I know, I know. This is pretty long overdue. But, hopefully the sheer awesomness and utter brilliance of my writing will 'wow' you enough to forget I'm writing about a weekend that occurred an entire 2 WEEKS ago!! For all of you loyal fans tuning in this week, you will surely know that none other than a certain 'Charlie Plageman' was the newest of the visitors to invade New York, and this blog post is dedicated to capturing the essence of his visit.
The theme of the weekend was eating and walking the food off. Then repeat. The phrase of the weekend was: Dude, this is the best thing ever! Christine and I probably said the phrase about 20 times each, using it to describe anything and everything about New York to her faithful bro. Example: "We need to eat at Magnolia Bakery, they're the best cupcakes ever!!" or "Central Park is the best park ever!!", etc. I'm sure Charlie wasn't buying it from the start, but he was willing to go anywhere in the City. The first stop of the weekend was at this sushi joint down in the West Village that Christine and I had spotted a few weeks prior. Knowing Charlie as the sushi connoisseur that he is, we felt the need to broaden our own palettes and try some sushi. It was pretty dern good. Highlight of the dinner: Christine mistaking wasabi(ridiculously and painfully spicy substance) for avocado spread, and seeing her face as she realized it wasn't a spoonful of avocado she had just eaten with her sushi. Priceless.
After the sushi house, we rocked out all the way up to Times Square, rolled over to 6th ave and hit up Magnolia Bakery to mack on some cupcakes. (remember, the best cupcakes ever!!?) We made the short walk to Rockefeller plaza with a prime viewing of the tree, still in full force, while inhaling our cupcakes. As usual, red velvet was far and away the best flavor. Since poor little old Charlie was tired (and so was I), we hung out for a little while longer then hit the sack, in eager anticipation for the weekend spent exploring the urban jungle of Manhattan.
Bright and early Saturday morning, Charles and I went up to the Upper West Side to meet Christine for breakfast. Yeah, we took him to The Restaurant. If you have seen Seinfeld, you understand the importance of this place. If you haven't seen Seinfeld, well, I don't really know why I bother. This was the only time during the weekend where, when describing the food, used adjectives such as: "mediocre," "ehhh, ok," or "it's not bad." The simple fact is, this diner really doesn't have great food, but is the only diner used as the setting in Seinfeld. That alone makes this place "The best place ever!!" Per our normal tour route, we walked around Columbia University for a bit, then headed down to Ground Zero and Lower Manhattan. Being the studious Architecture student that he is, Charlie greatly appreciated the excellent selection of Architecture in the Lower end. We saw the typical sights: Ground Zero, St. Paul's Chapel, the Financial District, the New York Stock Exchange building, the Bull, and the Statue of Liberty. These sights and more can be viewed in the pictures.
Our next stop on the tour was something that Christine and I had not done yet: Walk the Brooklyn Bridge. Now you might be thinking, "why haven't you done this yet? Isn't this one of the most obvious touristy things to do in NYC?" Well, once you move up here, sightseeing and stuff like that keeps getting put off until someone comes to visit and really wants to do it. This was not the case, however, as Christine and I just wanted to do it. Totally worth it!!! See pictures below. That should do the trick of es'plainin' it. At the Brooklyn end of the bridge lies DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass), with all its cool shops and places to eat. This was a recommendation by Jeffrey Krieger, a certain Phoenix native. We didn't necessarily spend all that much time in DUMBO, so there's not much else to say. It was pretty cool. Dece, if you will.
Onward to the evening hours of Saturday!! We went to Chelsea Piers next. Normally, in the summer months and warmer temperature, the Piers would have been loaded with awesome huge ships, drawings hundreds if not thousands to see the engineering marvels. Winter months however, are not so much the case. I'm not going to say it was a letdown, per se, but it wasn't what we hoped. The good point of this story is that we were able to walk through Chelsea, which is a pretty awesome little neighborhood to walk around in. I'll say it, I would live there if it wasn't for the expensiveness of it. I said it! We meandered down to SoHo and walked through the heart of the area to our dinner destination: Little Italy. If Italian food and good, reasonably priced wine is your thing, then Little Italy is your place! We walked down the 'main drag' of restaurants, one after another, until we were basically coerced into going into a specific restaurant. It was also because it was significantly cheaper than most of the other places. The food was great, the wine was good, and the atmosphere was electric. I felt like I was in Italy. Ok, I don't know what that feels, but it felt like Italy. Directly south of Little Italy is Chinatown. Arguably the craziest and strangest part of New York City, it's always a great time just to walk around and experience all that China has to offer to New York. Whether it be the hundreds of massage shops, fresh fish and gross food market along the street, or shops specializing in stupid, cheap tourist crap, there's something to be said about Chinatown. And that something is that it's crazy. It's quite the experience, and it's fun. The final stop on this eventful Saturday evening was up in the East Village at a pretty cool little Japanese Bar, which, with all things considered, is cheap and a lot of fun. Located on trendy St. Mark's, this place is always packed, and Christine and I have had a great time each time we've been there. We hung out for a while, then went home and watched Kung Fu Panda. Hilarious.
Sunday was our "chill day." I say that with a grain of salt, because we didn't really chill. We walked around all day. We decided to walk through Central Park for the majority of the day, and we actually got lucky in that it turned out to be a pretty warm day. We did the whole stop-at-a-gyro-stand thing with Charlie, and ate our delicious meal at the busy intersection of 59th and 5th. Really besides that, Sunday was spent just lollygagging around upper Midtown, trying to recover from the previous two days worth of walking around.
It was a good weekend, and we hope we convinced Charlie that NYC is a pretty sweet place *cough even for interning cough*, but as they say in the old country: "all good things come to an end." I'm not going to lie, I was tired and ready for work to start again so I could relax for a few days. But as we all know, I have this ongoing addiction with running, so my "relaxation" including racing and training every day since then. More on that: Ben and I have officially started Team Coors Light (yeah, it's a dumb name, I know) and are en route for a stellar 4-race season up at the Armory Fieldhouse. Race one is already come and gone, and admittedly, leaves something to be desired. But all is well, folks, as I have upped the training and am looking to be back in action this coming Thursday, January 22nd for a blazing 3000m race.
Week of sports Predictions
UC beats Depaul. "Gee, Eric, I really wish there was somewhere I could read actual interesting articles about my beloved Cincinnati Bearcats sports programs, and not have to settle with the boring, mundane game recaps that is the Enquirer." What's this? There's talks of an all-new, all-Bearcats sports blog? A place for all Bearcat faithful to unite and talk about what we really care about? (No offense, Enquirer, but you're a newspaper, and can't take some of the liberties a sports blog can.) Stay tuned for updates on this exciting piece of media.
Race - Ben runs 9:12, I clock in around 9:30. I'm a realist. And that realism is that I have to train a lot harder than some people to race as well. Ben seems to be a natural racer, so I'm not going to be surprised if he beats me. I feel 9:30 is a respectable time at this stage of my career.
The superbowl will host the Eagles and the Ravens. Ok, I really think it'll be the Eagles and the Steelers, but to pick the Steelers would go against my religion.
