I heart New York

A couple of weekends ago, I went up to New York for a quick little overnight trip with my friend, Karin.  Karin and I have known each other since we were 4 year olds in tap class and have been close friends since middle school.  Her house was an extension of my house in high school, I was a bridesmaid in her wedding and even though she now lives in Chicago, we're still as close as ever and try to get away for little trips every so often.  She was already going to be back in DC for a conference so we just popped up the coast for a little vacay in the Big Apple!

Karin snagged us a FANTASTIC deal on Le Parker Meridian from Priceline and her Starwood card got us upgraded to a super high floor with a view of Central Park.  Sure, it's all brown this time of the year, but still pretty darn cool.

After checking in and changing out of our travel clothes, we hit the streets.  It was a beautiful sunny day, chilly but not ridiculously so.  We headed all the way downtown to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.  I love suspension bridges - always have.  Just glimpsing one gives me this tingly feeling inside. 

But first, a stop for a hot dog.  Why do NYC vendor hot dogs taste so freaking fantastic?  And as a Chicagoan, Karin got a kick out of being able to get one with just ketchup.

We walked from Manhattan to Brooklyn so our skyline shots are of Brooklyn.  But that's just fine by me.  Plus it's a lot easier to find the bridge entrance from the Manhattan side.

All of my pictures are skewed a bit right because I was being a good pedestrian and staying out of the bike lane. 

The Verrazano Bridge in the distance.  My dad's from Brooklyn and we would cross over this bridge when visiting his side of the family.  Betcha this is where I got my early bridge-love.

I was enthralled with all the cables.  It made me feel like I was on a sailboat.

On the other side of the bridge, we got completely lost trying to find Brooklyn Bridge Tourist Attraction, Grimaldi's pizza.  But it was so sunny and we were wearing comfortable shoes so it didn't matter.  Finally we found the right block.

But the line was 90 minutes long.  Ridic, especially as we heard it wasn't really the best pizza ever, just the oldest.  And around the block was another pizza place with only a 5 minute wait and we thought it was pretty darn tasty.  Especially when paired with a Brooklyn Brown Ale.

And I was able to get some more shots of the bridge from a different angle, which made me very happy.

We wandered around Brooklyn Heights for at least an hour, working off that pizza and dreaming about living in the neighborhood.  Both of us would have a hard time turning down one of those brownstones!

We headed back into Manhattan to change for dinner.  We went to The Spotted Pig and managed to get a spot at the bar after only 30 minutes.  A heck of a lot better than the estimated 90 minutes for a table.  And I often prefer sitting at the bar - it's more lively.  We shared orders of deviled eggs, devils on horseback, gnudi and the most meltingly rich burger ever.  Washed it all down with a couple glasses of really yummy Zinfandel - yeah, we were happy girls.

Popped into the ladies' room where I was greeted with the most ridiculous wallpaper ever.  It went from the walls to the ceiling with no break for molding.  I had to take a picture, though it's hard to get the impact.  About 3/4 the way up the picture is where the ceiling starts.  But lovelovelove their ridiculously huge scale.  It was a little overwhelming, but in a totally energizing way.  THIS is how a tiny bathroom should be decorated.  Over-the-top ridiculousness.  My favorite.

The next morning was still bright and sunny and while a bit colder, still not too bad.  We walked down to Times Square and snagged 1/2 price tickets for La Cage Aux Folles - orchestra row M.  Love it!

We headed back north and stopped at the Carnegie Deli for lunch.

Where we proceeded to totally crush the Woody Allen sandwich - pastrami AND corned beef.

We asked for extra bread so we could make two normal sized sandwich halves out of each half of that monstrosity, but I didn't even touch my extra bread.  Just divine - everything a good deli sandwhich should be.  And the mustard?  Heaven.

More walking, this time through Central Park where we happened upon a statue of one of my ancestors - Robert Burns.  Pretty sure it's a winding path to get to me from him, but he's a relation nonetheless so I was pretty excited.

We spent so long walking through the park that we had to hop in a taxi to make it back down to Broadway.  The play was delightful and the drive home was completely uneventful.

All in all, it was a perfectly perfect weekend.  Can't wait to do it again!