Good Morning, Manhattan

After just four days in New York, I'm afraid that in Portland I'll feel as though the world around me shrank. There's something almost comforting about having such tall buildings always standing beside me. I'm a sucker for cities though.

FRIDAYAfter Kalie retrieved me from Grand Central Station and we dropped my bags off at her apartment, we walked around the corner to eat New York pizza in New York. We took the subway to Midtown where we wandered the wide streets, bought desert, and sat at Times Square letting the lights blind us. We went into Bubba Gumps because it makes Kalie happy before making our way to Central Park. We followed the beats of loud techno music till we found the skating rink throwing down a friday night free skate. The music was terrible and we walked home shortly after finding the rink.

SATURDAY
I battled with the dead lock for two hours since Kalie had left for work hours before I even woke up. Once I made my way past the front door, navigation in New York wasn't too terrible. I met Brianne around Union Square, bought myself a blueberry muffin at the market, and just happened to run into On The Rocks. Because apparently in New York, there really are so many people on such a small island that you can run into your own friends. (WHAT? CRAZY!)
Moving on, Brianne and I went to the Brooklyn Flea Market, a well-over-priced establishment of New York 12 weeks of the year. We looked for Betty Bakery to see Olivia's sister which was an epic fail that resulted in a subway ride to SoHo where we walked along Bleecker Street until eventually splitting ways. Kalie met me after work and wandered more, leisurely making our way to the subway. By leisurely, I do mean it literally. We washed our hands in an upscale salon and stopped in boutiques before catching the 6 to Uptown. We ate PinkBerry and went home for a Saturday night with Serendipity.

SUNDAY
Kalie has Sunday and Monday off so we slept in and ate breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien. Have you heard of it? It's this cafe with a rural European feel and organic, delicious food. After breakfast, we stopped at the street vendors on our way to Central Park before finally entering. We found Alice in Wonderland and Strawberry Fields, because I couldn't leave without seeing them.
Then we proceeded to the bottom of Manhattan to ride the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, because I am a tourist. We took pictures and looked up our ancestors like good tourists and then made our way uptown, stopping in Little Italy for dinner.

MONDAY
With a bulk of the tourists stops over, we had Monday to act like New Yorkers. We slept in and both vetoed showering due to our new mouse friend that caught itself in the tub. We got lunch at Alice's Tea Cup, the cutest restaurant with the theme of an Unbirthday tea party in Wonderland right among the static life of the Upper East Side. Two pots of hot tea, six glasses of water, two sandwiches, and too many fries later we walked to Dean and Deluca for good coffee. In the spirit of the day we went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. After, in the spirit of tradition, we ate spaghettios, ran errands, and passed out watching Lost.

Which all brings me to TUESDAY
It's late enough in the day that I guess I will shower and start on my walk to the West side through Central Park. I have every intention to take the subway down to the Village to drink coffee near the NYU campus and get a glimpse of college life in this city. Sorry if my synopsis of this adventure was a big of a bore.