Best of the Best, Including Almost Meeting Chuck Bass

Great stuff I did in NYC

Friday
I went and picked up Katie from Penn station, and then we took on Bryant Park, the library, Rockefeller Center, Dean & Deluca, FAO Schwarz, Times Square, and Central Park. Central Park was much welcomed after being trampled by tourists all day long in midtown. We wandered around and watched old men play croquet on one of the lawns, and then we layed out on Sheep's Meadow until we regained the strength to subway home during rush hour. After that, we went to dinner with L & M in the West Village. If I ever make my millions, a West Village walk-up is where I will invest in real estate. PERFECTION! ITALIAN MEN SERVING ME PENNE! MAGNOLIA BAKERY CUPCAKES! GREEK BAR AND OUZO!

Saturday
L, M, K, and I got huge ass bagels for breakfast and then walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to go to the 13th annual DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass) street art festival. One really rad element was this woman who'd laid out hundreds of paper squares for people to paint on. The paint was inside ice cubes, and as the ice cubes melted, it created these vibrant paint patterns on the squares. We came back later in the day to check out how our blobs were, and I must say that mine was quite gorgeous! If my fucking computer wasn't dead, I would post a picture of it. After DUMBO, we ventured further into the Hipster Heart of Darkness: Williamsburg. We bumbed around and looked at shops and people-watched. Then we walked back to Manhattan and went to The High Line, which is an old Elevated Train that has been remodeled into a public park: http://www.thehighline.org/.
On the way back we went through the Chelsea Food Market, then through the Meatpacking District, and then we saw Will Ferrell and Marky Mark filming a movie. RADICAL!
For dinner we went to my cousin's restaurant, Tortilla Flats http://nymag.com/listings/bar/tortilla_flats/. She was super generous and gave us copious amounts of FREE TEQUILA! Margs, shots, margs, shots, it just kept coming and coming! And then she gave us a free brownie cake at the end of the night to soak up the booze. Free tequila + brownie = true family love. My cousin is pretty much the best. It was great to walk into a Manhattan restaurant, be greeted by family, and then not have to wait to be seated, AND get a free meal. IDEAL NYC NIGHT. The restaurant is also a bar, so we didn't leave until 2, and then passed out at M's.

Sunday
Brunch at Essex House in the Lower East Side. $18 for 3 alcoholic drinks (mine were mimosas) and an entree and a huge ass breakfast roll. AMAZING. It's super trendy and young and delish. We were there for like, 3 hours, just eating and drinking. Morning drunk = you're happy all day.
After that we headed to Times Square so that we could get tickets from the TKTS booth for Mary Poppins. Yes, I am that cool. We then waited around in a tiny cafe off of Broadway until the show. While waiting, we met the famous Naked Cowboy, chatted with him while eating Black and White cookies, and then watched him drive off in his escalade. As L said, "He probably needs a car that big to fit all his underwear in". True dat. Then we saw Mary Poppins. I'm not going to lie, it was the best fucking musical I've ever seen. FIREWORKS, people! FLYING! TAPDANCING! A SEXY BURT THE CHIMNEY SWEEP! Then we got dinner at the Shake Shack and fell asleep from an all-day food and mimosa coma.

Monday
M works for a Jewish law firm, and it was Yom Kippur, so she didn't have to work! THANKS, YAHWEH!
It was BEAUTIFUL weather, 65 and sunny and not humid, so we walked to the MoMA. My favorite museum anywhere. I even like it better than the Tate Modern.
Post-museum, I went to meet up with my cousin while M and K did Battery Park and L worked (sorry L). We met at Washington Square park, by the marble arch, and then walked to the West Village where we ate lunch at a western-inspired restaurant. Catfish, corn on the cob, mac and cheese. YUM. Then we went to my new favorite French cafe, Clafe Cluny, http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/Cafe-Cluny/ (check out the image slideshow because the inside is perfection), for coffee and dessert. Cousin then took me to her restaurant, where we chatted and did the crossword puzzle and hung out with her awesome co-workers. It was such a great afternoon. I love becoming friends with my family members. We're a very close family, but it's nice for us cousins to interact with each other as friends, now that we're older, rather than relatives. Plus, no one is as weird as I am except for my cousins, so it's rather comforting to be around someone who shares all the same strange habits as me.
PS. Apparently Dan and Serena (aka Penn Badgely and Blake Lively) frequent Tortilla Flats on a weekly basis. However, the big story is that if we had gotten to the restaurant 10 MINUTES EARLIER, I WOULD HAVE MET CHUCK BASS and vanessa. I MISSED OUT ON MEETING CHUCK BASS. FUCK! MY! LIFE! But Cousin and I did sit in his booth and tried to soak up his aura. I hope none of vanessa rubbed off on me. I don't want none of that!
Garrett: I tried to go to Muji after dessert, and it was closed. FML.
Monday night we went out for a GREAT dinner at a Thai chain (except not in an Applebees-type way) called Spice http://www.spicethainyc.com/spice/. They have a couple throughout the city, but the one in Chelsea is tiny, dark, and intimate. And full of booze. We had lots of lychee martinis. The Drunken Man noodles were excellent. I said goodbye to L as she walked down the steps to the subway. So cinematic! So sad. I can now say that I've cried on the streets of NY.

Tuesday
K and I went to Billy's Bakery for breakfast http://www.billysbakerynyc.com/. We had two cupcakes each. BEST BREAKFAST EVER!
Garrett: I tried to go to Muji AGAIN and it didn't open until 11am, and we had to be on a train at 11:20. EPIC FAIL!
The weather was like, perfect fall day in NY, and we didn't want to leave. AT ALL. It totally sucked to pack and say goodbye to the city and train it out to Newark. But do you know what sucked MOST OF ALL??? When muthafuckin AirTran (never, ever fly AirTran) cancelled my flight and gave me a ticket to fly out of LAGUARDIA at 3:45. It was already 1, and it can take up to 2 hours to get to Laguardia from Newark. FUCK. My cabbie was amazing, though. I yelled at him a little through the Lincoln tunnel, and he hauled ass to Queens, man. No joke, I made it from New Jersey to Queens in 57 minutes. I counted. On the bright side, I got to drive through Manhattan and say goodbye a second time. I think it's a sign that the city doesn't want me to leave. Right???

Anyway, that was my time in New York. Sorry there are no pics. Take that up with my fucking computer. Way to die on me, Toshiba, way to die.