THE BEAR DEN: NYC

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

You Waited! It's NYC Time..

Day one started obviously with our plane flight. Upon arrival to lax, we noticed that our flight had been delayed an hour to 10:50, which was good news. Time for breakfast. Let's Shooby Dooby Down to Ruby's.

Here's where we're wondering if breakfast burritos were created in the U.S. or Mexico. I say U.S., Bry says Mexico- the answer? New Mexico. We're both right, right?

The view from our booth. I could read their lips from where we were at, and one guy was saying "Why would you throw that out? I'm keeping this."

It's fitting because at the end of the Ruby's slogan is "don't be late," which we almost were because Virgin Air decided to change back to the original flight time. Lucky I caught it, or we would have been stuck.

We were both virgins to Virgin America, but after this flight we're both convinced: fly VA if at any way possible. Flying on this thing was like riding inside of your iPods best playlist. Black leather seats incased in tough, white plastic; swanky emergency spiel pamphlets with urban art, not corny 80s, robotic imagery; mood lights that made you feel you were in a nightclub; televisions for everyone, with a touch screen guide and ability to text seat to seat with other passengers (by the way, passenger 8C, who are you?); gosh, who wouldn't love this airline?

Watching PTI feature your team thousands of feet up in the air? Priceless.

After a brief M.I.A suitcase, we hauled our bags over to the JFK Airtrain which shuttled us to a sub station in Queens, where we had to switch trains three times (and haul our heavy bags up flights of stairs) to finally get to see Nichole at her pad in Brooklyn.

Walking up to her place was like walking down The Cosby Show set.

View from the roof.

Angry Woebots x Haagen Dazs

Remember that part in Ferris Bueller's Day Off where Ferris describes Cameron's house?

"The place is like a museum. It's very beautiful and very cold, and you're not allowed to touch anything"

Pretty much exactly like Nichole's place, except we could touch things.

We didn't though.

After settling in, we walked down to the neighborhood Italian Cafe, aptly named Italian Cafe, which was next to a Thai Cafe, aptly name Thai Cafe.

I don't want to slow down the rest of this page, so for the rest of this blog, CLICK HERE.

Oh and PS, it's ultra picture heavy, so make sure you check it out!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

NYC Blog Day 2

During dinner, we shared our 9/11 stories.

I had just come back from NYC a week before the attacks. I was in high school at the time, and had summer reading as an assignment that I decided to do while I spent most of July and August in New York. The World Trade Center had a mall underneath the structures, and I bought the books, Madame Bovary and The Things They Carried, from a D.Dalton there. For some reason I saved the receipt- which is hanging in my room to this day as an eerie reminder of how close things could have been. For weeks I wondered if there were terrorist scouts with me on trains, at that mall, behind me in line. I wondered if the courteous salesperson had died, or maybe didn't have to work that day.

I woke up to that morning of September 11th with my dad telling me the Trade Center was on fire, a plane had hit it. Minutes later, I saw the second. Not long after that, the Towers fell. It's giving me chills just typing about it. I don't think I went to school that day. I'll never, ever forget the way I felt that day, and the link that I have hanging framed in my bedroom.

If you didn't read it, here's Bryan's view of 9/11 that I posted here a couple weeks ago.

Nichole remembers waking up to a call from a friend saying to "not go to work today, the Twin Towers are on fire." She got up, walked to her view of the NYC skyline (she was living in Jersey at the time), and saw the second plane hit. Seeing her choke up telling the story was something you can't describe in blogs, or even in person. You just had to be there.

After dinner, we headed back to the apartment for the best wind-down DVD, ever.