With a little less (heart) and excitement. So we still haven’t had buttermilk fried chicken, haven’t had Cuban, and haven’t been to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. The buttermilk chicken place consistently had looong queues whenever we walked past, and I found out buttermilk fried chicken on waffles is a special Wednesday night dinner thing. Cuban we didn’t go to because the night we were going to (Sunday night) the Nuyorican Poets Cafe did not as it turns out have the Afro-Cuban Big Band (boo :( ) and we were tired that day and ended up in bed at like 6pm. We tried to go to Cuban last night but it was shut – so fingers crossed we’ll make it there tonight, our last night. And maybe see if we can do something at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (although the thing to do would have definitely been the Friday night Poetry Slam).
What we have done is, check out Williamsburg and go to the flea market there. We’ve (well I’ve) done some thrift store/second-hand/vintage clothing shopping. We went to Top of the Rock, so although we haven’t made it to Central Park (or anywhere midtown and above beyond meatpacking district), I have seen it. We’ve been to the Meatpacking district for a bit of nightlife – albeit not without some issues. We haven’t done any Fleet Week activities but I’ve seen sailors, although they certainly haven’t lived up to my expectations. And we’ve experienced a taste of crazy New York living courtesy of V’s LA friend.
So V’s LA friend is actually someone he went to school with in Newcastle of all places, who has made good, and is now living the high life (think open pass to the Playboy Mansion). Anyway, via Facebook, he realised V was in NY at the same time he was, so plans were made to have dinner together. Dinner turned out to be at an ‘exclusive’ restaurant/bar/club (the food really was good) with his NY socialite friend – a girl from Merrickvale in Sydney who was now working as a personal concierge in New York (specialising in dining, lucky us). Anyway, this was the night we saw how pretentious people (?and life) in NY can get. Although I imagine somehow V and I will not be having the same problems these people do – being so pissed off at not getting into a club without having to queue “I can’t believe this is happening – why is this happening (insert name here)?! This wouldn’t happen to me in LA!”; needing constant assurance that people are impressed and grateful because with your connections you’ve managed to get them a table somewhere you wouldn’t normally be able to get into unless you were ‘someone’; having a girlfriend/boyfriend who needs their food cut up for them – and thank goodness for that. Nevertheless, it made for an entertaining experience, and we got to go to a club (without queueing, hooray for that), and have a bit of a boogie.
