“Life is an experiment in which you may fail or succeed. Explore more, expect least.” ― Santosh Kalw

I dress fashionably now.

I woke up pretty early today. Seven am early and I couldn't go back to sleep. It was a mixture of the weather just being so hot and sticky and the sun shining in so hard. It was a bit brutal. So I gave up on trying to get some relaxation and sleep and got up and got ready for the day. I got dressed, made myself some dumplings for breakfast, called my mom, finally watched the Game of Thrones episode I missed last week (Since I was so busy every night this week, jeeze) and after all that, it was only about 10:30. I took a break, lied in bed for a bit and then fell straight to asleep. 

My mind wasn't too tired, but, by god, my body was.

I only woke up at 2 and realized how damn tired I was.

I made a flower pin 

I went out for a walk down the street before heading over to my friend's place and walked over toa break guys) but I caught the tail wind of a few events, made myself my own felt flower, talked to some ladies who made their own hats and everything. It was quite nice! I'm just sad because I was talking to the lady and she actually told me that the event wasn't that well organized since no one wanted to advertise about their event. It made me kind of sad because it was such a great positive event for kids and adults to learn more about flowers.
Madison Square Garden, where they had this very cute Botanist event with flowers. I had apparently missed everything (I didn't even know it was happening, give me

Bread dress.

I kept walking down and walked all the way down to Chelsea market where I just walked around for a bit and saw a really cool exhibit where people had combined their love of food for their love of fashion.

Oh my god, it was perfect. There were dresses and other things that were made OF FOOD. YES. EVERTHING.
BAGEL DRESSES, POPCORN DRESSES, VEGETABLE PANTSUITS,

The market itself was a bit underwhelming, since they had mostly restaurants with very overpriced foods and clothing stores with so much over priced stuff... It was a bit consumeristic for my liking.

I still love St. Lawrence market more. 

Chelsea Market

But it was a very nice market, it had a very old feel with low ceilings, brick walls and crooked floors. It was nice to walk through.

After I was done, I walked over to the metro and hopped on the train to Bedford, where I was to meet some friends to go out to a #Pride event!

I got off, and was going to walk around, but I was so hot and sweaty that I ended up going to a Pizza shop, Joe's and grabbed a delicious, much needed pizza slice. I can see why Joe's is so popular.

I went over to my friend's very early and started watching these videos and this visual album from Todrick Hall and man I gotta say, it was pretty good. Good hip hop, good music, good vibe and just great visuals. I really did love it. And it was done to include the Orlando shooting as well. It was amazing. I listened to it for a solid hour.

With friends! :) 

Afterwards, we and a few more people headed over to Ides Rooftop bar in Brooklyn. There was a huge line up.

I wasn't sure if that was the line up so I asked the security guard if it was the queue for the Posture Pride event we had signed up for and he said "yes, but go talk to the lady over there." I headed over to what looked like the organizer there and asked if it was the line, she said "yes, just come around here and wait here." She pointed right beside the door where there were only 3 people lined up to go upstairs... I got my whole possy to completely bypass the queue.

I've never skipped the whole queue before... It felt good. 

Super cool outside
the bar! 

We headed upstairs on the elevator and went up to their rooftop bar which was packed with a bunch of people! It was super cool, there were two DJ's playing all night and they were both really good! Playing fun music. 

I pulled everyone outside to sit and enjoy the weather and check out the view. 

As soon as we walked around, a table actually got up and left, so with our good timing, we sat down grabbed the menu, cried at the price of the drinks and then grabbed some drinks to enjoy. We sat there and talked for a while, another friend joined us, left and then we chilled for a little while longer. 

Before we left, I went to the washroom, which is completely gender neutral, with walls that go from ceiling to floor and doors that lock. It was pretty awesome. 

While in this line up, I complimented someone and said i liked their otufit, and in return, she gave me a wedding ring. 

Don't worry, not a real one, she was up here in New York for an engagement party and had three wedding rings on her finger.. she gave me one.

It was cool. 

We walked back to my friend's house, and AS PER TRADITION, we grabbed some crappy (not real) Chinese food, ate and drank on her rooftop.

It was a good night. 

I finally got to subway back to New York at night, and I gotta say, there were a lot of people on the train! I even ended up running into a friend. 

#PublicTransitLife, just meant to be.

"I love exploring New York and I think that's what is so exciting about it. You find places that you've never heard of or seen before all the time." - Tory Burch

We woke up nice and early (I usually do because of my stupid internal clock, and he usually wakes up at 6 for work) and headed on our way out. We walked downtown so that we could see the Empire

Starting the day off
right with a street festival!

State building and some of the parks. It was quite a nice walk since it was so warm out and headed all the way down 6th avenue to Union Square Park. There we ran into a street food festival (we were starving, had barely anything for breakfast to prepare us for a nice meal in the park) and gosh was the food ... delicious smelling. There was grilled sausage, pork, chicken leg, pretty much everything there that could torture a person did torture a person (me). We kept walking around, ended up grabbing some free sunglasses and then headed over to Union Square Park.

Street festival on Bedford! 

At Union Square Park, there were a bunch of tents with fresh foods, baked goods, veggies, pretty much everything you can think of! We walked by and to try to sedate our hunger, we got to try some samples, like lamb sausage, duck confit, beer, juice and more! It was nice trying a little bit of everything.

So many people... 

Afterwards, we got into the subway and hopped on a train over to Brooklyn to try Smorgasbord! Chris had never been so I had to bring him. We started off by walking around a bit and ran into this really cool festival that they were hosting on Bedford Avenue. There was real grass that was rolled out on the streets so that people could hang out there as well as sit down and enjoy the weather. I found out that it was a part of some music festival where bands would be playing on the street all weekend! Pretty cool.

SO MUCH FOOD

But first, I was meeting up with some friends to walk over to Smorgasbord. We first headed over to the Artists and Fleas market where there were many handmade goods and other things for us to see! Unfortunately, for a "flea" market the prices were very steep. It was all hand made jewellery and artisianal stuff so it was quite cool to look around and check it out. When we headed out there was a musician playing a very interesting instrument with over 20 strings outside. It was interesting to see.

Swag of the day

We headed over to Smorgasbord where we were, of course, surrounded by an insane and immense amount of hipsters, people and overpriced food. It was pretty overwhelming - especially because there were so many people everywhere and the line ups were long. I decided to settle down with some fish and chips (they actually gave me a very generous amount for what I paid in comparison to the other places) while Chris grabbed some duck confit.

We sat by the beach for a little while at a picnic table before we got up and left to check out the street festival at Bedford Avenue.

At the street festival, there were many bands performing free concerts outside and as we were walking down, we ended up grabbing a bunch of free samples (yeah I know this keeps happening please don't hate me) of this new drink by Pepsi, somelemonade and a bunch of jerky. It was a pretty cool experience.

Giving out samples the classy way

Afterwards, Chris and I jumped on the metro to head down to SoHo, Little Italy and Chinatown. We grabbed some gelato (after walking around to find the perfect gelato place) from Ferraras and then headed over to the park to grab a seat to eat. 

People, people, people. 

We sat down in the middle of Columbus Park (also known as five point park) and enjoyed the view of people gambling, singing Chinese opera and playing musical instruments. It was quite enjoyable. I called my mom to talk to her a little bit and then just sat around for a bit with Chris.

Gelato! 

Afterwards, Chris and I walked towards city hall and I tried to give him a quick history lesson and some fun facts about the building but turns out my memory melts a bit in the sun. we walked around for a little while longer and headed down past the church (which was left completely unscathed during the 9/11 attack) with the beautiful old cemetery.

We were walking down so that we could see the memorial of One Trade Center (didn't go into the museum, but for anyone interested, they are free on Tuesdays).

Imposing.

It is truly a heartbreaking memorial when you go and see how gigantic the holes in the ground are and how deep both the holes and the scars in peoples' lives run. 

After the memorial, Chris and I rode the metro back home so that we could change and head over to the (Free!) Off-Broadway show, Trip of Love. We tried to head over to a rooftop bar beforehand (I wanted him to see the Empire State in all it's glory), unfortunately, when we went there, we were told it was closed for a "private event." Very sad that we couldn't get in so we went to the nearby Bryant park and sat down for a bit and relaxed... relaxed that is until I looked at my phone and realized I completely screwed up and instead of picking up tickets half an hour at 8, it was pick up tickets half an hour before 8.

The memorial, there are two gigantic
holes where the twin towers used to be...
but now instead have memorial fountains

Whoops.

We ran over to the theatre as fast as we could on 42nd (and you know how bad 42nd is for walking right?! Right by Times Square?!) and went through what I would call the quicksand of people. It was the worst thing I had ever gone through when I was in a rush. And even though we were already past 5th and needed to get down to 9th... It was not something easy to do. You'd think just a few blocks would be easy - it's not. By the time we got into the theatre we were sweating quite a lot.

The venue itself was quite nice, with escalators and high ceilings to enjoy the view of the entire theatre and a window to look out onto 

42nd. I was very impressed with how nice the seats were and how well done the decor was. With the

Free tickets :3

high ceilings, it made the place feel very large and very fancy. I really enjoyed the venue. And it helped that our seats were just two rows from the stage!

They had decorated the sides of the walls to reflect the Broadway play that was playing. 

The ushers there were quite nice and very polite, willing to answer any and all questions we had and at the end, when the Broadway show was finishing up, I looked back and all I could see was the ushers dancing and just jamming to the show. What a cool group of people working there.

In the theatre! 

Unfortunately, the play was not as great as I'd hoped it would be...in fact I didn't even like it until about 3 songs in because I had no idea what was happening. It seemed like they were just singing songs... but once I accepted that they were just singing songs, I started to enjoy it a lot more as just entertainment rather than a play with any plot whatsoever.

After the play, I was particularity hungry so I demanded that Chris walk with me for about 20 minutes and grab some Shake Shack with me. I had never been before so I just wanted and had to try it out!

We both grabbed burgers, fries and he grabbed a milk shake. We took it to go, walked home and sat there, watching Bo Burnham (who is extremely offensive, don't google him if you don't want to be offended or anything) and enjoying our fries.

Crispy fries and yummy burgers

Oh my god. Those were the BEST burgers I have ever had from a fast food establishment, I am honestly still so blown away by how amazing and delicious they were. I enjoyed them so so so much. The fries were particularity good and the bacon cheese burger I had was just bursting with flavour. I can still remember how delicious it was and it's making my stomach rumble a bit.

After the much-needed food and humorous entertainment, we headed to sleep.

"Brooklyn, it's a great town, a great city. It's New York." - Patrick Ewing

The Cathedral of
Commerce

Today started off pretty damn early (well for a weekend). I had to wake up so that I could get up and leave for about 9am to get to my walking tour at 10am. Now some people may ask why I don't take the subway (As I found out later on Sunday a bunch of lines don't actually run on the weekends so that's one reason) but my main reason is that I want to know this city. I want to walk around, I want to see the building, I want to get to know the area and explore.

The NY skyline, will change in the next
15 years. 

Not bragging - stating a fact, I have quite a good internal compass and sense of direction. I almost always know where I am and where North faces (to those youngin's with them Zphones and samdsungs and whatever, that's more important and reliable than your google maps). I find that going around, seeing things and looking at the city will help me know it and understand it better than if I was under it. Plus it was a beautiful day (so beautiful that I would later get a sunburn).

They called it Pearl
Street because it is
where Oysters came up

I met up my tour group today at 10am to do the tour of Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO. I actually had the same tour guide as I did last week so I was quite happy and excited - I knew that he knew his stuff and was well trained.

City hall! It has an orange flag outside
because of the Dutch! Also the back
was quite ugly because they assumed that
people would never move behind the building

We started off with a bit of the history of the city (which I get a brief of every single time I go on a tour) which I drowned out a
bit but snapped back into attention when our tour guide started talking to us again! We started off by learning a bit about the Woolworth Building, which for a very long time was the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere until the Chrysler building was built! It was also known as the Cathedral of Commerce because of it's neo-Gothic style. 

Beautiful wavy building.
First few floors are actually
public school!

It was pretty cool because it was also one of the first times that people could actually walk around and pick and chose clothing to buy. Before, they would ask the reception desk for a specific article of clothing and size from them and
that was when they'd buy it. Now, people could see these clothing articles and walk around the store with it. It made them more likely to buy it as they would walk around the store with the clothing, almost as though they owned it. Those clever tricksters. 

They had love locks..
but some people
put in love headphones.

As we were going over the bridge, we stopped (which was brutal because it was SO SUNNY out) and talked about the people who had built the Brooklyn bridge. Initially, the bridge was to be engineered by Chief of Engineering, John A. Roebling. However, just a few weeks in, he passed away from what was originally an amputation that would later turn into tetanus and death.

Beautiful plaque for the Roeblings

When he passed away, his son, Washington Roebling took over the bridge. Unfortunately, this Roebling developed caisson disease, which affected him so badly that he became bed-ridden. He had to give his wife, Emily Roebling the plans for the bridge. Emily Roebling ended up going above and beyond. She went took over all the duties and become the first ever woman field engineer. She took over duties like day-to-day supervision and project management. She dealt with politicians, engineers and all the work that was associated with the bridge - all to the point where people actually thought she was behind the bridge's design. When the bridge opened up, she was the first person to cross it by carriage. She ended up studying and excelling in engineering and math. 

Halfway across the bridge

The memorial building in Brooklyn
with people hanging outside. 

We looked at some other buildings that were on the horizon and spotted the beautiful One World Trade Center (some people call it the Freedom Tower but it is not officially called that for fear of retaliation and fear that it may become a target) and I found out that it is exactly 1776 feet tall. Important because that was the year of independence for the United States.

This is the corner where Clinton has
the headquarters for her elections

It's interesting because before, the Chrysler building and 40 Wall Street used to battle to see who was tallest (So I told you about how the Chrysler building, after 40 Wall Street was built, had secretly built a needle in their basement and 3 days after 40 Wall Street was declared the tallest building, Chrysler put up the needle). Both sides argued about the issue of structural integrity and whether or not it counted as the tallest building if the tallest point did not count towards anything.

In Brooklyn Heights! :) 

After the Empire state Building was put up, the argument was over. Unfortunately, the Empire State building has had several suicide attempts. One in particular, was interesting. Because the building is so far up and kind of isolated with very few tall buildings around it, it creates a massive wind tunnel. One such woman tried to attempt suicide and as she jumped off, she was pushed back into the building by the wind. New York wasn't done with her yet.

This was owned by the
Roeblings. but it was
torn down by the
Jehovah's Witness...
which is where they
started wanting to save
historical monuments

It's interesting because the classic New York skyline will change soon. In the next 14 years, New York is expected to gain 30 new skyscrapers. On top of that, they're planning on building one in Brooklyn as well.

As we walked over the bridge, the tour guide mentioned Governor's Island which was originally called "nut island" because of all of the nuts there. Apparently it is also a very swampy and gross area to be around.

This was originally named after army
men, however, the Queen was mad and
renamed all the streets. No one knows
what they were originally named before.

While walking across the bridge, we were told that some IDIOT decided to run across the bridge and scream that the bridge was falling because it was shaking a bit (it's a suspension bridge what do you expect?). People stampeded, some were seriously injured and at least 12 died in this stampede and for a while, people refused to get back on the bridge. It wasn't until P. T. Barnum decided to lead a parade of 21 elephants over the Brooklyn bridge to prove the stability of it. Man, how cool must that have been? 

Beecher

We talk a bit more about the area around us and learned the name "Robert Moses" who was a very integral part of New York city (As I found out, Brooklyn merged with NYC in 1899). He designed many buildings, planned 150 parks, many bridges as well as the roads and highways. He really wanted New York to become a car city but, as we all found out... He couldn't actually drive himself. He was very against subways and public transit, which is ironic, because with the way New York is built, there is just simply too much gridlock! New York's grid system may seem smart to many as it is very easy to
know exactly where you are and how to get back home, but with the grid system, even though only 18% of New Yorkers own a vehicle, the traffic is HORRIBLE. There are simply not enough alleyways to actually have cars go out and so when a street is closed down, it is terrible congestion. Not to mention the roads are simply not big enough. 

Plaque for Jackie
Robinson

As we walked around the Brooklyn heights side, I found out that every Little bit suspicious here... presidential candidate has some sort of tie with New York. Clinton lived in NYC for 90 days, making her eligible to run for governor, Trump was born in Queens and Sanders was born in Brooklyn! Clinton's electoral headquarters is actually in Brooklyn, on the corner of Clinton and Tillery street.

We walked by this huge statue and here we saw this amazing man named Beecher. Beecher was an abolitionist and his church was almost like the Grand Central of the Underground railway. He helped hundreds of slaves escape and for that he is someone to be proud of. He was also extremely progressive, stating that said evolution and Bible could Co-exist. Back in the 19th century. 

One of the first fire
departments to respond to
9/11. The 8 stars are for the
8 firefighters they lost.

We walked back down and found a plaque where the old Brooklyn dodgers used to play - more specifically, the team that Jackie Robinson used to play with. They were called the dodgers because they dodged trolleys back in the day. Some may argue that this is where the Civil rights movement started, when they realized that blacks could play baseball. 

These railways were active
only just a few years ago!

We then found out about the battle of Long Island between the British and George Washington (Who only had one natural tooth by the time he was president). On one foggy night, on Brooklyn, while the Americans were pushed all the way to the edge of the island, the British were camping out, waiting for the fog to lift. Washington, knowing that if they lost that night they may lose the war, lit fires and covers everything in cloth (books, horse hooves) and sneaks
across to Manhattan. Had they been captured, the war would have been over. 

In Trader Joe's

On our way down, we saw a difference in the housing, there were many houses without stoops, which seemed so odd to me because everyone had stoops. The reason for this was because if there was a stoop, then garbage would not fly into
your door. 

As we were walking, the tour guide explained why it was called "DUMBO" - Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. They're starting to call the area under Harlem "SoHa" for South Harlem.

This city man.

All in all, it was a pretty great walking tour. Seriously recommend Free Tours by Foot if you are ever visiting New York.

Up on the rooftop <3

I headed over to Trader Joe's afterwards to buy some groceries (honestly just chips and dip don't judge me) and then walked back to the subway to head back home. It was honestly so hot and sweltering outside I almost felt like I was going to pass out. Protip: always wear sunscreen. I failed to do that and got mighty sunburnt. It was horrible.I went home and rested for a little bit before I headed out again later that night. It was my french friend's birthday that night and she wanted to have a nice party on her rooftop. 

And so we did. 

The Empire state under
the Brooklyn Bridge!

She brought us food (she made salads, hummus, guacamole, etc), drinks and a bunch of french people - it was pretty cool. I had a great time just sitting on her roof top and I had a deal with all my french friends, they would speak to me in English and I would speak to them in French. That way everyone remembered and everyone benefitted by being able to understand each other. 

Taxi'd back home after a safe and fun night!

"Brooklyn's good. Brooklyn's funky. Brooklyn's happening." - Waris Dirie

Really boring mall. But nice architecture

Today I slept in a little bit today, woke up at 8:30am. So I had some time to actually catch up with some blogging and posting. I was so many days behind! To actually put it into perspective, I'm writing up this blog post... on Wednesday night. This is meant to be a post from Sunday. "Today." I spent most of the morning writing up blog posts and then watching my go to Netflix series, Malcolm in the Middle. Afterwards, I decided to head out, but I was a bit early since the tour started at 2 but I was pretty much done all the posts I wanted to and decided to head out at around 12. 

The metro to get into Williamsburg

I headed out and walked over to the "Mall of America" on Broadway because I always wanted to see
what a mall in America is like.

Honestly, it was amazingly underwhelming. It was like every other mall I've ever been to so I hopped on a train over to Brooklyn! 

Beautiful graffiti on the streets

The train ride was kind of horrendous and to all the parents and other people who care about me reading this right now - I am okay. Nothing is wrong with me and I did the right thing by getting away.

So on the train, Some creepy guy followed me off the train. I was a bit suspicious so I stopped to look at my phone. So he stopped and sat down. So then I started to walk towards the exit...he got up and he followed me but I stopped and looked at my phone again right before the stairs. He kept going I left and took a different exit. Later on, another guy tried to grab my arm while I was walking and when I looked back with disgust he just looked at me and winked. It was a bad first impression of Brooklyn, I'm not going to lie.. but like I said, I came out okay. And it was an "Experience" right?

Found this on my
walk and made me
think of my mom

Well, when I left the subway it got significantly better. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon andever). I walked around for a bit since it was so beautiful out and checked out the area. I wanted to see if Smorgasburg was up but it wasn't. Turns out it's actually put into a different place.
people were out - there were SO MANY people!! And even better, there was a company giving out yogurt so I had a nice light snack to go with my day (don't knock free stuff -

So as I was walking back down, I ran into my friend who I was supposed to go on the tour with and we walked around for a bit, grabbed a coffee and waited for our tour guide...who showed up with a Kylo Ren light saber. Classic. 

We started off with a bit of the history of the area, which included learning about where the name Brooklyn came from - It was actually named after Ben

Imagine how big a house is. That is
how big this graffiti was.

Franklin's grandson! I finally figured out the names of most of the Boroughs in New York. How awesome is that? I also learned a lot about the history of Brooklyn as well and how Williamsburg really started to expand and grow out into what we all know and love to be Brooklyn now. 

The bakery

We started the walking tour by talking about how the area used to be predominately very Polish. So we stopped at a Polish bakery and outside there were a bunch of little old Polish ladies sitting around and talking to each other. The tour guide waved quite a few times, talked to the ladies and really talked up the bakery. 

Fresh and DELICIOUS

While he was explaining the history of the neighbourhood (which I can't really recall right now), one of the little old ladies came up to us and actually opened up her bag of freshly bought bread and offered it to everyone of us. 

Yes. She walked around and she offered every one of us a freshly baked slice of bread. It was delicious and amazing. And then she went back to sit with her ladies. What. A. Sweetheart. 

But that was the sense of community they had. Much like Chinatown, Little Italy, Little India, there was a huge sense of community and family there. It was awesome to experience first hand.

Cool graffiti

As we walked down, the tour guide pointed out various pieces of graffiti and artwork that was spray painted everywhere. In particular, he showed us some artwork that was done on walls by famous artists! Beautiful. He told us that around the area, there are a lot of advertisements around and many times, those advertisements aren't done through posters or pre made, they're actually spray painted on - it's the Brooklyn way. 

With the apartments, many of them are actually done up with graffiti on the side because it gives it a bit of a really "cool" twist on it, makes it edgy and cool to live in. So landlords will let graffiti artists spray paint whatever on the side and graffiti artists will have an opportunity to expand their portfolio! Win-win. 

This was built in the last two decades.
Also the same street with the
Italian festival.

As we were walking through the city, he stopped to talk to a lot of locals on the way. One person in particular struck a chord with me. He was born and raised in Brooklyn but the only one of his friends who could stay there because it had simply gotten too expensive to live there. Once it got trendy to live there, rents skyrocketted and people were forced out. He said that the Brooklyn that exists today was not the Brooklyn from 15 years ago and not the Brooklyn he knew. The Brooklyn he knew was gone.

Russian Orthodox church

It was a bit sad to hear how much the neighbourhood had changed and gentrified but in a way it's also interesting because it is the way that life is meant to go - change is a constant force that no one can go up against. Sometimes change is for the better and sometimes it's for the worst. I would, personally, find it sorrowful if neighbourhoods never changed and things were never different. Not because having no change is boring - but because it would mean that there is no progression. One motto that I have always gone by and always go by is "Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation." I love that line and live by it.

In the back they have an olympic sized
pool. 

We walked by this big main street where the tour guide started talking more to us about areas and how when ethnic areas come in, much like the Polish, they still worship the same gods as before, eat the same foods, do the same things... it's not like when they came to America, they would drop everything and become Americans - no, many were still set in on their old ways and many miss home. Doesn't matter how much you want to go somewhere to live a good life - you will always miss specific things from your old life. So they brought this festival called "The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and San Paolino di Nola" in Williamsburg. It is a huge festival where they bring up a tower that is taller than 20 stories high (Dont quote me on this) and they celebrate with music, performers and most

Playing baseball. Used to be beautiful
park view but now all these buildings
are coming up... 

importantly - food. It's in the summer time so I'll keep in mind that I should check it out!

As we kept walking, we found this beautiful Russian Orthodox church. One way to know that it was an orthodox church was because of the way the cross was. As I found out, the top "bar" was there to represent Jesus. The second is normal, in the shape of the cross and the third, which runs diagonally is there because when Jesus was crucified, to his left, there was the person (do I call them the person?) who believed and accepted Jesus into his heart, and so lead his way to heaven, hence why this side of the diagnal points up. To his right, there was the person (???) who rejected jesus and hence the other side points down to the ground (to hell). It was also apparently the church from Seinfield.

The building that used
to make ink for the US
dollar bills

We headed next to the park where we heard a bit more about the history of New York and learned about how New York really was a gang city with the Serpico family and others. It was a bit scary to hear about. We had two New Yorkers on the tour who said that New York, back in the 70's was a dump. It was horrible - there was corruption and at one point, during one Commission, about 75% of the cops were actually found to be dirty and corrupt. How terrible is that?

We also learned about the pool that was build - Olympic size - back during the Depression. During the summer, people were poor, angry and jobless. To keep them from striking, the city build a pool! How smart is that? Instead of going out and picketing, they could go to the public pool, hang out with their families and enjoy. However, the poool turned out to be too much of an upkeep and ended up going down the drain. People demanded the city do something about it but they city refused. It ended up just being this gigantic waste of space until the 2000s when

The coolest bar ever, where they film
Daredevil and have the sketchiest of
people. 

people would actually, to protest the waste of public space, hold pool parties IN the pool. I wish I could get an invite.

We found out more about the different buildings in the area, such as one specific one that was recently rebuilt, it used to produce all the ink for the US bills! It's now more residential, however, I would never live in there because as I found out, there's actually a lot of uranium (or something to that affect) in the basement. Scary. They went bankrupt and were sued when the people found out that the waste from the factory was leaking into the river... the building had a "mysterious fire" and built something new. 

Heh. 

Wen found this out because there was a bar owner on the other side who found this stuff out from his customers. 

And this is one of the coolest bars ever - it's actually where they film some scenes from Daredevil (Never seen it, heard it's pretty okay). It's probably one of the best dive bars I've ever been in. There were quite a few "characters" inside the bar. I heard a lot about the area and what it was like before, how cheap the rent was and how NOBODY wanted to live there. It was called "Turkey's Nest Tavern." They actually give you alcohol... in a to-go cup with a lid and straw so that you can just take it and go.

How.

Awesome.

The Brooklyn Bowl. At one point they rented it out to the
SwedishRoyal family to hang out while they were in town. 

The place itself had a lot of character within it and I really really loved being in there. I will go back sometime I'm sure. They gave us some tasting of Brooklyn Brewery beer (Since the actual brewery would be so busy with so many people). 

We headed up the streets later, walked by the busy Brooklyn brewery and found out a lot of stuff with the beer scene. Actually, during the digging up of the aftermath of 9/11, the found crushed beer cans of beer that had not been produced for years. They realized that it was because the workers who were building the buildings originally... were drinking on the job and just throwing the crushed beer cans down into the pit to hide the evidence. Interesting.

Also found out that Brooklyn beer is the #2 selling beer in Sweden. People just absolutely love it there. Really they love anything that is "Brooklyn." 

Life quote right here

Actually the tour guide told me about his niece and how when she wants to say something's cool, she'll say, "that's Brooklyn." I want to bring this over to Canada.

We kept walking and ran into a place called "Brooklyn Bowl" Which is this REALLY awesome super
duper cool, gotta go back again bowling alley/concern hall/bar/cooler than wendy place. We were lucky enough to be able to go in as a group and on that day, there was actually a motorcycle show so we got to see a lot of motorcycles! And a live band play. It was pretty sweet. Going to bring all the cool kids there. 

Tru

We kept walking around and saw some really cool places - such as where original signs come from and graffiti advertisements!

We then headed over to the coolest, COOLEST, bookstore/CD/casette/Vinyl place ever. It was called "Rough Trade" and everything was kind of like the inside of a factory with factory carts. In the back, there was a small intimate place where bands could play and at the same place, there were ping pong tables where you could play ping pong. Yup. I meant cool. And the books were pretty unique and hipster too.

Afterwards, as the tour was coming down to a slow down, we headed over by the river and took some very nice photos. It was very casual so the tour guide was just telling us about stuff and having conversations. He actually said I was a pretty funny person and complimented my hair (I made a braid)! :) 

After the tour, my friend and I went off to find RAINBOW bagels and boy did we find them (Holy

Concert venue was small, they had everything, ping pong, music
books, good vibes, great building

crap thuogh $4 a bagel WITHOUT the cream cheese). So we waited in line for a bit and then had to wait about 30 minutes. So we decided to go for a walk.

As we were walking down, we saw the neighbourhood, which is by Williamsburg bridge really change. I mean yeah, there was one beautiful restaurant, Peter Luger (Holy crap there was a guy working for the restaurant holding the door for guests, and when we asked for the menu, the 'steak for two' was about $110, heart attack pls stop. He also told us that if we ever came back we would ahve to have a reservation). But we got into a much poorer area where you could tell that some people had just not grown up with the same opportunities or possibilities as though who are more well off. 

People called this an "abomination"

Even as we went into the McDonalds to use the washroom, the washrooms auto-locked and there were no mirrors or tissues in there.. It was not the most pleasant place. 

My thoughts exactly

However, we walked back to get our bagels and our moods definitely changed. We grabbed them and went on our way. They were beautiful and actually not too bad - very salty and sweet and spongey. As we were walking out, I heard some guy say "only tourists would get something like that." 

But it's an experience.

Right?

yum

After that little snack, we headed over to find some Mexican food and found this really sweet Taco place, Dos Toros which was amazing. For about $4 I got this taco that was just slathered with good delicious food. Meat was moist, veggies were fresh and the shell was the bomb. 

We sat for a bit, talked and people watched before we headed home. Unfortunately, the train was stopped for quite a bit. When I finally did get home, it was quite late in the evening and my roommate came back with KEY LIME PIE, FRESH KEY LIME PIE and it was the most delicious concoction I had ever had my whole life. God it was so good and fresh and just done right. I ended up working a bit on the blog and just pittering around. I watched the newest episode of Game of Thrones and then cried. 

That was my day. Long but good! 

Friends by the New York highline :)