The Lost NY Weekend: Friday

Andrew and I spent a fun weekend last month in NYC to help celebrate Amanda's birthday - unfortunately, I'm missing most of the pictures from Friday morning to Friday afternoon, but Andrew's dad pulled a Christmas miracle and managed to recover most of the pictures from the weekend directly from my camera's memory stick. Here is my attempt to describe what the missing pictures captured, and what the recovered pictures show!

Driving up on Thursday night left us with enough energy to fall asleep immediately, which had us rising bright-eyed and busy-tailed on Friday morning. We walked over twenty blocks to meet Andrew's friend from college (and groomsman) Eric for lunch at his office in mid-town Manhattan. I had a great time observing and taking pictures of Christmas decorations New York style, which means they were literally larger than life! I had a great shot of Eric and Andrew posing by UBS gigantic nutcrackers that I am still mourning, along with a shot of Andrew and I in front of gigantic ornaments. That shot was special because of the woman who took it - she got very excited when she saw my engagement ring and told us to savor this special time together and, hysterically, to soak it all in and walk very slowly down the aisle as she did! Judging by her southern accent, I don't think she was (or acted like) a native New Yorker. :)

After catching up with Eric, Andrew and I played tourist for a bit since we were right around the corner from Rockefeller Center and Radio City Music Hall. Insert more pictures of these touristy sites. We then hopped on the subway out to Brooklyn to meet up with Camie (one of my bridesmaids). We got to a first hand look at the high school where she teaches, including the amazing architecture. Insert missing pictures of her gigantic classroom. We walked across Park Slope to meet up with Camie's husband James back at the apartment (as well as get some play time in with their dog Frederick) and then we headed around the block for some authentic Brooklyn pizza (complete with fresh mozzarella, yum!) before heading back to Manhattan to meet up with Amanda.

Andrew's brother Adam flew in that evening and surprised us at the apartment door with a celebratory bottle of champagne to toast Amanda's 30the birthday (yay, the pics are back!):


Here is a nice shot of all three siblings together - something that only happens a couple times a year!

A shot of Andrew and I enjoying champagne with Amanda, with Adam manning the camera:

Andrew and I were stuffed from our pizza dinner but joined Amanda and Adam at an Argentinian restaurant around the corner as they ordered dinner and we enjoyed drinks. As full as we were, we did take the opportunity to try the bread (fresh baked and great!), the fabulous crispy calamari with an incredible dipping sauce (which Adam added into an impromptu sandwich with some of the meat from the meat plate and the bread):

For the life of me, I can't remember what Andrew and I ordered, but Adam was drinking Argentinian beer and Amanda had her usual wine:


A close up of my delightfully fruity drink:

Amanda hit the hay afterwards to rest up for her big birthday night next door, while Andrew, Adam and I headed to Auction House (a bar around the corner from her place). We fondly have nicknamed this bar "Vampire Bar" due to its dark atmosphere, velvet curtains and paintings on the wall:

Andrew and Adam were having a great time, especially after we received a free round of drinks made with the latest, hip vodka:


I was tired enough to appreciate scoring chairs halfway through the night, although they put us in uncomfortable proximity to a couple that was in a full blown makeout session (and no, wiseguys, that couple was not me and Andrew!)

We had a great time catching up on each other's lives and the hours just sped away:

Finally, we tore ourselves away from the bar knowing that we also needed to get a decent amount of sleep to participate in the birthday festivities the next night.