NYC livin'

This last week has been incredibly hectic but, lots of good things have happened...including Stephanie's visit to NYC for the weekend. She came in on Friday night at around 10pm. We grabbed dinner at Flatbush Farms and had a great catch up sesh! So good to have her in town.  

We woke up early on Saturday morning and headed to Central Park for brunch with the rest of our crew. The subway dropped us about 12 blocks away--we were late! So, we decided to grab a pedi-cab and cruised through the park, red-nosed from the cold wind and laughing. We arrived a few minutes later to find that our pedi-cab was probably going to be the most expensive thing we did all day! Oh well. Lesson learned. Don't take the pedi-cabs. They will screw you. We had a yummy brunch at the Central Park Boathouse, watched a man and his son catch a ginormous fish on the lake (paid actors?), sipped on mimosas and eventually headed out for a row boat ride. The weather was perrrrfect this weekend-cool and bluebird skies! We rowed around for an hour or so, saw a bunch of creatures, at least 3 weddings and a flock of crazy geese coming in for a full-speed landing near our boat. After our boat ride, we cruised through the park, grabbed some coffee and headed to our manicure appointment. The place turned out to be totally relaxed and very affordable. Afterwards, we headed back downtown, hit up a few shops along the way and eventually landed at The Amsterdam Ale House for nachos and beer. They tasted like heaven after an afternoon of walking around. We all headed back to our places for a bit to chill out before our 9:45p dinner at Palma. In the end we only left ourselves with about 20 minutes to nap in Brooklyn and then we were off again to the West Village. Stephanie and I arrived and met Jess who was already at the restaurant. We were immediately greeted by an older gentleman named Chuck who claimed to be Liz Taylor's hairstylist and best friend for 36 years.  He was crazy. He told Stephanie she was stunning but, had a terrible haircut. He told her how to wear her hair for her wedding and then offered to style it for free saying he didn't need money...he had $18M in the bank. Then, he told me to take my glasses off. I did. He ran his hands through my hair and found my bobby pin. He said, "What the hell is THIS??? Take that out." Ha. He told me to flip my hair over. He proceeded to completely mess it up saying,  "NOW it's fabulous." This crazy banter went on for the next 20 minutes while we waited for Jody and Shelly to arrive. Finally, I asked for his business card (below) so we could look him up later. The 5 of us proceeded to have a pretty amazing dinner at this tiny little hole-in-the-wall place. It was cozy and wonderful! After dinner we headed out down to the LES for a drink. We ended up at Beauty & Essex. We entered the bar through a door in the back of a pawn shop. This place was over the top and a total scene! We had one drink and then left because there wasn't one more foot of standing room available. Onto the next and then the next...and then, it was 3am and Stephanie and I headed home. Well, we tried to. Got into a fight with our first cab driver and got out after driving only 1 block. We hailed another cab quickly and finally made it home.

Fast forward to 10:30am this morning. Stephanie and I had a great, slow-paced morning. We visited a few shops, went to the farmer's market for pickles, had brunch at Juventino and then headed home so Stephanie could pack. OHH...there was also an open house across the street from me that we went to. There are 3 very nice units available. They are newly renovated and perfect for Stephanie and Mike (wishful thinking). The top and bottom floors go for $1,075,00.00 and the middle floor goes for $895,000. So, maybe they both get raises before buying. :) I'm so tired and sunburned. I'm going to bed. Hope you all had an amazing weekend.