huge serving of saffron chicken fried rice, without the fry. It looked and tasted amazing. My food was just as good. The beans were mixed with rice, scallions and seasoned great, and the egg scramble had onion, tomato and tasted exceptional. Kristin's came with a salad, two pieces of fried sweet plantains, a third (!!!) of an avocado, an incredibly bland, dense arepa and a few plantain "fritters" that reminded me of latkes with far less flavor. Mine came with a third of an avocado and the dense arepa. The food was great, we ate about a third of it, and took the rest home. Both of us wanted a million empanadas to take with us as well. 

Kristin went home to Lancaster, PA that night, rushing to meet her train, which ended up having crazy engine issues the whole way back, but nevertheless, she made it. It was great to see her and we're already planning when we can get together again. I realized that I didn't post a picture of us from Googa Mooga, or at all... so here it is! 

I came back to the house and ended up meeting the other two girls that were staying there. They were German, both named Katharina, and we had a great conversation about our trips and everything. We all kept talking and made it downstairs where we had dinner, around 10/11pm but whatever. We talked and they found out that I cooked a lot and we started joking about making cakes and cookies.. and then I realized that the house had just about everything we were going to need to make something. We settled on chocolate peanut butter cookies with chocolate chunks. Someone had gotten Dean & Deluca cocoa powder that was mind blowing so we made sure to use that. The cookies came out great and all three of us did something, from measuring things, to chopping chocolate, to mixing and putting them in the oven. We had a great time and talked about everything until the first batch of cookies were done. We stayed up until 1 talking and making plans for Monday, as they invited me to see the city with them.