A New York Minute: Serendipitous Saturday or The Day of Happy Accidents

I woke with a hangover, so running was out of the question.  I looked our our window, praying for sun, and luckily that is exactly what I saw...

Concrete Jungle. 

Concrete Jungle

Concrete Jungle

Thrilled by weather, Briggs and I got ourselves together and headed back to our favorite breakfast spot, Crumbs Bakeshop...

Peanut Butter Cupcake: delicious, but a little rich for a morning after drinking...

While eating we somehow or other got on the subject of our birthdays this coming summer and decided we needed to have a joint birthday (our birthdays are a month apart).  At first, we thought about doing a Moulin Rouge theme but finally settled on a Midsummer's Night theme.  I'm sure there will be posts about the planning of this event, so check back...

Anyways, Briggs felt the need to organize our day somewhat, so she took my phone from me to figure out the best route to ABC Home & Carpet which was in Union Square.  I thought that heading that way sounded good since a friend of mine had suggested Max Brenner as a good place for some hot chocolate. 

Briggs, navigating...

So, we headed out.  I was so pleased with the weather and sun (I love the sun) that I had to keep stopping to take pictures...

Garment District

The Garment Worker, to honor the Jewish immigrants who worked in the sweatshops

A McDonald's without the Golden Arches...thought it was weird.

Garment District/Parsons

We hopped the train down to Union Square, where we were surprised to find a Farmers' Market happening.  Being from Iowa, this sort of tickled our fancy.  A Farmers' Market...in The City...in the middle of winter.  So weird.  It made for some good people watching while we walked and again I felt the need to take a picture...

It hardly looks like a city...and look at that sky!

I knew at this point that Saturday was going to be awesome.  I got some much needed energy from the sun and I could literally feel some luck pumping through my veins.  I was a bit chilly though, so we headed to Max Brenner to get my hot chocolate.

I think a photo will express my experience better than I ever could (side note, it was a small cup, my hands are not huge):

I needed a wet nap after.  That good.

I also thought their cups were funny...

It reads "Chocolate by the Bald Man" 

As we walked out of Max Brenner, we came upon some interesting sidewalk chalk art:

"60 Faces" by Felix Morelo and my shadow

Quirky, cute, little faces

 The artist, Felix Morelo, draws small faces, counting them as he goes.  I thought they were cute and quirky.  I'm not sure how long he did them, but it must have been for quite some time because we came upon more of them when we were bar hopping in the East Village/Lower East Side later that night.  What a happy accident for two quirky girls from the Midwest.

We then ventured to ABC Home and shopped.  While there, I was asked by no less than three people for directions.  One person I could help (they needed the subway to go uptown) but the other two asked me how to get to Bloomingdale's and I had to let them know that I wasn't from NYC.  The sweet tourists were surprised and said that I fit right in...whatever that means.

There wasn't much in my budget at ABC Home, but I did find a few small items to make my own:

Another note card, that I intend to frame.

A baggie for Tarot deck (shown holding crap from my trip)

After ABC Home, we wanted to go to the Main Library Branch, so we got directions from my phone and according to it we just needed to walk a few blocks, so we did just that and along the way we stumbled upon a delightful kitchen accessories store called Fishs Eddy.  I was immediately struck with their window displays:

Colorful quirky!

Whimsical Charm!

It reads, "Kitchen Weapons"

They encourage mixing up your dishes.  Me likey.

Just delightful!

We of course, had to venture inside and look around.  I saw several things I wanted and could actually afford since their prices were relatively reasonable, but I didn't want anything that could possibly break when I was schlepping it back to Iowa, so I just grabbed their card.  This happy accident resulted in my already planning to buy some dishes from them after I move out there this August (gift cards for my birthday and/or housewarming will be welcomed :D). 

Back on the path to what we thought was the Main Library...just a couple more blocks...and not the right branch.  Crap.  My phone had failed us again.  At this point we were both hungry so we decided to find someplace to eat.  I'd been craving a lox bagel since we arrived and searched for a deli where I could get one.  Lots of them in the area served them...just not past 11 am.  Oh well, it was not to be, so I settled for some tacos...

NYC version of Tacos

As I'd mentioned in previous posts, NYC does not know good Mexican food.  These tacos were dry and bland.  Even the salsa was bland.  The only part I enjoyed was the shell which was made of flour instead of corn.

Citi Pond was very scenic...

Bryant Park.  I loved the trees contrasting with the cityscape.

Lurrrvvvv...

It looked cold, but it really wasn't that bad.

Citi Pond.  There were several teenagers/couples making out. 

We finally saw the back entrance to the library and went in.  I thought the murals in the Children's Reading Room were fantastic, and the library itself was lovely but as I'm not a huge Beaux Arts lover, I split up from Briggs so she could go explore while I sat for a bit.

I never sat because I came upon an exhibit called: Three Faiths - Judaism, Christianity, Islam.  The exhibit showed many of the library's rare religious texts (including a their Gutenberg Bible - I've now seen two of them).  Their goal was to educate people into the ways the three faiths are alike so they can coexist better (love it).  For my friends who have been reading my blog for awhile and know about my personal religious journey, you can probably guess that I was most drawn to the Jewish texts.  Not only are they beautiful, but the depth of them was phenomenal.  I was literally speechless over them (Briggs noticed).  I wasn't allowed to take pictures, for obvious reasons, but the written Hebrew language is absolutely one of the most lovely things I've ever seen (and I studied typography in depth, so that's saying something).   Obviously another happy accident. 

We eventually left the exhibit (it was very crowded because it was the last day) and ventured into the gift shop.  I was again looking for something small that I could take with me to either frame or wear and came upon these lovelies...

Bookmarks of the mural in the Children's Reading Room!

This completely made my day, as I had been bummed that I couldn't take pictures of them while in the Reading Room (happy accident!).  This is better, I'm going to frame them in sets of three and have them displayed together.  Kinda like this (but with frames and matting and not carpet)...

Double bonus?  There were two complete sets in each package, so I can frame a set for Briggs as a gift!  My next trip to Hobby Lobby is going to be expensive...note to self, start collecting coupons. 

We exited the Library through the main entrance and naturally had to take some pics with Leo (the Library's Lion Mascot).

Briggs was making me laugh...aren't these two Leos adorbs!

Briggs posed with the other Leo. 

And of course, a pic of the library itself...

I cannot express how HUGE this building is...pic doesn't do it justice.

We took a minute to think about the best way to get up to Central Park/Strawberry Fields and decided we needed to get on the train at Times Square.  We weren't overly excited about going back there, as it was Saturday and we could only imagine how crowded it would be, but it was really the best way.  So over and up we went and we eventually found ourselves in the Upper West Side.  We got into Central Park, and took a leisurely stroll up to Strawberry Fields.  On the way, I took this gorgeous picture of Briggs on a natural wood bridge...

The bridge and her just "go". 

We found the Imagine mosaic pretty easily, and it was all purdied up for us...

Hard to see in photo, but there are dice in the middle of it - anyone know the significance?

Briggs, wanted her picture with it...

She looks so somber.

We then walked around Central Park a bit, just looking around and eventually sat down to just relax.  We people watched for a bit (we do this a lot) and then decided that since we were supposed to be meeting a friend of mine later that night that we should go chill out at the hotel for a bit so we weren't tired.  The subway we needed to get on was right next to The Dakota...

Honestly, one of the prettiest apartment buildings in Manhattan, but it gives me bad vibes.

Back at the hotel, we vegged for awhile.  Eventually my friend firmed up plans with us to meet in Chinatown around 10:00 at a bar called Fontana's.  We had some time to kill, so we first ventured out to find food.  For some reason, we both wanted Chipotle (which they seem to have every few blocks in midtown Manhattan).  This was the only time we ate at a chain that we also have in Iowa.  After dinner we realized that we still had A LOT of time to kill, so while I looked at my subway map, I came upon something that was only a few blocks away: The Museum of Sex (happy accident!).  Briggs decided this was a must see, so off we went.

The Museum is a hoot and a half.  As we didn't have hours upon hours to walk through it (and we wouldn't have wanted to hurry because it was around $18 a ticket), we didn't go into the museum part, but the gift shop was fun enough for us.  Briggs was bound and determined to find her man something in there, so while she looked around I kinda explored and came upon the most hilarious sign.  I felt weird taking a picture, so instead I bought a magnet of it:

Duly noted.

I showed it to Briggs and if we hadn't needed to be somewhere (if only we'd known we really didn't) this would have probably caused us to go on into it.  Instead Briggs made her purchase (she got him some Sex Panther soap, like from Anchorman.  Awesome.) and we started the journey to Chinatown.

Right outside the Museum we saw this window display from it...

Dildo Bouquet.  Awesome...we giggled about that for a couple blocks at least.

We got to Union Square in a very short amount of time, so we stopped into The Strand for a few more minutes.  While walking, we heard the best joke from a guy trying to get people to go to a stand-up show: "Ladies, this show is hilarious.  It's even funnier than my credit score!"  That got a good laugh from us (oh how I hate you student loans),  but we kept walking.

The Strand was busy, and Briggs was bummed because the Rare Books room was closed so we just turned around and left and headed to Chinatown figuring that if we were early, we'd just have a few beers while waiting for my friend. 

It should be noted that I had some anxiety about going to Chinatown, because I'd only ever been there once before  and I remember very vividly getting lost because the signs are all in Chinese.  So, this journey wasn't a fun one for me.  Luckily, my phone (for once!) gave us perfect directions and we arrived at the bar about 20 minutes early.  Fontana's was a chill dive/pub bar.  Perfect.  We grabbed a couple Molston's and sat down.  I let my friend know that we were there and he replied that was would be leaving any minute.  So we sat and talked and eventually started having men hit on us...

It should also be noted that neither of us really felt overly cute or pretty in NYC.  The women there are glamorous, and well, we're just average Midwestern girls.  And as this was just get together with a friend we didn't even get all gussied up.  I think we were both wearing sweaters, jeans and practical shoes.  We didn't even do our make-up.  Yet, the men were everywhere.  They pretty much ignored the women who were dressed up and obviously trolling, but were all over us.  I've surmised that this is because neither of us had the "I'm hot shit and out of your league so fuck off" attitudes written on our faces.  Basically, we were approachable. 

Anyways, there were two men who when we made it very clear that we were not there to hook-up but to meet a friend were still very friendly and sat down with us saying they'd just keep us company until my friend arrived.  Briggs and I got wrapped up in our discussions with the gentlemen and I forgot to check my phone...turns out that somewhere in there my friend's girlfriend got all weird on him and didn't want him to come because we had vaginas and thus would have to want to rape him in the middle of the bar (okay, I doubt she said that - but, really?!).

I was super-pissed (and let him know as much - 1.5 pints of beer causes me to lose all my tact - I feel bad about that now, but too late...) as well as disappointed and hurt because, well, I thought he was my friend.  With moving 1300 miles away from my friends and family, I really wanted a good friend when I got to NYC.  And I'm sure said girlfriend won't like him being friends with me when I'm actually living in the city.  Lame.

Disappointment formula strikes again!

We let the guys know that my friend had bailed so they asked if we wanted to bar hop with them.  We were not so sure yet and told them that we wanted to finish our beers before we decided.  A few minutes later they left to go find their friend, so I thought that was that and continued to drink.  Turns out, they really were trying to find their friend who was lost in Chinatown because they were right back.  At this point, we'd built enough trust to hang for them for the rest of the night so I made sure I had enough cash for a cab in case we needed to bail, and we started out with them.  Let's introduce you...

Brad, Frankie, Briggs

The Giant Fergus

These guys were a blast in a glass (happy accident that we met them!).  They all work together at a company that Brad had created where they make iPhone/iPod applications (PicBounce is their most famous free application - check it out).  Frankie was their designer (him and I geeked out over Adobe products and bonded over our cravings for decent Mexican food in NYC), Brad was the boss (I didn't talk to him much, Briggs and him chatted a lot though), and Fergus was the project manager.

Fun thing: Fergus was Irish, like born and raised in Ireland and could speak Celtic!  I didn't believe that he was really Irish so I made him prove it and I'm pretty sure he said a dirty limerick to me (deduced by the fact that he kept checking out my rack while saying it).  I didn't really care.  He also gave me a piggy back ride through the East Village which was awesome since he's at least 18 inches taller than me.  I should have taken photos from that vantage point, but I was holding on for dear life.

The guys wined and dined us the rest of the night, and we let them (Briggs' boyfriend said when we got home that this is proper as pretty girls should never buy their own drinks...awww).  The night is kinda a blur to me (as there were beers involved) but I know we went to these two bars (among others):

I think this is the bar that smelled like a diaper.

I remember having a really amazing beer here, I can't remember its name though.  Damn.

Briggs and I eventually looked like this...

Sweaty and buzzing!  The bars were crowded and thus hot.

At one bar, I played charades with a random guy (who told me he was a trained clown) while in line for the bathroom (the answer to what he was miming: snorting coke).  I took a pic of the bathroom "art" (I like graffiti)...

I actually remember fighting with this door because I forgot to slide it.  Doh!

Something to look at while washing my hands.

Around 3 am, Briggs and I were starting to get tired (makes sense as that's around the time the bars would close in Iowa) so we gave Brad our number so we could hang on Sunday and then went to bed.  We were exhausted.  It was a fun but long day and we were going to give Brooklyn a second try on Sunday.

Catch-up on my trip:

• A New York Minute: Freaking Friday or the Day of Funny Discussions  
• A New York Minute: Tourist Thursday or the Day We Kept Taking Wrong Turns
• A New York Minute: Whoo Hoo Wednesday!
• A New York Minute: By the Numbers