Blog Days 27 - 32

Again, it's been crazy busy! Here's a bit of a re-cap minus photos.

Day 27

We decided to make the trip out to Williamsburg in Brooklyn because we had heard it had awesome coffee and good boutique stores. We were not disappointed! The first stop for us was a cute little cafe called Vittoria where we actually had proper coffee (much to Sohan's excitement)!! A successful morning of shopping was had with Rachel and Sohan picking up some nice items both for themselves and gifts.

When it got time for lunch we decided we would do the touristy thing and head to Grimaldi's but looking at the map it was a fair way away and with no taxis in sight we decided to head to the East Village to go to another place we had been told about called Lil Frankie's. Once we finally found it, we saw it was closed on weekdays for lunch! We ended up going to Katz's Deli, the one from When Harry Met Sally, which was just around the co0rner. It was very overwhelming with lots of customers, probably a couple of hundred pictures of the owners and famous people lining the walls, but what was more overwhelming was the amount of meat in our sandwiches!

After four weeks of walking non-stop it was truly getting to Marni and Sohan, so we stopped by the Strand Bookshop but then these two headed to get a pedicure (we opted for the spa package) and chilled out for half an hour, while Rachel got lost in the 18 miles of books at the Strand.

On our way back to our apartment we stopped into Max Brenner for some hot chocolate (which they apparently do have in New York!), but also received a message from our friend Sean saying he was in the area so we headed back near our apartment to meet up with him and catch up which was nice! We then headed home to our pasta leftovers and headed into Times Square to get our Hershey's fix and buy s'more (graham cracker + melted choc + marshmallow) supplies - which were amazeballs by the way!

Day 28

We did another spot of shopping at Urban Outfitters and Bloomingdales and then headed to Chelsea to see the High Line Park and got sandwiches from the Chelsea Markets. After our lunch in the park we headed back home and got ready for BROADWAY!!! We met up with Sean at B and H Photos and then headed to his friends' rented apartment where we hung out with Tim, Paul, Matt and Noel.

We headed to the Minskoff Theatre for THE LION KING! Which was amazing for lack of a better word...we hung out with the boys for a bit longer and then said goodbye to Sean who heads off to London today!

Day 29

Today we actually slept in!! We had a chilled out morning and headed to Soho House in the Meat Packing district to meet Priya. Soho House is a members only club kind of thing which has a rooftop pool (we did not use), we ate amazing salads and headed out for a look around the shops. We found some awesome things that were slightly out of our price range but Marni managed to snag a jumper for $40!

We then headed out to Buttercup Bakery (we are basically doing a cupcake tour of NYC), Marni tried the banana pudding (amazeballs) and Rachel and Sohan got cupcakes and a brownie. After this sugar fix we got ready for dinner with Priya, we headed to her apartment and had a late dinner around 9:30, at an awesome restaurant called Ilili.

Day 30

We made the trek out to Coney Island, which is a long way from Manhattan! We walked around, had a hot dog, then decided we'd pretty much done Coney Island, so we headed back to the city for Fifth Avenue. We visited Saks Fifth Avenue (where Marni and Rachel actually bought something!), then visited Tiffany's & Co (where we all realised we could afford nothing), made a quick stop at Nike and Victoria's Secret, before dumping our stuff at the apartment, and going to a movie at a small cinema nearby. We'd decided on the new Woody Allen movie 'To Rome With Love', which was quite weird, and didn't entirely make sense, but was enjoyable all the same.

For dinner we tried to go to a Mexican place in the East Village recommended by Keith, but we couldn’t find it! So we settled on a cute pizzeria/bar.

Day 31

We had a chillaxed morning again, then made our way to the Little Owl for brunch, which happens to be at the bottom of the building that was used as the exterior for Friends! So we kinda went to the real life Central Perk!

We met Keith and Catherine at the City Hall Park, right near the Manhattan side of Brooklyn Bridge, then we walked across it in the disgusting heat and humidity that we had! We walked past Grimaldi's and saw the long line out the door and were glad we weren't waiting in that. We wandered around for a bit to find something for lunch, and finally stopped at a place where we had a view of both Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge and the East River. Once we were cool once again, we ran to the subway, trying not to get wet from the huge drops of rain that were falling from the sky.

Once back in Manhattan we were feeling pretty drained, so we just went back to the apartment, got clean and chilled by watching the stupid movies on our only good TV channel, which included a clean version of The Hangover (which was a very strange experience...) We also got pizza from nearby and ate on the couch which was fun!

Day 32

The day started off with a trip to Amy's Bread in Hell's Kitchen which had been reccommended to us. We made the mistake of getting drinks instead of the awesome looking pastries and bread on display, none of us were too impressed with our beverages. We then got a taxi to Riverside Park where we chilled for a while, played on the swings and seesaws, and then walked over to Zabar's Delicatessan where we had sandwiches. A trip to Ben&Jerry's was also in order since we were yet to visit there, so we got on the subway to one uptown, which was so good! We went back to Bloomingdales for Sohan and Marni to do some last minute gift shopping, then we got ready for the evening. We met Rachel's friend Sofie in Central Park, and we had another little picnic while listening to the New York Philharmonic. So many people turned up, the lawn was packed!! We left early, as the dark, the bugs and our tiredness were getting to us.