WaLk, ShOp, ChoMp NYC

Friday afternoon I hopped on a bus to NYC. Then I remembered why you don't hop on a NYC-bound bus on a Friday: a severe thunderstorm and the usual accident prone I95 added two hours onto my trip. Instead of arriving at 6pm, I arrived at 8pm to the greeting of a borrowed umbrella from my friend. From there, our three-day adventure began:

Day 1: Our first stop was at the Hotel Pennsylvania so I could use the toilets--I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS--The restrooms are in the basement level, which are dimly lit and down a small corridor. I had to go back up and get the key from a bellhop and when we returned, there was a creepy looking man playing with himself and hovering near the girls bathroom. When he saw us, he walked away and we quickly went into the restroom, making sure it shut behind us. As we walked in, there was a sitting area that was vacant except for one chair covered in plastic. I commented, "this looks like a crime scene." We shuddered a bit then entered the restroom. Suddenly I felt someone walk slowly by my stall and was curious that a woman would be so quite, we're generally clip-cloppy creatures. Next thing I know, DM is tapping on my door for me to hurry and when I get out she just yells, "RUN!" Somehow the man had gotten into the bathroom and had been giving DM weird looks. We sprinted out of the bathroom, up the stairs and told the bellhop that there was currently a very creepy man hanging out in the woman's bathroom. Second stop, we walked to Shake Shack for a much needed burger and chocolate-peanut butter shake. Heaven. At this point it was really late and we were both tired, so we made our third and final stop of the night at DM's friend's apartment in Harlem. They were out of town for the weekend so we had the whole place to ourselves. We were going to watch a movie on Netflix but by the time we got it working, we both fell asleep.

Day 2. We first headed down to Time Square to get tickets to Memphis. Okay, I secretly wanted to either see the Book of Mormon or Spider Man but those were ridiculously hard to get, and probably better for my soul and/or brain cells that they were sold out. After purchasing tickets, he hopped onto the 3 and made our way to our second stop, the Brooklyn Flea Market. We wandered, tried on clothes, tested out jewelry, scoped out furniture, at fish tacos and came away with a dress and a necklace/earring set for me and two dresses for DM. We then made our way to Spring Street and began wandering up to Pinkberry. Of course, it took us quite a bit of time to get there because we stopped at MAC for some bright blue eyeshadow (3), H&M for more dresses (4), Zara for matching mustard colored belts (5), then Rice to Riches (6) and finally Pinkberry (7). After indulging in a small marscapone and cherries rice pudding then a small pomegranate frozen yogurt, we walked up Broadway towards the Strand--of course stopping at the Gap (8) for a browse. The Strand (9) was ridiculously crowded so we left and popped into Max Brenner for an early dinner (10). I then dragged her to the best Duane Reade (11) in NYC for a nail polish scan... where I bought "You Don't Know Jacques" and "Pink Flamenco". Then, we sat in Washington Square (12) and painted our nails. That is, after DM ran into someone she knew, and an old ladies with Alzheimer's thought I was someone she knew. When all was said and done, we took the subway up to Time Square (13), did some good people watching(14) while eating more of our rice puddings and headed to Memphis (15). After the show, we were strangely starving again so went to this little pizza stand for a slice(16) --it is amazing! Find the Church of Scientology, go next door to the pizza stand with no name and get a slice of the mozzarella, tomato basil pizza; you can thank me later. Finally, we headed to Time Square and caught the next train back up to Harlem where we promptly fell asleep, thoroughly exhausted.

Day 3. Our first stop of the day was to DM's friend's apartment on 79th and Amsterdam where we made pancakes for breakfast then walked the ten blocks to our second stop: church.
After sacrament, DM and I parted ways for the afternoon while I spent time with my friend RS. RS and I started walking down 79th and happened upon stop number three, a Pinkberry. We chatted, enjoyed our yogurts then made our way to a local flea market for stop number four. During our wanderings we also crossed paths with a girl I knew (hello small world!) and chatted for a bit. Then, we made our way downtown after stopping at Trader Joes (5) for some water. Once downtown we simply wandered until I realized my bus ticket had been deleted from my inbox. Eeep! We got it sorted out (6), then wandered and chatted some more until it was time for my 3:30 bus. DM called me and I popped into Wendy's (7) to get us some dinner for the ride home. Then, RS jumped on a train to his home and I jumped on a bus to mine. Despite 2 quick emergency stops on the side of the road, we managed to get home in 4 hours 15 minutes. That just might be a record for me.