New York New York: Day Two

Friday morning started with a delicious hot chocolate from the coffee shop around the corner from Matt's apartment. It was such a cute little place, I could definitely go for the convenience of waking up on winter mornings and enjoying a warm hot chocolate from a place like that around the corner.

We then took the subway into the city and got off at Union Square. Let me say that we enjoyed New York at Times Square on Thursday but when we got to Union Square we began to understand why people love New York so much and how enjoyable it could be to live there. There is a great park at Union Square and they were having a farmer's market that morning. This is also where the Flatiron building is, it was neat to see it in person after seeing it in so many pictures and on television. 

We had lunch at Beechers, which serves grilled cheese. It was amazing. And best part they make cheese right there in the building. I may or may not have said "this is like porn for me". I seriously could have watched them make cheese all morning. One of the things we noticed about New York was that people love to eat in New York. We quickly got into this trend as well so after lunch we went to Eataly and had gelato. Eataly is this great food market that sells all sorts of Italian goodies. Rodger and I read that they are hoping to open a location in Los Angeles. If they do you better believe I will be all over the banana chocolate chip sorbet. Oh how I am still dreaming of it.

Next we had reservations at the World Trade Center memorial. The thing that surprised me the most about the area was how tight it was. I can't even imagine how terrifying it would have been to be there on 9/11 and trying to run it such a confined area. Seeing the memorial was overwhelming, beautiful and touching, but overwhelming. The concept is very nice and I imagine it must be meaningful for the family members of the victims to have their family member's names written in stone. There were flags and roses in some of the names. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves and there is not a lot that I could add to it.  But I am really glad we got to see it. There is also a museum that they are opening there next year that we would like to go back and see.

Matt next took us over to a park where we could see the Statue of Liberty. It was a beautiful area and had amazing views. We could see the statue and New Jersey. From there we also walked to wall street and saw the bull. 

Next we wondered over to the West Village and the Highline Park. This is a great neighborhood and again I could see why people would love to live there. There were cute shops, restaurants, and playgrounds. We stopped to have a "snack" of pizza but it was so filling it pretty much ended up being dinner as well.

After pizza we met up with Matt's boyfriend David and a couple of his friends for happy hour at a bar. It was a great time, probably a few too many drinks for me but we had so much fun. Matt has great friends and I enjoyed seeing how much he enjoys his life in New York and how comfortable he seems there. We later went to a jazz bar and then back to Brooklyn.