Start spreading the news. Jocelyn surprised me for my birthday and booked a trip to New York for the weekend. I have to admit I wasn’t too excited when she first told me, which was really stupid of me, but there were a lot of things I was already planning on doing during the up coming weekend. We were going to go to the State Fair, my family reunion and another party Evraets was having. But once I started thinking about it I got really exited and felt bad for my initial reaction. So I spent my 29th weekend in NY. If I were a NY street I would be about the Chelsea. If I could only be a village steet again.

We left on Thursday after work and as our luck would have we woke up Thursday morning to terrorists being arrested in London who were planning to blow up planes with “liquids and gels”. If I never hear that phrase again in my life I’ll be happy. We were going to carry everything on but we had to check our bags with our toiletries for safety concerns. Security wasn’t bad in Milwaukee but the security in NY and some storms had all flights running late. We had a couple push delay announcements but finally after a flight transfer to a different airport, and 40 minutes sitting on the runway, we made it three hours late. We took a cab to the Upper East Side to meet Leigh Anne at George Keeley’s. Her boyfriend is a bartender there and we were staying with them for the weekend. We spent the night there drinking beers and hanging out until four. We got a ride to Brooklyn from James. The women went to bed and James and I ended up staying up until almost six talking and drinking martinis. Once I saw the sun come up I told James I had to get to sleep.

Friday we woke up about ten and headed to Jersey City to say hello to my old boss. We stopped into HCI and talked to Israel for about an hour. It was good to see him again and reminisce about some of my time in JC. We left HCI and headed down to Oddfellow’s to get some jambalaya. We got to the doors of OFs only to discover it had been shut down. What a HUGE disappointment because I was looking forward to reliving one of the many many meals we had eaten there. Instead we ended up eating at the Mexican place next door. We had some good burritos and headed to the village. We started by stopping at Chumley’s which was an old speakeasy. There was no one there but the cleaning crew and they were very nice and let us stop for a beer even though they weren’t open. We sat there and absorbed the history of the joint while watching the cleaners’ little girl run around the place. After Chumley’s we went to the White Horse for a beer. More history. After the White Horse we were going to go to the Greenwich Brewing Co. but that too was closed. Two places full of memories claimed by the city. This doesn’t take into account the closing of our beloved Blind Tiger. Since GBC was closed we continued on to our friend Chris’s bar Professor Thom’s. He met us there for a beer. After that we took the subway back to Brooklyn and got ready for dinner. We were planning on taking a nap but the train ride took longer than expected. We got ready and headed back into the city. We ate at the always amazing Blue Water Grill in Union Square. J had made reservations for the jazz room. We had a meal of seafood galore. I had a shellfish sampler and a shrimp and scallop entree. Everything was great and we were surprisingly stuffed after dinner. We headed over to Union Square and grabbed a park bench to soak in the city and do some people watching while we waited for Chris. Chris showed up and we walked to the Stoned Crow. There were a couple old Tiger guys there. We sat and had some beers but I was running on fumes at this point. Once we finished a couple at the Crow we drove to Chris’s new apartment in the heart of Little Italy. We were going to have some beers but instead we got a slice and took a cab back to Brooklyn too get some sleep.

We started pretty late on Saturday morning but we needed the sleep. We took the train to Central Park to meet J’s sister. We got to the park and it was a perfect day. We started in Columbus Circle and made our way to the fountain via Strawberry Fields. We waited for J’s sister at the stage by all the roller skaters. We waited some time but I didn’t want to wait any longer so I took off and trekked through the city and snapped some pictures of all the landmarks in the Time Square vicinity. After seeing everything again I headed to Scruffy Duffy’s to get some of their amazingly delicious chicken wings. I met J, her sister and her friend there we had a couple pints and some wings. After we finished eating we went to the financial district. We checked out Battery Park and South Street Seaport. After that we went to Marissa’s friend’s apartment. It was right in the heart of the financial district and had an amazing rooftop area. There were nice tables and chairs and amazing views. We hung out there until about nine and then left to get showered up in Brooklyn. We got ready and took the train to the village to get a couple slices at Rivoli’s and then we met Marissa and her friend at Positively 4th in the village. It was one of the places we used to frequent but this night it was packed with birthday parties. From there we went to a place called the Duplex and then ended up next door at the Packer bar Kettle of Fish. We spent the rest of the night there and then cabbed it back to Brooklyn and called it a night.

Sunday we met Marissa and her friend in Little Italy to get some pizza at America’s first pizza parlor, Lombardi’s. We’d been to Lombardi’s a bunch of times and there pizza is great. We devoured a couple pies and walked around Little Italy. After a bit of walking we went back to Brooklyn and Leigh Anne drove us LaGuardia. The flight back home was smooth and uneventful. What a great time and a great surprise! A mega thanks to J for planning an unexpected kick ass trip to NY, thanks!