New York - Or, the Best Milkshake I Ever Had

I live for my days off at this point. They are far and few between, and generally never when I actually need them to be - I rarely get to see my friends and often just sit and watch the photos and statuses pile up on Facebook of all the things I wish I was doing. But this past week, I had enough. I got fed up from work and stormed into the back room for a moment, just long enough to send out a single text message.

"Let's go on a date this Friday."

It was a little more ballsy than I normally get, but a few minutes later my phone buzzed again.

"When and where and how?"

And so that Friday, Dan and I met in the middle. We spent the day in NYC.

It was legitimately gorgeous that day. After a full of week of blistering heat/crashing storms, it was hot without being sweltering, and only sprinkled once while we left the Met. I don't think I could have asked for better weather, honestly.

Our day started out pretty routine as we ended up hitting all the usual stops - through Bryant Park to Kinokuniya, up 5th Avenue where I spent way too much money at Uniqlo, and then finally hooking around to end up walking through Rockefeller Center, en route to Nintendoworld.

Nintendoworld was adorable this time around because they're in the middle of this four week celebration of Animal Crossing - which you all know I've been actually obsessed with since it came out - and upstairs held a giant diorama of the New Leaf village. They didn't have any merchandise though which made me so sad! I was hoping for at least an Isabelle or KK Slider plushy (though secretly holding out for a Dr Shrunk one) but I would have just as happy with a little cell phone charm or a special stylus. Nada! What's up with that?

I had half a mind to just break the glass open, steal little mini KK and drill a keychain into his head.

They're actually having a bunch of Animal Crossing events this whole month. I missed the bug catching one last weekend and there's a fishing one and another one I don't remember...? But the one I really want to go to is the custom design event at the end of the month. Maybe I'll make a return trip! (Why not, it's not like I do anything else but post blog stuff these days.)

After a couple more stops I yanked Dan into an actual chocolatier. I'd never really bought anything major from one before, aside from a few truffles in a place in Woodstock during my internship, but what really pulled me in there was the signs advertising spring themed macarons! Now, everyone knows how gullible I am for season themed anything. So when I first set eyes on the rose flavored macarons, all reason went out the window. And by the time I had gotten to the cashier, what started out as "oh, I'll try a rose one with Dan and be done with it" actually turned into "I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF MONEY AND I'M JUST GOING TO THROW THIS WAD OF BILLS AT YOUR HEAD, CHOCOLATE LADY."

 Rose, Mint Chocolate, Lavender, Coffee

I'd never had Macarons before and these were well worth my first experience with them. So delicious!

“It's a good thing you and your pills weren't around a few hundred years ago or there never would have been a Vermeer or a Caravaggio. You'd have drugged "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and "The Taking of Christ" right the hell out of them.” - Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution

The real impetus behind this trip had been Dan bragging about going to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and me getting jealous and annoyed enough to demand we go to art museums near me. So after a hilarious* Subway mishap where none of the machines seemed to actually be working with credit cards that day, we got off at 86th st and walked the rest of the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Cue more "Oh, this costs money? Whoops!" shenanigans and we ended up wandering slackjawed through halls filled with artifacts so old I could barely wrap my head around it. I almost plotzed staring at a mummy. I don't know why my childlike wonder kicked in at that exact moment, but I'm sure Dan wasn't really a fan of losing me every two seconds as I bounded off into another hallway.

Honestly, I wish we had had a whole day to dedicate to the museum. I underestimated how long the stuff beforehand would take, coupled with getting into the city a little later than expected and with the museum closing at 9, we kind of sped our way around and gave everything a quick once-over. I would've loved to just sit for awhile in rooms like this and talked. This room, coincidentally, is the only memory I have from the last trip I took to this museum when I was a little kid.

It kills me that we literally walked through this room and didn't really have time to stop and sit in it. There was a cafe here! We could have eaten! We could have played the classiest 3DS of all time!
I don't even know what the sculpture below is but it had that little muppet creature with it and I loved it. Also, full suits of armor? Horse armor? People armor? Japanese armor? I think this was the first room Dan lost me in, I kind of took off somewhere around Renaissance tapestries (side note: I was distraught that they had the unicorn tapestries out in the Cloisters. we had no time to go there to find them.)

And Suddenly the Sun was Gone

We had been thinking about getting Korean for dinner, but when we found out that the 45% off coupon I had for this sick-sounding Korean BBQ place was only good until 5:54PM, we had to come up with emergency other plans. So Dan made the executive decision and we took the subway down to Spring St and Little Italy, intent on Lady and the Tramping it up for a while. It was so weird walking down there! I'd never been there, much less on a Friday night, and to have little Italian men literally coming up to us in the streets dressed like pizzeria decorative statues and trying to convince us to eat at their restaurants was sort of new. And stressful. I just wanted to make everyone happy!

 But it was beautiful and fun and I really just wanted to stay there forever...already I started to feel the "this is almost over and soon he's going away again" feelings and it was almost enough to make me sad on the spot, despite the bright lights and the music - I saw a real accordian player performing to a table of a very excited middle-aged man! - and tried very hard to keep it together.

We ended up eating here, at this small, sorta dirty restaurant that we found because it had two things: cheap pizza and homemade sangria. And honestly, the cheap pizza was still tastier than anything I have back home. And the sangria...let's just say I finished off Dan's glass too when he was done with it. Whoops.

The Sangria:

"White or red? Why not both!"

The Dangria:

I like to call this Dan's "I already posed for you twice, now stop taking pictures of me" face.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE.

I wish I could relive the next twenty minutes of my life over and over again because we walked around for fifteen minutes looking for a pastry place that was un-touristy enough for Dan before we decided he's too picky for his own good and dodged into the nearest open door.

And once inside this place I saw their menu, and once I saw their menu, I saw the Bailey's Milkshake. The waitress probably only carded me because I was giggling like an idiot in excitement.

It was, hands down, one of the tastiest things I've ever had. It was like a coffee milkshake, only better, which is literally the worst description I could ever have for something and I apologize but the sheer, raw emotion I am putting behind the word "better" should give you some kind of idea of how "better" is "better."

Better.

I feel like my 20's is going to be "the decade of my life where everything is tastier than the last." And I think I'm pretty much okay with that.

But like all good things, it came to an end. Once I was trying to suck up the glass itself through the straw, we figured it was time to head back home.

Homes, Separate homes.

And we went back to Grand Central and parted in the main lobby, and I cried under those famous painted stars, and it's strange to think that fifteen years ago I stepped out of the tunnels to see them for the first time, newly restored, and was overwhelmed. And I had no idea that the awe and wonder I could have for something like a spiraling, dizzying ceiling of golden constellations would dwarf in comparison to the awe and wonder I could have for another person.

So to you, I only have this to say:

Let's go again.