ZB in NYC pt. 1

First off, my apologies for not posting for a whole WEEK! It turns out that my job and my intern project and everything else is keeping me really really BUSY. Let's just accept the fact that I'm going to average 1-2 posts a week (and I don't want to hear any complaints from my loyal fans! haha). Be prepared for longer posts if I have to recap a whole week! You can split up the paragraphs over the days I don't write if you need a fix.

So anyways, this past weekend, Zach came to visit me = ) He drove to New Jersey on Thursday and took a train into the city, I walked and met up with him after work. Of course when I finally saw him, he was across the road and there were a million cars whizzing past in between us. I had no choice but to dart across, weaving in and out of the cars (Frogger, Maria style). Horns were honking at me, I got hit by a taxi, rolled up onto the windshield, and Zach caught me on the other side. (Actually... we waited impatiently for the red light and finally got to each other.)

From there, we walked to Times Square to take the subway back to my place. We waited for a little bit and a 3 train finally came! The train pulled away from the platform and no sooner did I say, "It takes about 20 minutes to get home from here," when the train slowed, eventually came to a stop, and a booming voice from the speakers said that there was a situation and the staff had to go check it out. You've got to be kidding me. Weekend goal: Make Zach love NYC. So far: not looking so good!

We waited for what seemed like an hour (but what was actually probably 15-20 minutes) before the train started to move again, and we finally arrived safely at the EHS Clark Street Residence (my summer home). I had cooked pasta for us the night before, so we heated that up, ate dinner and wandered around the neighborhood for a little while.

Friday (since I skipped work, with permission), we ate some delicious bagels and decided to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It's only 2 subway stops away from my place, and as soon as we got to Battery Park, we bought our tickets for the Ferry. As you'll see in the picture below this paragraph, we got our picture taken with some guy dressed up as the Statue of Liberty. He practically begged us to come get our picture taken, (no signs, no mention of price), and afterwards, he tried to make us give him $5! Hellllll no. We bickered back and forth with him for a minute before just walking away. Go ahead and chase us in your green spray painted robe... jerk.

Creep.

Soon after, we realized that the line extended the whole way from the ferry, practically around the block, back to where we bought our tickets. With only 3 days to spend together, we decided we didn't want to waste 4 hours waiting in line, especially with the sun that day and Zach's condition (aka, red hair!). We sold our tickets to 2 random people and made our way to the FREE Staten Island Ferry, which provided us with decent views of the Statue and also a nice boat ride! Once we made it to Staten Island, we grabbed an exquisite meal of pretzel dogs and awaited the next ferry back to Manhattan.

On the Staten Island Ferry

...pretty self explanatory

Other events of the day included: going to see Toy Story 3 at a movie theater near Penn Station, taking Zach to Ogilvy to see where I work, and eating dinner at a cute little place near there. We also walked down to the Brooklyn Promenade again (soooo pretty at night).

Saturday we went to Coney Island, but in my opinion, mostly due to the Mermaid Parade, I think that day warrants its own post. Stay tuned for Mermaid Parade = Indescribable Freak Show.


Positives: ZACH CAME TO VISIT, Staten Island Ferry is FREE, Toy Story 3, Brooklyn Promenade, EVERYTHING
Negatives: broken first subway ride, creepy statue man, 4 hour line