NYC Pictorial Play-by-Play

This last weekend, we escaped the heat and power outages of DC for a short getaway to the slightly less intense heat of New York City. We've lived in DC nearly 7 years, and despite NYC being a relatively short, decidedly cheap bus ride away, this was only our third time to the city and only our second time to spend more than 12 hours there.

On this trip, we met up with our friends Rebecca and Andrew, who recently wed and were passing through NYC on their way back from a month-long jaunt in Nepal (culture shock much?), and were led around a bit by my lovely college friend Josh and his boyfriend Peter.  This time around, I got the opportunity to visit a few shops that have long been on my NYC to do list and just generally wander the Lower East Side, where we stayed, and, to some very small extent, Williamsburg, where Josh lives.

So, now, a pictorial play-by-play.

Friday Evening

After arriving just before 10 and dropping our bags, we got a late dinner at The Meatball Shop. Then, we had late drinks at d.b.a.

Saturday

We navigated ourselves to Williamsburg via subway (which I have to admit was pretty intimidating even for someone who uses a public transit system daily - although at some point this weekend, I declared DC's metro system as a Tyco version of NYC's - rounder edges, simpler, brighter colors, etc.).

After meeting up with Josh, we stopped by Blue Bottle Coffee Company.  They take coffee incredibly seriously.  It felt almost somber, in fact.  I've got to admit, though, that the New Orleans iced coffee (slightly sweet with a little whole milk) was about the best iced coffee I've ever had).  Then bagels from The Bagel Store.

We took a toasty little walk down to the pier on the Williamsburg waterfront and grabbed popsicles at Smorgasburg food market at the Brooklyn Flea.

Then, over to Soho for a stop off at Kate's Paperie.  Oh, if I could have gotten some of those beautiful papers home without destroying them!

I was pretty excited to visit Purl Soho next.  The last thing I need is more fabric, so I just got a pre-cut half yard as a souvenir of sorts and geeked out a bit to the cashier about loving their blog, the Purl Bee.  I might have even said something stupid like seeing the projects from the blog there in the shop was like seeing a movie star on the street.  It's okay.  You can judge me for that.  I'm sure she was.  Or maybe she found it incredibly charming...

Then a couple of stops for Japenese goods at Uniqlo and Muji. Uniqlo is like a cheaper, less trashy, Japanese American Apparel.  Muji is sort of a random assortment of plain goods - paper goods, kitchen wares, travel accessories, toiletries, some apparel.  I walked out with a sleeve of colored markers, a key chain notepad, and some cat shaped sticky notes.  Yeah, I don't know.

A brief stop at Loreley for some pints and pretzels.

Next, we headed towards the place we were staying on the Lower East Side to pick up some cupcakes from Sugar Sweet Sunshine (I highly recommend the strawberry) to enjoy on our balcony.

Seriously, look at this balcony.  It's unheard of, right?  Michael's friend from college and his girlfriend were out of town for the weekend and oh-so generously offered us their place.  And their private balcony is like, no joke, 400 square feet.  My mind was blown.

In celebration of Michael's birthday, Michael and I stepped it up for a shmancy Italian dinner at A Voce on Madison.  Truly delicious.  Truly indulgent.  I basically ate myself into oblivion over the course of the two and a half hour dinner.

Back to the LES for a couple of cocktails at Salt Bar.  Super nice bartender who let me try every cava and prosecco they offered.  

And then a short taxi ride to Williamsburg for a nightcap with Josh and Peter at Lucky Dog, which was blasting a pretty wide time swath of country music - I can only assume ironically.

Sunday

The next morning, we got ourselves some coffee and ridiculously good donuts from The Doughnut Plant.  I had the blueberry cake doughnut, and Michael indulged in a carrot cake doughnut and an orange blossom yeast doughnut.  All of them were amazing.

We did a tour at the Tenement Museum, which was really, really great.

I couldn't leave NYC having only had one bagel, so I got myself a snack from Kossar's Bialys.

Then, we drug our sweaty selves to midtown for the sole purpose of visiting Fishs Eddy, which did not disappoint me.

Finally, before leaving, we grabbed lunch at Schiller's Liquor Bar by our friend's place.  Michael got a ridiculously good Pimms cup, and I ate what felt like the best cheeseburger and friends I've ever had. (What I actually ate were fries, but I'm leaving the typo because it makes me laugh too hard.)  I might have just been dehydrated though.

Then, Megabus dragged our sad, exhausted butts back to DC.

Just for fun, in case you're interested, I made a map of all the places we hit up:

View NYC - Fabric Paper Glue - June 2012 in a larger map

The longer I live in DC and the more times that I visit NYC, the more convinced I become that I would actually love living there, which shocks even me to say (after all, college friends were dubious that I - arguably least independent of many of my college friends - could handle the move even to DC).   Anyway, if you're into it, spending time there (outside Times Square) makes you understand in a half a second why people that live there think it's the center of the universe.  Concentrated blocks upon blocks of stuff to do at all hours.  And if you're creative at all, the inspiration is sort of endless.  It's the kind of place that could easily suck you in and never let you go - for better or worse.

What about you?  Do you like NYC?  Do you have any favorite places you like to visit there?

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