#2 and #3: 35 Blocks to Mother Burger

Mother Burger

329 W 49th Street 

Between 8th & 9th Aves

Forever 21 
(Times Square)
1540 Broadway

Other places we went:

Empire State Building (We didn't go inside this time though)

The Sak (NOT the store!)

Madison Park

Pink Accessories

NYC Public Library Book Walk

Times Square

Today was most certainly a true New York City adventure! We went a trillion places. (Overstatement, yes, but oh well.) We started out on W13th, the street where Karissa's school is and I had to go to the doctors' office. We didn't really know where to go so we just started walking towards Union Square where we stopped at little jewelry places and looked at all the delicious veggies in the farmers market, talked about how much we wanted bakery food but didn't bother stopping to get any! 

We were also pretty close to the place where Karissa has an upcoming interview so we decided to walk through it. That had us cutting through Madison park, where people lay lounging and enjoying the REALLY nice weather, there was a man with a guitar, and it was all really chill. 

From there, we somehow ended up in the vicinity of the Empire State Building, where we stopped to look in Pink Accessories "For all your accessorizing needs." To say they're not kidding would be an UNDERSTATEMENT. They have any kind of jewelry you could ever think of. In every color. It was so awesome, albeit a tad pricey. $7.50 for a pair of studs? I'm sorry, Deal$ offers the same looking thing for $3.99 and I get a pack of 12. 

Karissa outside Pink

Somehow from there we wound up right in front of the Empire State Building, where these sketchy vendors tried to get us to buy tickets to not only the ESB, but for the Statue of Liberty... In the case anyone doesn't know, the ONLY authorized people to sell tickets to get on the Island where the statue is located is Statue Cruises (you can get tickets for that here). Any other vessels are PROHIBITED from docking on the Island. Don't get ripped off. 

Well, after that, we decided we were hungry. And we'd already walked like 20 Blocks to the ESB (W34th), so we obviously deserved food. I had had drinks at this placed called Mother Burger at the beginning of the summer and kinda wanted to check out their food. I subtly dropped hints at Karissa that that's where we should eat. (I even offered to pay for a cab!) In the end, we decided we should walk it "wasn't that far". Well, good thing we walked because we got to go to the NYC Public Library book walk together! 

The introduction to the book walk

Then we were starving, so we meandered through Times Square, had a small detour adventure and then we finally found it: MOTHER BURGER! Our waiter was super friendly, and it turns out he's from Boston, and moved here with his girlfriend (who's a medical student in her residency). We ordered amazingly delicious frozen margaritas (at $4 you can't even go wrong!) and some fooooooood! That's right, look at Karissa's dinner and be jealous!

Karissa's dinner. Just look at those FRIES!

After dinner, we walked to Forever 21 and got lost in all the amazingly beautiful stuff. Whoever thought it was a good idea to let the two of US loose in a clothing store is crazy. A lesson learned from shopping in Times Square, if you have to pee... just go to the Marriot. Forever 21 "doesn't have public restrooms" and Disney's were "upstairs, but the upstairs is closed." WHAT does that even mean, Disney store?? 

All in all it was a fantastical adventure. And we walked 35 blocks all together. We're a powerhouse. 

Our first picture together as New Yorkers!

Muppets Give Ideas for Taking Manhattan

#1: True Confessions About Kapers, and Bars We're Not Welcome to Pee In

OUR FIRST OFFICIAL ADVENTURE!

Dias y Flores Community Garden 

East 13th between Avenues A & B

Lets start with a little background information on Dias y Flores Community Garden, shall we? According to their WordPress page (click on dis link): "[Their purpose is to] provide a green, beautiful, restful, safe, and congenial space for gardeners to garden and for the community to enjoy." They do cool stuff like have community meetings, other functions (such as readings for The New School). And they GROW stuff. And help to give local schools and health clinics to become envolved in the use of the garden. They offer cool stuff like classes for tai chi and yoga, and horticulture, and drawing, and herbal sciences. Seriously though, how freakin cool is this place?!

The rules of the garden soiree are simple: bring something to share. So everyone there read poetry, or short stories, or shared their artwork, or their ICE CREAM MAKING skills. It was really fantastic. Not to mention delicious. The day was full of great conversations, friend making, advice giving, story telling, and the discovery that two very simple things that can make a person happy: "orgasms and kapers."

There was also never ending wine in Sesame Street Dixie cups, beer, and a lot of ice cream. And after a serving or two of each, one obviously would need a restroom. So a small group of us headed over to this bar, the name I can't recall right now, and walked to the back to use the bathrooms. The other two went first, and Karissa and I stood outside waiting, the owner/ manager/ resident short latino man came over to tell us how "rude" we were for not asking if we could use the bathroom. "Did you ask anyone? It's just polite. It's just good manners. This restroom is only for customers you know. It's just good manners." So we quickly hurried up and got out of that place and went back to the garden.

Karissa being beautiful and reading
some amazing words.
Photo courtesy of  Ananya Sundararajan

The walkway into the garden

Discussing Emily Dickinson with Eddie

Kevin in the tree

Kevin making home made ice cream.
He learned how from Ice Cream Jim, you know

New friends :) Abby & Maryanne

More of Kevin in the tree

New Yorkers

It's official! Janyce has a job and finally has moved all of her things! Karissa has started school and moved all of her things!

WE'RE NEW YORKERS!
:)