Lunch in Greenwich

Greenwich Village is beautiful.

We'd spotted a lovely little restaurant as we drove through Greenwich Village on our open top bus tour the day before, and so we returned after our Boat Tour. all this city sightseeing is hard work you know! You have to keep your strength up.

It was a lovely little local place, with delicious food next, door to a beautiful florist, whose flowers encroached on the restaurant so that it had a gorgeous outdoor seating area, as well as really beautiful gardens. I so wish I could live in NY and know everywhere. Each place I went past I wanted to visit, especially in Greenwich Village, where all the cafes are adorable and little and look like exciting things could happen in them and may well be the favourite place for the Love of My Life to go for coffee.

Added Bonus: The restaurant did gluten free pizza!! I was tres excited, especially as mine tasted exactly the same as my dads gluten containing pizza. New York is great like that.

 

 

After a very lovely, relaxed lunch, we wondered through Greenwich Village. I love that area. I want to live there, or in Chelsea when I live in New York. Yes, well, a girl can dream.

 

 

We also spent quite some time at the impromptu Mulry Square memorial to 9/11, which started spontaneously from children's art dedicated to the memory of the victims. It has since grown and gained a protected status, becoming known as Tiles For America. It sits on the corner of 7th Avenue and West 11th Street and is really beautiful. It's very understated and very touching.

 





Saturday Morning Vintage Shopping In NY

So Rain left. I went for a swim and had a shower and then hailed a taxi - my second in one day!!! I was so excited - and then crippled the driver with my embarrassingly big suitcase. I did warn him that it was heavy but he said that he was 'pretty strong' and then picked it up and said 'Jeeesus that is heavy'. And I was like, well yeah. I was there for over two weeks!!
It was mortifying having to get someone to help me get it off the luggage carousel when I arrived though.
Anyway, I went to the hotel that me and my family, who were flying out that day, had booked and dumped my bag with the very lovely concierge (who my dad later became, like, best friends with) and got a bit excited about how luxurious it looked in comparison to the YMCA. It was quite luxurious but, looking back, probably not quite as luxurious as my poor hostel-bathroom-sharing accustomed brain thought at the time.

Then I went vintage shopping.

Ohh I felt like such a local!!
(NB: getting really emotional remembering it all. I want to be there now!! I bet it's beautiful this time of year, with all the trees in Central Park just on the cusp of autumn...)
I went to the Chelsea vintage market 'The Garage' which is taken over by all things vintage on the week end so that the cars that fill it during the week have to retreat. I spent ages wondering about and chatting to the owners. They were all lovely, especially the eccentric, jewelled cat eye glasses sporting seller of several beautiful 1920s dresses (all sadly very much out of my price range) who encouraged me try on a fantastic beaded number from the 80s even though she knew I totally couldn't afford it. I swirled about it and we discussed the difference between British and American vintage and how much I love the flapper style and my love of all things 20s and she 'simply adooored' my accent. It was all very jolly.

I got really into the idea of long silk slips worn as summer dresses which would have looked lovely and whimsical on balmy Portugal evenings. Amazingly, I managed to restrain myself. I didn't even buy this gorgeous red mohair jumper!! It was very sad but I thought that really, given the taxi drivers reaction to my bag, I couldn't possibly get any more into it, especially given my v heavy Harper's book and new romper. It was an amazing act of restraint for me, given my past vintage shopping history, and my mum couldn't quite believe it.

After a good hour of vintage immersed happiness I went for coffee at a lovely place opposite Billy's Bakery, where all the locals were eating pancakes. I sat outside and got coffee and watched the world go by.

 

My coffee came with a heart and I realised how deeply I'd fallen in love with New York.

 

 

It was weird, as I sat there contemplating my time in New York, I realised that my independent time as a near local was coming to an end. I'd promised to show my family my favourite bits of the city, but I knew that I would become a tourist. The night before me and Rain had tried to think of best and worst bits (which I always do when I go on holiday) and I think it says something that we couldn't decide what our favourite bit was (too many) and simply couldn't think of a worst bit. Going through security at JFK?? Even that was no where near as bad as I thought it would be.

 

I was sooooo looking forward to seeing may parents and my sister and telling them everything and, I know it sounds cringey, but I was really proud of myself. I smugly sipped my coffee and then headed back to the hotel, savouring my last few hours as an independent New Yorker. But don't worry; I'll return as an independent New Yorker. Have no doubt about that.

Take Me Back To New York

We’re really going back in time now, all the way back to my last day. (I know, still. I’ve dragged it out to three posts. It was that emotional).

I went and sat in Central Park with my fave frappe. The day before I’d been asked if I was having my ‘usual’.  It was beyond exciting. I am such a New Yorker. Even the guys trying to flog bike hire have stopped thrusting leaflets at me because I look like such a local. Hashtag proud.

I sat at the base of a tree and leant against its trunk and drank in the park and its people. I tried to take a mental photo and burn the picture into my mind. I looked back on the past two weeks and everything that we’d done and all that I’d completed. I just couldn’t believe it was done.

Then I opened my present. I did it really reallyyy slowly so that I didn’t rip any of the wrapping paper. And guess what Lisa gave me?? Guess, guess!! 

I finally unfurled the paper to reveal the hard back glossy cover of ‘Harper’s Bazaar: Greatest Hits’ with its stunning image of a sheer rose coloured ball gown caught in momentous movement. It’s a beautiful book. I just need a glass coffee table on which to place it now. And a lifestyle that incorporates a glass coffee table.

So I sat in the early evening sun – the hurricane threat had not yet been realised  - and poured over the images. I’ve had so many perfect New York moments it’s actually getting ridiculous.

I headed home in time to meet my partner in NY crime as she got back from work and we went a bit mental congratulating ourselves that we’d completed the whole internship shebang/being really very sad that it was over/generally being overly emotional. We’re both v in touch with our emotions so it was a bit of an emotional mess really. Lots of shrieking.

 Then, once that was done, we had to decide what to do that evening. The storm that had been promised suddenly rolled in across the Manhattan skyline (no hurricane. Phew) so that it got very  dark very quickly and limited our evening options to indoor activities. We pondered and we dithered. Obviously.

And then I remembered that my sister’s boyfriend Billy, who had jealously examined the New York map before  I left and compiled a list of must do activities, had told me that I had to, to make up for leaving him at home whilst we  all jetted off to New York, go to Billy’s Bakery and think of him. So we looked it up and that’s what we did.

The original Billy’s Bakery is in Chelsea (there are now two others in Tribeca and Nolita) so we subwayed off to 24^th and 9^th. Chelsea is a lovely district – really beautiful town houses split into apartments with elegant steps and wrought iron windows and neat little front gardens – with lots of quirky little shops. We found Billy’s Bakery very easily now that we’re so great at navigating the street/avenue/grid system (say nada about a six year old being able to do it. I know it’s easy; still proud) and, although it was tiny, we managed to get seats by squeezing into the quaint corner seats next to a very muscular gay couple. Again with the whole dither dither that follows us wherever we go. There were so many cakes and they all looked A-MAAAAZE-ING. Banana cupcake with cream cheese icing. Chocolate cupcake. Carrot cupcake. Red velvet cupcake. Classic cupcake. Red berry cobbler pie (what we would call crumble) which was on a platter to be sampled and was out of this world. Ice box cake (looked like stacks and stacks of oreos). Banan cream pie. Mini cheesecake. Peanut butter pie (obviously. Looked FAB).  Key Lime Pie. Huge three layer cakes. The choice was immense and entirely overwhelmed us and it took hours. We eventually settled for sharing a red velvet cupcake with a latte.

Omg totally judge books by their covers in this place. It looked delicious and it tasted freaking amazing.

We sat at the cute communal table and watched the storm thunder on outside. We felt so cosy as we nursed our coffees and prolonged the eating of our cupcake. We managed to drag it out for all of about ten minutes. TRUST it’s so hard to resist for any length of time.

Bily’s Bakery stayed open till 11 o’clock in true NYC style. I love that; I love that what is effectively a small neighbourhood café which happens to sell fantastic cakes stays open until nearly midnight. We were so happy and comfortable there, discussing our must have wardrobe additions, that we stayed until it closed. They had to kick us, and the very nice guys who had sat next to us, out. The very nice guys who had sat next to us were a couple of years older than us and lived in the area (we were jel) and one had studied for a year at York (so had lived, he informed us, in both Old York and New York, which I appreciated) and were enjoying a huge collection of Billy’s Bakerys’ goodies. One had the Peanut Butter Pie and promised me that it was heaven for one’s tastebuds. I vowed to return and experience it.

We eventually, reluctantly, left. It had stopped raining and our journey back was jolly, full of plans to try and recreate the wonders of Billy’s Bakery. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Random moment: as we were about to enter the Subway station, chatting away about God knows what (probably still how to make red velvet cupcake and how delicious ours was) a man stopped us to ask where we were from. On hearing London he shook us both warmly by the hand and congratulated us on our ‘damn fine accents’ and then loped off, readjusting his baggy jeans as he did so.

Only in New York, baby.