A Nice Little Weekend

This weekend, Lindsey's boyfriend Corey and his friend Scott came up to visit. They're on their way from Atlanta up to Maine, and since their trip took them through New York, and since I live in New York and have ample floor space for visitors, they crashed at my place for the weekend.

Because they were only here for a couple days, they naturally wanted to do touristy things, and since I haven't done any touristy things since I've been here, I tagged along. It made for a pretty awesome weekend, and I got to see a lot of New York that I hadn't seen yet. I also did a hell of a lot of walking.

Friday

The guys got in Friday evening, and were pretty tired from the trip, so we did a little bar-hopping. I've only been in town for a couple weeks, and all of that's been by myself, so I haven't had a lot of opportunity or desire to explore the bars in the area. And let me tell you, there are plenty of bars in the area. We only went to four of them, but all four were pretty nice.

Saturday

We woke up pretty early Saturday morning and set out for Central Park. We took kind of a winding path through the park, saw Belvedere Castle, the John Lennon memorial in Strawberry Fields, and finally came out at 5th St. near 70th. We walked for what seemed like forever down 5th, past Apple Mecca, into F.A.O. Schwartz (which was awesome) and finally down to Times Square.

Times Square was ridiculous. Seriously just as crazy as it looks on TV, billboards everywhere. We ate lunch at Bubba Gump's, then walked around some more, ending up at the subway station at Rockerfeller Plaza, which took us back to my place.

All told, more than five miles of walking in the 80+-degree heat. Needless to say, we were in need of a few beers and a good night's rest after that.

Sunday

We decided to look around the south of Manhattan on Sunday, and started off in Wall Street. Corey wanted to see the Stock Exchange and I wanted to see The Bull. From there, our trip took us in a really roundabout path through Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty, up through Chinatown, Soho and Little Italy.

Little Italy was by far my favorite. We got lunch at a place called Paesano, which was delicious, and we got some great cigars at a place next door. We just walked up and down Mulberry St. smoking our cigars like we owned the place. Scott bought a spinner belt buckle which oozed class. There was a street fair going on and we stood around and watched the people running the fair games harass people as they walked by. It was pretty fun.

We went back to my place and sat around for a while, then eventually we took another subway back down to Times Square where Scott's second cousin lived. This was another highlight. We spent most of the rest of the night at her apartment literally a block and a half away from Times Square. We ate crackers, watched TV, talked, had a little Scotch, went out on the observation deck and watched the cars go by. It was really awesome. That's definitely the kind of place I want to live if I ever get successful and live in New York.

Eventually we left, went back to my studio apartment and fell asleep to the sound of my window air conditioner and the cars on the street.

Monday

Corey and Scott left this morning at the ungodly hour of 8am. I saw them off then immediately fell back asleep for the next three hours. When I woke up, I showered, sat around, and took a trip to the coffee shop. I spent about two good hours just sipping pumpkin spice coffee (way out of season, by the way, but amazing nonetheless) and reading. Between the subway and the coffee shop I'm reading a lot lately. A habit I'll have to continue even when I'm not in the city.

I got back, did some laundry, and wrote about my weekend. That pretty much sums up my Monday. Boring compared to the rest of the weekend, but a welcome respite from all the walking -- more than ten miles, for those of you counting.

It was a great weekend, and it was awesome having Corey and Scott around to hang out with. I'll take this opportunity to mention that anyone reading this is invited and encouraged to stop by and share in the fun.

I didn't take any pictures all weekend because I'm a jerk like that, but if Corey or Scott post some I'll link/copy them. That's all for now, time for some late night pizza and then some much-needed sleep.