Birthday

Today was my birthday. On the advice of a coworker I decided to take the day off. Great call. Mark and I were able to sleep in which was great as it was a gym day so we would normally be waking up at 6 am. Since I wasn't working we could take our time. I woke up at 6:45.

We've had some great weather but instead of the beautiful sunny day we woke up to overcast with a bit a drizzle. Luckily the drizzle didn't stick around. I convinced Juliana to take the day off as well so we all went down to the West Village to an area called Little Britain to a restaurant called A Salt & Battery for fish and chips. There is another British shop/restaurant next door called Tea and Sympathy and they have a real London cab complete with left hand drive and an UK license plate. It was pretty cool. The fish and chips were really tasty. We walk around for a bit and then headed home for a nap. For dinner we went to a really tasty hole in the wall that serves amazing fresh sandwiches and wraps. We got it to go and took it home and watched The Muppet Movie. Hilarious.

All in all it was a really great birthday. Super chill, just the way I like it.

Brunch

Brunch is a quintessential Manhattan experience. Mark and I had never been, so after our run yesterday we went to a place called Manchester Diner. Now, a lot of the major restaurants do brunch on the weekends and its no joke. There is even a website brunchinnewyork.com where you can go and read reviews and make reservations etc. Manchester Diner is a small neighborhood diner so they aren't on that site. They are also decidedly cheaper than a lot of places in the city.

Any who. We sit down immediately which is nice. I was afraid we were going to have to wait but apparently most people are still hung over from the night before and don't make it in before noon. When we first sat down they just gave us the normal breakfast menu so Mark had to ask for the brunch menu. The first thing listed was eggs Benedict. I knew that was it for me. It was a fairly simple menu with 3 different kinds of eggs Benedict (normal, smoked salmon, and crab cakes). There were a couple frittas, a Greek yogurt parfait, a Mexican wrap and a few other things.When the lady came up to take our order Mark decided he was going to be "that guy" and after asking for the brunch menu order something off the regular breakfast menu because he wanted pancakes. The food was really good. I am always slightly wary of ordering eggs Benedict because of the hollandaise sauce. But these eggs Benedict were just amazing and the hollandaise was perfect.

Brunch is definitely a new favorite and if you've never been before I would suggest it.

Right Outside My Window

This week marks 2 years since I've moved to New York. It's been fantastic. New York is an incredibly original city with a very diverse population. You can always find something to do here. I have really enjoyed living here and I've never really worried about living here. That is until this past week...

Last Friday Mark and I had just left the gym when we heard a loud crunching sound behind us. We turned to see that a minivan had run into the back of a parked city bus and was then subsequently t-boned by a FedEx truck. You would think living in a city with as much traffic that New York has a person would see more accidents. Well, in the two years I have been here that was the first accident I have ever seen. Mark went over to check on the guy and he claimed to be doing alright despite spitting a suspicious amount of blood.

The night before last we were rudely awoken by the sound of gunshots. There were 4 to start followed by a couple more. I think Mark would have slept right through them had I not jostled him awake when the last shot went off. He will say otherwise, that he was awake and alert, like a "jungle cat" (his words, not mine). When I looked out the window there were two cop cars down the street and they looked like they had been there for a while, their lights weren't on. Mark told me to go back to sleep and then turned over and did just that. I had a harder time falling back asleep. I realized that though I knew and heard about shootings in New York I never expected one to wake me up in the middle of the night. Yesterday I scoured the web trying to find any information about what had happened to no avail. We'll probably never know what happened, Mark thinks it was a drug bust gone wrong but I'm not sure about that.

While my first experience isn't anything too shocking the second causes a person to pause. I don't think it's change how I feel about New York, I still love this city and I am so amazed that I have been able to live here. After all of this the next logical step can only be a giant gorilla attack. I'll let you know how it goes.

the weird things you see...

...on a New York City sidewalk. I was walking home from work the other night and I walked past a livery cab driver spray painting some random piece of something next to his car and I realized that New Yorkers will do just about anything on the sidewalk or the street. New Yorkers don't have front yards or backyards. They don't have their own garage or drive way. Many things that would normally get done in those places occure instead on the sidewalk.

When I got home the other night I asked everyone what the weirdest thing they ever saw someone do on a sidewalk and the popular answer was pee. There is a lot of public urination that happens here. One hopes, as they are walking down the street, that the puddles of pee are from dogs not humans but you can never be sure. My personal favorite is the curbside car wash. This may just be in my neighborhood but it makes me smile whenever I see it. Basically some guy has a shopping cart that's full of buckets of soapy water, rags and squeegees and he will wash cars wherever they are. The best is when they are moving from one car to the next pushing their shopping cart full of sloshing water managing to not spill a drop. Just imagine what this guy does but mobile.

I usually walk the same 10 blocks to and from work so I see the same things everyday with little variety. Mark has been temping for the University as a messenger so he really gets around the Upper West Side. He'll tell us about the things he sees and in the last few days he has told us some really good ones. A personal favorite is when he saw two hobos fighting over the same street corner. The so called owner of the street corner was accusing the other hobo of stealing the spot and subsequently any change to be earned. He even went as far as to try and take the change the spot stealing hobo had in his cup. It's a pretty funny image.

I think all of the weird things that happen on the streets help make New York what it is. Without them, it wouldn't be the same.