Two Black Cats: Trip to NY

It's taken me a long time to put together this blog post - partly because hubby came home yesterday and I spent some time unpacking his muddy camping gear. But mostly because I've been wrestling with the way in which to post all the fun stuff we saw over the weekend. At first I thought I could just divide it into 2 posts with one being mainly about food (cause we sure hit quite a few restaurants while we were there) and the other about the attractions and sights rather than your usual this is what we did on day 1, day 2, etc. But some of the attractions go hand-in-hand with the food, so I think I'm going to stick with the latter. So without further ado...

Thursday -
The morning started off smoothly, that is until I was about 30 minutes into my drive down to LaGuardia and I hit bumper to bumper traffic for a solid mile because of an accident. That pretty much ate into the fluff time I had factored into the drive, so you can imagine how perturbed I was when the damn GPS sent me into Manhattan (not Queens) because I opted to avoid the toll roads when I initially set up the route. So the money I would have saved on tolls got eaten up in gas cause it sent me way out of my way. Oh and the Willis Street bridge was closed for repairs. So we had a little white-knuckle driving going on there until Mr. GPS could recalculate and tell me which way I needed to go. I ended up arriving at the airport a good 20 minutes after my cousin's plane had landed (which was really 40 minutes after I had originally planned to be there) and what did we do when we got back to the car? Hopped in and went for a drive.

There were no toll roads where we were headed, so the drive was thankfully uneventful. We were headed south, through Brooklyn and down to Coney Island. It was a bright sunny day with a brisk wind and the timing was perfect for lunch at Nathan's Famous hot dog stand

followed by a walk along the boardwalk.

And I forgot to put on sunscreen that morning, so by the time we left my arms and neck were glowing red. After baking in the sun, we decided it would be a good time to head into Manhattan and check into the hotel - The Marriott Marquis in Times Square. And what a view we had from the 37th floor!

For dinner that evening, we mulled over going to an Irish Pub and finally decided on St. Mark's Ale House in the East Village.

Getting back to the hotel after dinner, I took a few shots of the view.

Friday -
After a buffet breakfast at the hotel, we set off Friday morning for Battery Park. Unfortunately, the line for the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands must have been a mile long, so instead we opted to take a water taxi tour that would take us close to the islands and around the southern tip of Manhattan. This was an awesome adventure and I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to learn some history and gain a few tidbits of trivia about the landmarks around this end of Manhattan. And you really do get a good view of the statue of liberty.

After the water taxi landed back at Battery Park, we took the subway to Brooklyn for a late lunch at Grimaldi's Pizzeria for some pizza from their coal-fired oven. I have to say, this was undoubtedly the best pizza I have ever had.

Thin crust, real mozzarella, a handful of fresh basil... The place was crowded and noisy, but the food made up for it in every way. If you're ever in Brooklyn, you HAVE to go to this place. There may be a bit of a wait, but it's well worth it.

And what could possibly top off a fabulous pizza than something equally fabulous? Just down the road is another must-stop, the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. And may I recommend the butter pecan.

By this point we were stuffed, but needed to get back to Manhattan, so we braved the crowds and crazy bikers and trekked back across the Brooklyn Bridge. What better way to burn off all those calories!

At about 8pm that evening, we headed out to dinner at the elegant Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse in Midtown at the bottom floor of the McGraw-Hill building (sj, have you ever been there? lol.) It was quite the swanky joint so the first thing I did was order a cosmo. And so did my cousin. My very male, beer-drinking cousin. I was shocked, but I think he was more shocked when he realized, upon seeing the bartender pour it into a glass, that the drink was pink. I was banned from taking pictures of him holding his pink martini glass upon pain of death. Otherwise I'd insert it here....

After dinner we made our way to a rather nice bar and lounge called Faces and Names on 54th Street. A few more cosmos followed (for me anyway) and we stopped in Times Square for a few pictures before calling it a night.