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
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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).
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| 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.
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| 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
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!
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| Free tickets :3 |
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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
