SNOW!!!
When I went to bed last night, the weather said that it was going to snow, then sleet, then rain on Friday. Being that I have seen snow about 3 times in my life, I wasn't sure what to expect.
I awoke to this:
Yeah, like 6-8" of white fluffy powder snow. This is a completely different experience for someone who otherwise has no experience in dealing with this sort of thing. Needless to say, walking down the 15 steps to the sidewalk and making my way 2 blocks to the subway station was a very interesting experience to say the least.
Breakfast: Bagel Buffet, 406 Avenue of the Americas
Talk about amazing! I had a bacon, egg and cheese on a plain bagel, toasted, with mayo and a large coffee. The flavor of this sandwhich was unreal! The bagel was toasted perfectly and the coffee was pure caffeinated bliss. What makes this great is that I couldn't find the place I was looking for which was Murray's Bagel's (which I later found 1.5 blocks down the street.
This was a perfect start to a long morning trudging through the snow and ice. I walked down 6th Avenue to 11th Street and down to Magnolia Bakery (yes the one from Sex in the City) for some cupcakes and hot chocolate, which were delicious as usual. After stopping at the park across the street for a pit stop and to drink down the hot cocoa, I was trekking back to the West 4th station so I could hop on an A or C and ride up to the Time Warner Center. I took the long way and swung around by Washington Square Park but forgot it was under construction. At any rate, it still looked awesome covered in snow. Too bad I forgot I had an expensive camera with me to which I could have captured that look forever. Meh.
At any rate, along the way I stopped and took these pictures on 11th Street, and as you can see in the second photo, it was really coming down:
I jumped off the A train up at Columbus Circle / 59th Street and walked out front of the Time Warner Center, but the area was a mess and crowded with people, so I skipped the picture for now.
At any rate here is google's rendition of Columbus Circle:
Yay google. At this point I crossed over to Central Park, but only after placing my foot under 6" of ice cold water that looked like a pile of slush. !@#$!@#$.
So anyway, I stopped at the Ferrara stand and obtained another hot cocoa, #3 of the day. I walked into the beauty that is Central Park:
The picture on the right is going to be my entry into next years employee photo contest
At this point it was about 1pm, and I was cold and soaked. I decided to take the 6 train down to Grand Central Terminal and grab some lunch and attempt to get dry for a while.
For lunch I stopped at the "Chirping Chicken" in the Dining Concourse at Grand Central Terminal and had a chicken pita, some fries, and Snapple's Arnold Palmer (half tea / half lemonade). The food was good and I spent the next hour slowly eating, drying off, catching up with email and chatting with a bum who decided to occupy the chair next to me. Polite fellow, didn't ask for a dime but wanted to know which Presidential Candidate was I going to vote for and where I was from.
Often times Grand Central Terminal, is mistakenly called Grand Central Station. Grand Central Station is actually the post office around the corner from the Terminal. Grand Central Terminal is also the largest train terminal in the world, featuring 44 platforms and 67 sets of tracks coming in and out. You can click on the red Grand Central Terminal links above for some great history on this beautiful building.
Ok, the history lesson is over. I took the 6 train back to 77th, walked up to 5th Avenue and up to the MET (Metropolitan Museum of Art) to meet up with the favorite niece so that I could get the keys to their apartment so I could go dry off.
At this point however, I determined I needed boots. I took the 6 to 59th then took an R train to 34th Street and went to Macy's. I picked up some boots and headed back to Jessica's.
Dinner:
Well, NYC stays open pretty late thankfully, Ana made it down to Brooklyn and we all relaxed for a few hours before deciding to head back up to the city for food. By a few hours meaning we left Brooklyn at 9:45, then found out that the D train was running local (stopping at every terminal it passed). I think we arrived at the W4 Street terminal at 10:45. We could not decide on a place to hit so we decided on "somewhere around NYU / West Village". We ended up at:
Agave (140 7th Avenue South)
This was a great dining experience except for the fact that they really do like to heat places well in the winter time in New York. I started with the Firecracker Shrimp and a Pomegranate Mojito, Ana and Jessica split the Guacamole dip. For dinner Jessica and I both had the Adobo Chicken and Chili quesadillas while Ana had a salad. I can honestly say that was an amazing quesadilla the flavor of the chili's and the chicken were amazing. We skipped desert and headed back to Brooklyn at this point. I think we finally made it back around 1:30.
Click here to go onto Saturday!